Passing Through Hurricane Michael's Destruction

Day 197 |  Santa Rosa Beach to White City  |  9.7 Hours  |  79 Miles  

Our taste of warm temperatures was short lived. More rain fell overnight from the front that just won't move off of us. The morning broke with heavy cloud cover that filtered the sunlight into a warm yellow glow. Our flag shone majestically in this low light. A rainbow guided us out of Hogtown Bayou and on our way east. The low-level gray clouds gave way to upper level white clouds and blue sky. Eventually the rain cells caught up with us from behind and a hard shower fell. As we neared Panama City, we began to see more debris in the water. Seagulls had staked claim to a section of dock.

The remains of a sailboat were lodged against a bridge. Daymarkers guided us into an area known as the Grand Canyon. It looked very much like they were guiding us into a forest. The water narrowed and snaked us through a very remote section of the Florida Panhandle. It began raining hard once again, but I braved the wetness to step outside and watch the dolphins playing in our wake.

Nothing about the Grand Canyon seemed that grand until I looked behind us to see the full rainbow arching over Miss Utah. We came up on a group of six slow-moving tugs, barges, and dredges as we exited into West Lake. We soon realized that we had only begun to see the wrath of Hurricane Michael that struck this area on October 10 with 155 mph winds. Panama City's storm surge was the second-highest on record and, eight-weeks later, clean-up and recovery still has a very long way to go. Boats of all sizes could be seen in odd positions and locations.

We were passed by a salvage barge loaded with six sailboats. For miles it seemed every house had a blue roof, but they were all covered with tarps. For days we had heard the Coast Guard's Notice to Mariners of a salvage operation taking place in Saint Andrew's Bay. We were shocked when we came upon the scene, and then even more so when we read the story behind the loss of this brand new 261-foot fishing trawler. Click this link to see the overhead video and a short article on the fate of the North Star.

We passed just inland (on the GICW) of where Michael made landfall on the coast at Mexico Beach and wiped out the entire town.

Trees were snapped in half. Luckily a few more dolphin came along to take our mind off what we were witnessing. Today was a very long day. We traveled 79 nautical miles, which is the equivalent of 90 statute (road) miles. We neared the free dock at White City as the sun was beginning to set. The refection of the sun and trees in our wake made for a nice view from our stern. There were three options for tying up at this area and we quickly dismissed the first two because of a wild current that made for a difficult approach and a high cantilevered dock which we felt Crossroads would get pinned under at low tide. That left one small floating dock. We came in first and then Miss Utah rafted up to us as they found similar issues with Options A and B.

The good news is that today's long miles make for a bit shorter day tomorrow. We will head to Carrabelle, stay at the marina for two nights, get off the boat and walk around a lot, then prepare for our Gulf crossing to Tarpon Springs. Our weather window is still looking good. Fingers crossed that it holds a few more days.