Ft Walton Beach, FL to Pearl Bayou

October 24, 2015

We left Ft Walton Beach around 6:45 a.m. because our plan was to go 72 miles to Pearl Bayou anchorage.  We like to arrive at an anchorage by 4 p.m. so that we have plenty of time to go to shore before dark.  We traveled at 8-8.5 mph to give ourselves some leeway just in case we needed to slow down for no wake zones or other boats.  It is a good idea to find other boats to do the Gulf Crossing with, so we discussed our plans for the next several days with Bob and Ray.  Second Noelle was going to Pearl Bayou just like us, and The Bar B was going to St Andrews Marina, which is about 6 miles before.

We had heard that Choctawatchee Bay can be rough if there is a strong wind out of the east or west because the bay is about 30 miles across running east/west.  Fortunately for us, although the wind was out of the east, it was only 8-12 mph so there was only a light chop as we went across.  Once we were through the bay, we were again in a narrow canal for about 15 miles.

Canal between Choctawatchee Bay and West Bay

The sand banks are eroded into cool formations

I'm sure when the canal was cut in the 1950's, the banks were smooth and uniform

The canal connects Choctawatchee Bay with West Bay.  Although the water appears to widen out, the area outside of the markers is very shallow because you are actually in West Bay Creek for a short distance.

Marsh areas appear as the canal widens before coming into the bay

Narrow channel marked by closely spaced buoys and daymarkers

The (light blue) water outside the canal is only 1-2 ft deep

Eventually though, you come to the bay proper and there is plenty of deep water all around.  There is always some sort of industry along the shore when you have deeper water, and we find it interesting to speculate what exactly is being produced.

Tows ready to push cargo when needed

Stacks of logs for the crane to pick up...

...and load into this conveyor system

Probably some sort of milling operation or sawdust/mulch factory

West Bay leads to St Andrew Bay, which leads to East Bay if you stay in the part of it which extends mostly east rather than south.  If you are interested in looking at charts, here is a link to the NOAA charts that are similar to the paper charts we are using (just more up to date). NOAA GIWW charts.

Lots of pelicans on the bays...this one didn't seems fazed at all by Lorelei IV

Pearl Bayou is located by Tyndall Air Force Base (AFB), right before the Dupont Bridge, which is the western boundary of East Bay.  Ray and Linda of Second Noelle had told us to be sure to go around the red daymarker right by the bridge because the water is very shallow between the daymarker and the western shore of Pearl Bayou.  The water depths are well marked on the charts, but when we were approaching this point, we could understand why someone might be tempted to cut behind the daymarker.  You have to go almost to the bridge to make the turn around the marker, so to your eye it looks like there is more room if you go what would be the wrong way.

We followed the Garmin chart to stay in the deeper water going in and had 14-16 ft going in.  The depth gradually tapered to 11-12 ft toward the back, so we turned around and went forward just a bit so that we could drop the anchor facing into the wind.

Pearl Bayou

We had seen a park on our way in, not realizing that it was part of Tyndall AFB.  On our way into the dock, we saw Air Force boats docked at what looked like a separate facility on the other side of the boat access ramp for the park.  We tied our dinghy to the small fuel dock but did not see any attendants, so we went toward the building which we assumed was part of the park.  We ran into one of the employees who told us it would be fine to leave our dinghy at the dock for a while.  Then we talked to more employees inside the building and were told that dogs were not allowed at the park but that we could go across the street as dogs were allowed there.

3 large Air Force boats were docked here

As we walked up to the park gate, it was then that we noticed that we were actually on Tyndall AFB.  The area across the road was not an official beach and had warning signs of possible rip currents and dangerous wildlife, i.e. alligators and sharks, so swimming was at your own risk.  Since we weren’t planning to swim, we figured we’d be safe.  There was a stretch of grassy area by the water, so we tried playing Frisbee with Sasha there.  We were only partially successful, however, because there were also sticker weeds scattered here and there, and she kept getting the small round stickers with sharp spikes caught in her paws.  A sign warning about dangerous plant life would have been more useful to us.

One of many stickers we had to pull from Sasha

's paws

There was a dirt road leading to a small pier where people went fishing, so we walked a little ways toward the pier so that we could get a picture by the Tyndall AFB sign.

Rob and Sasha

When we got back to the boat, it was such a nice evening with beautiful scenery that we decided to cook outside on the back deck.  A nice gentleman back at Midway Marina had insisted on giving us some catfish as we were leaving, so it was perfect to have the mess of frying it outside.  When he gave us the catfish, he said that he had frozen it soon after catching it, so it would be the best tasting catfish we had ever had.  We dipped the catfish in Cajun fish fry seasoning, and I’ll have to say that it was excellent and flaky, with very little fishy taste.  If we had had more freezer space, I would have been able to take the second bag that he had offered….oh, well, I guess we’ll just have to catch our own fresh fish now.

Frying catfish on the back deck

Perfectly crispy and delicious