Rough Waters Ahead

Recap:  We are at the Baytown Marina that is part of the Sandestin Resort in Miramar Beach, Florida.  Read more in our last blog post.

After seeing an amazing sunset and eating some mediocre pizza, we headed back to the boat to settle in for the night.The weather forecast didn't include rain, but the winds did pick up as the evening wore on. The wind and waves were coming out of the Northwest, through the marina inlet, and right to our slip. Our dock at The Wharf was well-protected and calm. Our dock at Baytown was almost the opposite. As the wind picked up, so did the waves, causing Elvin Ray to move and roll at the dock. We were tied securely and the boat was protected with fenders to avoid any damage from the constant motion against the dock. I actually kind of enjoyed the rocking motion. 

When planning trips in our old boat, rain was the primary concern. It was an open bowrider, so rain was a big inconvenience. I rarely considered the wind, unless we were going to spend time in the ocean. With Elvin Ray, rain isn't much of a concern at all, as we can cruise from the comfort of a full salon, but wind is now one of my primary planning metrics.

The sustained winds went from calm when we arrived, to about 8 mph in the evening, to about 15-20 mph by 3:00 AM. We went to sleep to a relatively gentle rocking of the boat, waking up to some major movement as the winds increased. Lisa got up at one point to go out and check the lines to make sure we were still secure with all the moving about. It was never a "scary" situation, and it made me happy that neither of us had any motion sickness. We made it through the night without incident, but learned that not all marinas have well-protected docks.  Something to think about in our future trip plans.

Morning arrived, and we ate breakfast and started getting ready for the last cruise of our delivery trip. The plan was to meet Carl at the boat ramp near Edgewater Yacht Sales to put Elvin Ray on the trailer and then head to the North Carolina coast to cruise in some familiar waters for a few more days. We left the marina at about 10:30 heading back west toward Pensacola. We were still facing pretty stiff winds from the northwest as we started crossing the Choctawhatchee Bay.  This meant we had to tackle 2-3 ft waves coming at us on our starboard side as we were getting into the bay. We zig-zagged.  This is why it's important to secure everything when underway.  It was not a comfortable crossing, but Elvin Ray handled the waves just fine and things started to smooth out as we crossed under the highway 98 bridge and entered the Santa Rosa Sound. We stopped to take a little break and add some fuel at a marina.