Citrus, anyone?
Florida. Land of orange juice, snowbirds, and the occasional face-eating drug addict. Why does it have such a magic appeal? Like moths to a flame, people seem to be drawn to our nation's southern dangling appendage. I can only answer for myself and my lovely wife when I say that a very good reason to visit this land of excessive heat and humidity is the boating. We had such a great time in our previous two excursions (Key West and Miami), that we decided it would be well worth it to take a shot at the Sunshine State once again, and knock another item off the bucket list by hitting the Emerald Coast Poker Run in Destin.
The tiny seed of an idea plucked off the proverbial list began to germinate when our Ohio friends Dale and Eileen Castle encouraged us to head in that direction. With tales of technicolor waterways, ample choices for lodging, and numerous options for procuring alcoholic beverages, the Castles assured us that we were making the correct decision. They even went so far as to volunteer to join us, should this expedition take place. Our resolve was further steeled by similar reports from other boating friends both online and in person..."GO TO DESTIN," they said. "BEST BOATING EVER!" they said. So...we decided to make it happen.
After a couple months of intermittent searching and a rotating cast of characters interested in going, I found a three bedroom condo with a slip with East Pass (waterway to the Gulf) in front of the building and Destin Harbor out the back. Waterview Towers turned out to be a perfect locale, walking distance from Noriega Point, and a short idle away from local hot spot Crab Island or open running on Choctawhatchee Bay or the Gulf of Mexico. Our crew was to be composed of myself and Michelle, and two couples from Ohio that we had met at the 2013 Boyne Thunder event, the aforementioned Dale and Eileen, and Jeremy and Stacie Riggs. All are experienced boaters and willing drinkers, so our hopes for a good time were well founded.
Bearing responsibility...
After a rapid-fire stretch of weekends that saw us mountain biking in Copper Harbor, MI, boating at Put-In-Bay, OH, Winthrop Harbor, IL and Michigan City, IN, we were ready for a vacation from all that vacationing. Our plan was to drive up to Coloma, MI, and drop off Sonny and Rico, the Miami Vice kittens, with my parents on Friday, then attend a wedding in the evening, then get up and roll south for about 10 hours on Saturday, and finish the drive to Destin on Sunday.
Alas, all the best laid plans are sometimes for naught. And naught reared its ugly head early on Friday morning when I went about my final task prior to the journey, which was to be greasing the trailer bearings. Cursory inspection revealed some grease outside the zerks that had obviously been corrupted by water...not good. This warranted further investigation, which would require removal of wheels. I grabbed the 2-1/2 ton floor jack I had been carrying around for exactly this purpose...only to find that it was useless...not enough power. I then enlisted my trust forklift with the intent of lifting all three wheels, as I'd planned to check every one at this point. No go...the rear wheels of the forklift came off the ground...yikes. The final solution was a 20-ton bottle jack under the center axle, which worked like a dream. A dream which quickly turned nightmarish when I found water in three of the wheels. An emergency repack-job followed, and after about 3 hours, a frazzled and extremely greasy Mike finally arrived home. A quick shower, and we were on the road to MI...only to be delayed by construction traffic. We encountered more of the same on the way home, and what should have been just over a 3 hour round trip turned into about a 6 hour trip. We missed the wedding, sorry Mike and Amie! I hit the pillow hard, but couldn't sleep because nobody told my brain to turn off.
It's all downhill from here...right?
Saturday morning bright and early and I am at Home Depot picking up a torque-wrench, not wanting to take any chances with the wheels I had removed and repacked yesterday. By 8:30, we were all packed up and rolling down I-57. We had hit Kankakee, when a car rolls up beside me flashing its lights and hitting the horn. My heart jumped into my throat and I checked the trailer in the rearview...no smoke. Looked over at the guy in the other car, and it was the garbage man that visits my shop every week saying hello! Whew! We stopped for fuel outside Paducah, KY, and I spent about 20 minutes trying to help a gentleman with a flat tire and no winch for his bottle jack. We were just giving up when another guy stopped to help with the right sized jack. I figured it would be good karma for my trip to help anyone I could! We made it to just north of Birmingham and decided to stop for the night. I swung the boat around in a very tight parking lot and got it parked right in front of the hotel, which drew quite a crowd. Just as we were unloading our stuff and covering, locking the boat, a guy comes up to me and tells me he and his family had radiator problems in their truck and after fixing it had no money for gas to get home...could I help? I told him I'd be back after getting into our room, and I did return and gave him $20. I then watched him get in his old Expedition with his family, and drive out...right past the gas station. Oh well...karma.
Destin-ation
The next day's drive was uneventful, excluding the slight error in judgment that precluded us from getting fuel PRIOR to driving into the wilds of southern Alabama/northern Florida. We were on fumes by the time we hit Niceville...not exactly comfortable with 40 feet of trailer behind you. Anyway...we fueled up the truck and the boat, and headed over to Legendary Marine, where we dropped the trailer and left the boat until it was to be forked in the next morning. Lunch and celebratory drinks were next on the menu, so we drove into Destin proper and parked, taking in the HarborWalk area before going to AJ's for some lunch and a couple of PainKillers with 151 floaters. We walked the boardwalk again, checking out the fish that were being filleted on site in back of the charter boats, when the sky turned dark. We jumped in the truck and headed over to the condo at Waterview and the sky opened up. It rained BUCKETS, which was a little disconcerting, as the previous years' poker run had been rained out, it WAS the rainy season in north FL, AND rain was predicted for every day we were there. Not to worry...the sun was out 10 minutes later, and we were soon enjoying rum and cokes in the condo. I chose to take a nap, while Michelle went down to the pool and walked the beach. We ate dinner at a cool local joint called Bric-a-brac, and called it a night.
In the drink...
Monday morning I got up and went for a run, and barely survived for the heat and humidity. It was BRUTAL, especially after the mild summer we have had in Chicago. We hit up the grocery store for some supplies, then made the call to Legendary to drop the boat in. By the time we pulled up 15 minutes later, they already had the boat off the trailer and it was 20 feet up in the air on the forklift. Michelle ran to take pictures...I couldn't even look! We got the boat prepped and fired up, and Michelle jumped back in the truck to drive to the condo, while I was to run the boat over. I just asked the dock guys what I should do to NOT screw up, and was told to STAY IN THE MIDDLE. Lol. My GPS track from that morning is dead center, and with the help of that unit, I found the channel by Crab Island and into Destin Harbor. We tied up the boat in it's slip for the week, got the lines set to account for the tides, and hit the pool for the afternoon. We went for a short evening boat ride, poking our nose out into the Gulf, and pretty immediately turned around. To use Michelle's words "We can't break the boat on the first day." It was a little snotty out there.
Leave your brain at the rental counter, please...
We took it easy Tuesday morning, and hung out by the pool for a bit. We went in for lunch around noon, and, after eating, we discovered that some other powerboaters from Tennessee that were staying at the same condo were going to head out to a bar for some food. We asked if we might tag along, to get a feel for the area, since we had no idea what we were doing, lol. They responded in the affirmative, so we followed a 28 Nordic and a 27 Baja across Choctawhatchee Bay to a place called Tropics. I had a Pina Coloda and was laughed at. What? I like them! We shot back across the bay, and our new friends invited us to beach the boat with them on Noriega Point. I was going to, but chickened out at the last second...I just couldn't bring myself to put the boat on the beach...so instead we headed out to Crab Island.
Crab Island isn't an island at all...more like a big circular sand bar...and a TON of boats head out there every day and drop anchor in the shallows and party in the crystal blue waters. There are even restaurants/bars on barges out there, as well as an inflatable playland for kid...an in-water waterpark! I was exercising my usual amount of caution, and we anchored in about 9 feet of water. Michelle was off the boat and swimming immediately, I was more hesitant, what with my fear of sharks and general dislike of salt water, but eventually jumped in. The water was sapphire blue and 85 degrees...it was like a swimming pool. Just awesome.
We hung out for a while, slightly disappointed because our lack of foresight had left us with nothing to drink, and Michelle decided to clean some of the road grime off the bow with a sponge. We noticed about that time, that the tide had begun to change. The water went from sapphire to emerald green, and was also running pretty good. So, to prevent any difficulties, she put a life jacket on and we used the end of the anchor line to tie her up, so she couldn't drift away in the current. About that time, while she was cleaning, things got interesting. Two rental pontoon boats in front of us either broke loose from their anchor, or pulled anchor, and drifted away, leaving one of their occupants behind. As they floated past, tied together, a man in one boat looked at me and said "Help me save my son!" I looked up, and there was a head bobbing in the current about 75 feet in front of the pontoons...both of whom were doing NOTHING to help the swimmer. Suddenly, a woman jumps off the front of one of the pontoons and attempts to swim against the current to save the swimmer...with no life jacket. I thought to myself "This is exactly how people die," ran below deck and came back with a couple life jackets, which I was about to throw, when another pontoon, that was underway, intervened with his throwable cushion. Both people grabbed it...and they needed it. The other pontoon got both aboard, and delivered them back to their families...who STILL hadn't figured out how to get their boats detached from each other. After no less than 5 more rental pontoon boats and innumerable personal watercraft nearly hit us while we were anchored (apparently they don't tell the pwc renters that its a NO WAKE ZONE over there), we gave up and went back to the slip.
After some dinner at home, we headed over to the Harborwalk to meet up with another Tenneseean, R.B. Hixon, and his wife Fran, who we had met a few years prior at a Poker Run in Louisiana. They were attending the "Party Gras" parade, and asked if we wanted to ride along on the Florida Powerboat Club "float," which was a 46 foot Cigarette owned by Chuck Stark out of South Carolina. Of course, the answer was a resounding YES. We piled on the Cig, and were given DOZENS of beads to toss out, and we were towed through Harborwalk Village and a massive cheering crowd. Definitely cool. After getting out of the Harborwalk, the Cig had to go back across the causeway to Fort Walton, so, with RB behind the wheel of the truck, and 8 of us in the boat, we rolled right down Highway 98. Truly a unique and memorable evening.
We declined our host's numerous offers of beverages, and headed back to the condo to await the arrival of the Riggs'. We were only back about 1/2 hour before they showed up, and Jeremy promptly put on one the more impressive displays of alcoholic consumption I have witness...downing almost an entire bottle of Captain Morgan in about an hour. Clearly, the man was serious about being on vacation!
Early in the AM, the Castles arrived as well, with an intoxicated boxer-clad Jeremy greeting them with hugs. Now, the party would start.
A hero is born...
Wednesday morning, I figured we would hear much from our newly arrived guests anytime soon, so I jumped on my bike and went for a ride around Destin. Traffic around there is BRUTAL, so I stayed mostly on back roads and neighborhood streets. I returned and made breakfast, than Jeremy, Dale and I went down and cleaned up the boat. The girls hit the pool, and we soon joined them. About 10:30am, Dale and Jeremy cracked their first beers (at least it was 11:30 Ohio time). By early afternoon, we had walked the beach and hung out by the ocean and in the pool, and much more beer was consumed. I hadn't had much to drink, as I figured boating would be in the offing for the afternoon, and, sure enough, we all piled in the Sommer Thunder for a quick run outside on the Gulf, then back over to Crab Island. We again anchored in deeper water...AWAY from rental pontoon boats. I stayed in the boat, while the rest of them swam for the shallow. Unfortunately, the changing tides had brought in an infestation of jellyfish. They were EVERYWHERE. We determined that the general lack of screaming and splashing from the others in the water meant that these weren't particularly harmful jellies, and with Dale, Eileen, and Jeremy all suffering minor stings without too much discomfort, we were proven correct. At some point, things got personal between Jeremy and the jellyfish. It may have had something to do with the beer (ok, it had a LOT to do with the beer), but by the time he had swum back out to the boat, he decided that he needed to "save the rest of us from the jellyfish." How would one do this, you might ask? Well, the answer, quite obviously, is to jump ONTO the unsuspecting invertebrates from the swim platform. In the end, Jellyfish Jeremy DID end up being our hero...not one of us suffered another sting...mostly because we were laughing so hard we didn't want to get back in the water for fear of drowning.
We ordered pizza in that evening, then got geared up to go to the FPC Ladies Night at Helen Back Café over in Fort Walton. Exhaustion had finally caught up with Dale, and he opted out. Exhaustion also caught up with Jeremy, but, fueled by beer, he chose to stay upright. Stacie's only request to him was "Please don't embarrass me." We were at the party for about two hours when Jeremy's attempts to depants me were thwarted, and he moved on to RB...a guy he didn't even know. We made a quick strategic exit at that point. I think Stacie might have been embarrassed.
Country Mike rolls hard
Michelle and I figured that since we'd be boating all day Friday and Saturday, we'd get a bike ride in Thursday morning. The biggest problem, as I'd mentioned, was the ridiculous traffic and lack of bike lanes. In order to facilitate a ride, we had to drive 15 or so miles out of Destin, where we found a nice bike path that paralleled the Gulf shoreline. We rode about 15 miles out, and on the way back, Michelle nearly had heat stroke. Probably wasn't the best idea to be riding at around noon on a humid 90 degree day, but she survived. We made it back, ate some lunch, and met the others at the pool. Then, as happens on vacation day afternoons, the rum came out. Once again, I had an inkling that we might want to go for a boat ride, so I kept a low profile. Suddenly, there appeared in our midst, a young man of 24 who was on vacation with his family, but obviously was not interesting in family time, when there was drinking and fun to be had. Country Mike, as he was dubbed, was immediately served up a glass and joined in our little party. We learned he was ex-Army, and had done a tour in Iraq, and had never ridden on a fast boat. Well, that was all I needed to hear, so I loaded up the drunk crew, and we headed out for a short blast on the Gulf. I swear I thought the boy was going to explode he was so excited. That made me happy. More karma points.
We got back and watched the sunset through the bottoms of our rum drinks, then proceeded upstairs, Country Mike in tow, for some delicious enchiladas prepared by Dale and Eileen. I remember eating too much, and drinking a LOT, before pulling the plug early and heading to bed, with Michelle on my heels. Apparently, Country Mike did NOT want to leave, and his attempts to keep up with Jeremy and Dale in the alcohol dept let to him vomiting in the washing machine of his condo, and also waking up with no clothes on and no idea where they were. Ahhh, kids.
Where the F#$% is the Fun Run?
I was up and feeling a little buzzy Friday morning, so I ate a good breakfast and went over to the driver's meeting while everyone else went to the pool or shopping. My head cleared in time for the meeting, and I SWEAR I paid attention...we were to meet at 1:30 north of Crab Island to see the helicopter, get pics, run around Choctawhatchee Bay, then head down the intercoastal to Juana's Pagodas in Navarre. Well...we were there, as were a ton of other boats milling around and looking lost...but there was no chopper, and no apparent organization. I was pretty frustrated, when, out on the bay, we saw a chopper running low over the top of a boat. We decided to run out an investigate, and, sure enough, it was the FPC heli. They came in super low, and got a ton of pics and video, which was cool. We then met up with John Angelle and his crew in a 42 Fountain out of Louisiana, and, following my GPS, made it out to Juana's, where there was a whole TON of boats that might have been captained by someone less hung over than me in the meeting.
Anyway, Juana's was a really cool bar, everyone had drinks and I had water (I am a safe captain!). We ran back to Destin with John, on the way getting passed by the Black Diamond 52 MTI on one side and Bob Bull's canopied 48 MTI on the other, which was exceptional. When we pulled back in to Destin Harbor, we found our condo-mates from TN pulled up on the beach at Noriega Point. I decided I would beach the boat...I mean, what the hell...there were a ton of Skaters and OLs and Cigs on the beach...what could go wrong? Actually...the karma must've piled up...because nothing did! Then I proceeded to jump on to the beach, walk over to say hello to someone in the water, and forget that my phone was in my pocket. D'oh!
We had sub-sammys that night, and then headed over to the Harborwalk for the Captain's party at AJs. The place was JAMMED, we had a couple cocktails, checked out some boats, and wound up listening to a pretty good band at a bar that served pretty weak drinks....so that didn't last. Got back and in bed by midnight or so.
The Big Show
The Emerald Coast Poker Run is a different type of animal as far as poker runs go. There is no mass start, and no "official" order to the card stops. This eliminates the "race" to the first card stop, as well as the crowds and potential for accidents in a group start. Card stops opened at 10 am, and closed at 4, and you were free to hit as many as you wanted. Saturday morning was HOT, and the boat was almost totally out of gas. The combination of these two things made for a not-so-fun 40 minutes or so of fueling up at the marina across from our condo on Destin Harbor. $700+ later, we were full up and ready to run. The course was about 80 miles total, so we were prepared. It just so happened that our start time coincided with the arrival of the FPC heli, so once again, we got TONS of camera time. Michelle's idea for the whole crew to wear red is really going to pay off in the pics! We fell in with a couple 42 Fountains, a 47 Outerlimits, a 46 Outerlimits, a 34 Baja, a 35 Donzi ZRC, and even the Phantom 48 MTI. Smiles and waves were present on every boat, and we hit six card stops in just over an hour, covering all of Choctawhatchee Bay. We stopped for lunch at Helen Back and had some pizza (perfect poker run food, if you ask me), but the heat was so oppressive, all we could think about was a nice dip in the water. The next stop was up the intercoastal at Juana's, and when we got there, we pretty much decided to anchor out and relax for a bit. Dale had won a pair of tickets to see Kenny Chesney in a contest he'd entered the day before, and although we were only about 80 miles west, he wasn't about to leave the Run. Regardless, he picked up the tix at Juana's, along with some other swag. After about an hour of swimming and sun, we had to run back, as the boat needed to be put back on the trailer that afternoon. We dropped off the girls and Dale, and Jeremy and I ran back to Legendary with the sticks pushed all the way forward. A quick washdown to get rid of all the saltwater spots, and she was ready to be plucked. Legendary even offered to flush the motors, which I happily accepted.
Dale came and picked us up, we showered quickly, and headed over to the Convention Center in Fort Walton for the post-run dinner and poker shindig. The food was alright, the conversation and people watching bordered on excellent, and the booze was plentiful. As for the poker...well...I did even worse than my typical low pair, coming in with an ace high. Not even bad enough for the worst hand, bummer!
We packed it in early, as the Ohio peeps were rolling out at 4am, and we planned to be on the road shortly afterwards.
It was a good day. Nothing broke. Lol.
The Long and straight-ahead road..........
We didn't make it over to Legendary until almost 7am, but that was fortunate, as workers were just arriving, and they seemed to have misplaced my boat. You know you have a large facility when a 40 foot red boat and trailer get lost in the shuffle, but that's exactly what happened. It took a solid 20 minutes to find it, then we got it hooked up, strapped down, and we were headed north by 7:30.
We drove through a bunch of rain (which was ok, the boat was filthy anyway!), and at our first fuel stop in Alabama, I was once again hit up for money by a stranger with a sob story. This gentleman told me he was a veteran and had a flat and his ex-wife hadn't given him enough money...all while I am trying to maneuver 60 feet of truck and trailer in a tight parking lot! I reached in my wallet and gave him a $10 (biggest bill I had left, lol), then watched him walk across the parking lot and get in his vehicle and drive away...no flat. WTF. Guess I'll keep calling it good karma...it sounds better than "sucker."
Total drive time on Sunday was 14 1/2 hours, and total mileage for the trip stood at 1963.
Wow, what a ride.
When can we go again?
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