Nikki s Panhandle Cruise (Fort Walton Beach, Navarre, and Pensacola Beach) by Bruce Bingham Day 14, May 30, Fort Walton Beach to Navarre At daybreak, I did what I could to help Sean prepare for his departure. I pulled the anchor and motored Nikki to a small private dock and tied the boat to questionable pilings in a swift current. Sean unloaded his luggage and he and I carried four knots. That was enough for me, and we passed through the Narrows into Santa Rosa Sound that is lined on the north by beautiful waterfront homes and docks, and natural sand dunes interspersed with an occasional home and hotels. Sean s drop off at daybreak it to Highway 98 where we said our good byes and good lucks. Sean walked north with his bags and I returned to Nikki. I decided that while I was docked, I would walk back to the highway and pick up some things at the Publix I had spotted while dropping off Sean. Once back to the boat, I undocked and began motoring Nikki westward. There was a bit of a breeze, so I raised the sails and picked up some speed. But this didn t last long because there was rain all around, and it didn t take long for it to descend on Nikki. A drab day in The Narrows For a long time, I didn t bother to furl the sails, and just let them hang limp. I kept the engine running at a fast idle, and we were able to make about Homes on Santa Rosa Sound. Very nice! I took Nikki as Far as Navarre, about half way to Pensacola Beach from Fort Walton Beach, and anchored on the north side of the sound a half mile east of the Navarre Causeway Bridge. It was a pleasant nook just off the channel less than 80 yards from shore. From the boat, I could see a nice waterfront park with a public dock, and strip malls on the east and west sides of the Navarre Causeway entrance. Visible was a Winn Dixie, McDonalds, Taco Bell, CVS, lots of small restaurants, an inclosed butterfly gazebo, a bank, and other services easily accessible by boat. There is a public landing dock as well. I also spotted a partially sunk 120- foot steel steam yacht that had been built in the early 1900s. I marked my charts as a place to return to if I needed groceries or other things.
Day 15, May 31 (Memorial Day), Navarre to Pensacola Beach Pulled the hook at 0630 and motored through the Navarre Bridge, navigating westward in Santa Rosa Sound. At the southern end of the long bridge, the group of hotels on Navarre Beach were clearly visible. Navarre, by the way, took a severe hit during Hurricane Katrina, with many buildings and homes being severely damaged. Navarre Bridge and Beach on Santa Rosa Island Within an hour, I could see the high-rises of Pensacola Beach. Shortly after, the Pensacola Beach Causeway Bridge came into view. I sailed all the way with the wind on the beam and kept a 5-knot pace. As I approached, it was clear that Pen Beach was a popular tourist destination and local weekend hangout. Overhead were several paragliders being pulled by speedboats, and along the south Paragliding on Santa Rosa Sound After showering, I boarded my Trinka and motored over to the Morgan and knocked on the hull. A ravishing woman wrapped in a sarong appeared on deck. I asked if she could advise me of the locations of several shore-side services such as a laundry, grocery store, hardware, etc. She replied by inviting me aboard. I eagerly accepted her invitation, and shortly her husband appeared. The Morgan owners were Stephen and Roberta Arnold who had owned the boat for five years, but were on their very first cruise. I introduced myself, and both recognized my name immediately. Stephen scampered below and reappeared holding two of my books and asked for autographs. Needlessly, I was Roberta and Stephen Chanticleer flattered and complied after a short period of arm twisting. During my stay at Pensacola Beach, the Arnolds and I got together often, including a fabulous dinner aboard their boat that same night. They were great company, and Stephen recounted the restoration of their boat including his AwlGripping of the deck, cabin, and cockpit. He had done a wonderful job and told me that he had used foam rollers purchased at Home Depot. He had not used spray or brush at all! I was dumbfounded at his success with no experience and the most elemental tools. He also used a product from Australia to non-skid his decks, and it was fabulous. Swans visit Nikki shore were anchored boats and many more tied to a long wooden pier. Even before I reach my chosen anchorage, I could hear loud calypso music wafting across the nook from shore. I dropped the hook close to a beautiful Morgan 46 ketch from Houston named Chanticleer.
Before the end of the first day, several work boats arrived nearby accompanied by a barge loaded with oil booms. They quickly went to work and within two hours had installed a barricade of oil booms to protect the beaches belonging to three hotels facing Santa Rosa Sound. This was the very first sign of the threat of arriving oil from the BP spill. parking was a welcome sight. In Clearwater or St. Pete Beach can you park with threat of a ticket or need to repeatedly feed a money-hungry meter. But there was only a handful of people on the beach for a beautiful holiday afternoon. The absence was due to the expectation of oil on and in the sand. I found no evidence of it at all. Oil booms in place on the Santa Rosa Sound side of Pensacola Beach I motored ashore in the Trinka, and found a wonderland of interesting restaurants and attractions. It was a national holiday, but the town was not crowded. It wasn t the mayhem found at Destin. I went right to the beautiful beach not more than twohundred yards from the dock where I had secured the dinghy. The sand was sugar white and free car The almost empty Pensacola Beach on Memorial Day Pensacola Beach just astern of Nikki where I landed my Trinka dinghy Day 16-18 June 1-3, Pensacola Beach and Bay My first night at Pensacola was not conducive to slumber. The loud beach-bar bands did not quite until 0330. When I got up, I first noticed that almost all of the visiting boats were gone... probably headed home after the holiday. Only Chanticleer and Nikki remained in the anchorage. The second thing I saw was commotion on the end of the long public pier jutting almost 100 yards from the nearby beach. Lots of people and cameras, flood lights, and reflectors. It looked as if there was a television crew set up to report the news. That s exactly what it was, but not just any television crew... it was the NBC Today Show broadcasting right in Nikki s back yard from the end of the pier. This I discovered when I turned on the television while making my morning coffee. There was Willard Scott 150 feet astern with Pensacola Beach in the background. I went ashore after finishing my chores and discovered that most of the public beach and its parking lot had been closed in order to accommodate the press trucks, reporters, and hundreds of broadcast technicians that had descended to await the first tar ball from the Deep Horizon oil spill. There was a half -mile of national and local TV network trucks lined up along the beach sidewalk. It was crazy.
The national and local press on Pensacola Beach like vultures waiting for the first tar ball. An interesting way to park your boat! Only the day before, President Obama, or maybe it was VP Joe Biden, had toured the Pensacola waterfront to assure locals that the Government was on top of the oil-spill situation. Maybe they saw Nikki swing at her anchor. I ll never know. I was impressed by the beauty, variety of restaurants, and things to do at Pen Beach. I was totally shocked at the lack of people, though. I was told by several business owners that the fear of oil on the beaches had caused a 40% loss of business, regardless of the absence of the red crude (at least on that day). Good food is everywhere. But notice the lack of cars. No lack of things to do Beautiful Hotel Row on Pen Beach Jimmy Buffet s new unfinished hotel
Tuesday brought more happy skies with puffy clouds on a blue background. I was up early to sand the port toerail then went ashore to pick up some bread and milk. At a local convenience store, I spotted a newspaper stand and wondered over for a quick look at the front page displayed in the window. The headline was grim. The oil spill was only seven miles away at press time, that could have been at 2:00 am. down two days before. I pulled the anchor and headed west under sail with a nice southerly breeze. Approaching the Pensacola Beach Bridge Shortly after passing through the high Pen Beach Bridge, I spotted the NOAA research/patrol vessel, Orion, from Key West heading for the inlet. They were followed shortly by another oceanographic research vessel, Gandy. One of my reasons for sailing to the Panhandle was to experience the impending tragedy... not just see it. I had been in contact with the Sierra Club, Audubon Society, and the Center for Marine Conservation before leaving Gulfport to see how to hook up with them when I arrived in the oilthreatened area. I favored working with the Center for Marine Conservation since I had once been on their Steering Committee for Tampa Bay area. I first emailed them in Washington, DC, and they replied instantly with a contact phone number in Pensacola. I told them that I wanted to photograph some of the beach clean-up operations. They told me to just show up in work cloths at a number of locations. Be sure to bring your HazMat (hazardousmaterial) Training Certificate, they said. Unfortunately, I didn t have one, and the locations were impossible for me to access by my boat or folding bicycle. So I decided to take another tack. On my second day at Pen Beach, I decided to sail Nikki to Pensacola and the various large bays in the vicinity. On the morning news, there were reports of oil on the beaches and warnings to boaters that Pensacola entrance to the Gulf was being closed with oil booms, Mobile Bay had already been shut Orion Gandy I steered into Pensacola Bay along Santa Rosa Island, having a delightful sail toward the inlet and the old 191-foot Pensacola light house nine miles
away. For a while, I stopped to watch one of several teams of boats apparently practicing the placement of oils booms. This was a little like watching the grass grow, so I didn t stay long. Oil-boom practice; coach boat in foreground At the lighthouse, I jibed Nikki around and began hugging the mainland shore, heading for the city of Pensacola on the western side of the bay. The first landmark was the large Coast Guard Station with several buoy tenders docked. There was also a huge barge stacked high with oil booms waiting to be deployed. Pusher, Marquette, exiting Bayou Chico At the mouth of Bayou Chico, Nikki passed the beautiful Pensacola Yacht Club with 100 docked boat of every kind. Very nice and large sailboats were most prominent and there were a lot more to come. I was very surprised, indeed. Pensacola is really an extremely active and large yachting center. A West Marine is less than a mile east. Pensacola Coast Guard Station I saw lots of boating activity on Pensacola Bay with numerous sailboats taking advantage of a fabulous day. I was curious as to where the marinas were to accommodate the fleets. I soon discovered their expansive home port, Bayou Chico, a mile west of downtown. On the way in, I passed a large barge being pushed by a diesel tug. These are very prevalent in the Panhandle. Bayou Chico serves not only private boaters but commercial interests as well. On the way in through the narrow channel I encountered two pushers, one with a derrick for dock and pier construction. Pensacola Yacht Club Bahia Mar Marina at Bayou Chico Bayou Chico is 1 1/2 miles long with deep water well into much of its length. There are numerous marinas with lots of sailboats and more that are anchored. Pensacola s main drag crosses the bayou about a half mile from its mouth (65 clearance).
One of the many typical marinas in Bayou Chico The north shore of the bayou is mostly industrial after clearing the bridge. I passed a temporary terminal set up to distribute oil booms and dispersant to vessels involved in the cleanup operations. A short distance beyond was a 120-foot high-speed oil-rig crew boat that ferries the 60 or so men and women that work on the drilling rigs in the Gulf. Then I passed two huge mountains of scrap steel on each side of a very noisy steel chopper that reduced cars, steel beams, semi trailers, and old storage containers into bite-size pieces. At the site was also a mound of rust dust that must have weighed over a hundred tons. I m fascinated by this sort of thing. Oil boom and dispersant terminal Oil-rig crew boat I exited Bayou Chico after about an hour of touring and reentered Pensacola Bay. I steered Nikki northwestward along Pensacola s downtown waterfront which has very few tall buildings. It was not very picturesque and did not hold interest for long. I turned Nikki toward the east and headed back to Pen Beach. Since I had not dropped the sails during my cruise of Bayou Chico, I simply needed to harden up a little and go off on a very fast close reach back to the anchorage. It was a great sail that lasted just over an 90 minutes with the city dead astern. Just before passing under the Pen Beach Bridge, Nikki scooted along the shore of British Navy Cove with its mansions high on the bluffs overlooking the bay. It was beautiful. High bluffs along English Navy Cove I dropped anchor close to Chanticleer once again and went ashore to do some laundry and shop for some food for my return trip. When I returned to Nikki, I saw Roberta and Stephen aboard their boat and waved. It would be the last I would see of them. They would be gone upon my awakening the next morning. Since I would not be able to enter the Gulf at Pensacola due to the closure of the pass, and sailing to Mobile (whose harbor was also shut down) and points west would require me to navigate Nikki over 100 miles southward to avoid the oil slick, I decided to begin my return to gulfport. This would be slightly complicated by the total failure of my primary GPS. I would just have to navigate the old fashion way. After breakfast, I hauled up the anchor and got underway. I was not sure where I would be able to safely sail into the Gulf. The oil had landed on Pensacola Beach during the night and was drifting eastward at a rapid clip. Local news said the oil would reach Navarre by mid night. The scrap-steel chopper