America’s Great Loop is coming to an end and it has been no “bed of roses.” It is work. Fun work, leaving one grounded. Ed and I know this has been the trip of a lifetime!
Tomorrow a window of “good” weather has opened and Finito will make a 210 mile 24 hour trip across the Gulf of Mexico/America from Port St. Joe to Tarpon Springs. Seas should be between 1-3 feet with winds averaging 11 mph. We take this path as our draft is too deep to go along Big Bend’s shoreline. I am somewhat nervous about traveling over night, but many Loopers have accomplished this and we will be aside two other trawlers: Happy Giraffe and Satellite Office. Many hours of waiting and planning have gotten us to this day…the true test of a Captian and his first mate!
Visiting the Florida Panhandle at the end of our 6000 mile journey has been great.
In Pensacola Ed and I met with P.c. Wu, whom I came to know as a University of West Florida professor and Pensacola city councilman of sixteen years. We bonded when I was serving on the Florida League of Cities during my days as a Sewall’s Point mayor/commissioner and chair of the League’s Environmental Committee. P.c. is one of the most wonderful of people and it was fantastic to reconnect.
P.c. and his wife Judi gave Ed and I a tour of downtown Pensacola. Much had changed since I taught there in the 1990s getting my Master’s degree in Education at the University of West Florida after many hours of grading homework.
P.c.’s tour revealed changes and improvements brought on with his direction. The Main Street Wastewater Treatment Plant was moved in 2010. The new facility is considered to be the largest public works project in Escambia County’s history thus avoiding discharge into Pensacola Bay; creating reclaimed water reuse, and locating the plant outside of the coastal floodplain. Great work Pensacola!
The following day, Ed and I retraced my former life visiting Pensacola High School where I first taught German and English; my neighborhoods of East Hill along Bayou Texar and Pensacola Beach’s Via de Luna; and Seville Square where I found my beloved dog Dash. Ed and I walked the white sand dune beaches of Fort Pickens and the Gulf Island National Seashore. Of course Ed’s favorite was visiting the famous Naval Aviation Museum!
Finito moved on…
Fifty miles east along the panhandle, we stayed at Sun Harbor Marina in Panama City. In this area beautiful St. Andrew’s Bay stretches out for miles. I could not help but think about what it must have been like when Hurricane Michael, a horrific 2018 category 5 hurricane, barreled through this area. They are just recovering.
Bay County, where Panama City resides, has given some powerful punches itself. The Panama City courthouse is the site of the landmark “Gideon case” from which the public defender system for the entire United States was established by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1963.
About fifty miles east of Panama City with the help of a man-made canal, Finito took us to Port St. Joe Marina, another business in the panhandle still recovering from Hurricane Michael.
The fishing village of St. Joe once surrounded by longleaf pines was for decades the site of the St. Joe Company paper mill. This industry dominated until 1999 when it was literally dismantled. Today many “Joe” landholdings are being developed. It was a controversial closure as so many worked in the mill, but now with no air pollution and that ever pervasive “smell” the region is ripe for a quaint and profitable tourist industry.
Nature still abounds. When I walked down to the shoreline to see the lighthouse, I came upon a stately an American Eagle. And when Ed and I visited the Historic Graveyard we came upon a few rare, cone bearing long-leaf pine. Lots of remaining natural beauty here!
Ed loved the Naval Museum, but for me the highlight of the panhandle was Constitution Museum State Park. In 1838 Florida’s first constitution was drafted by 56 territorial delegates in the once bustling town of St. Joseph, now known as Saint Joe. With an appointment from Senate President Joe Negron, I served on Florida’s Constitution Commission in 2017-2018 so this was a real treat. To think of how much has changed!
I have loved our Great Loop panhandle experience. The region is one of the oldest in Florida’s long history and natural beauty continues to grace much of its shoreline. Although Ed and I are getting to the end of our Great Loop journey, to the panhandle we shall return.
So good night. Please wish us well on our journey across the Gulf. Ed and I look forward to “crossing our wake” in Stuart soon!
