Crooked Island, a little piece of paradise

It finally feels as though Winter might be loosening its grip on the Panhandle, I say "might" because as I write this the wind is once again blowing 25 mph from the NW (with gusts even higher). Last weekend though was glorious, calm, warm, and sunny so we went boating.


About 20 miles to the North of Port St. Joe there is a little anchorage right off the Gulf of Mexico that has been calling our name (however not loudly enough to entice us away from the electric heat, until now). The name of this little slice of heaven is Crooked Island, all fall and winter we have heard how beautiful it is, how great the shelling is, how deserted it is. Last weekend the weather was finally perfect for a run up to check it out and we were so excited to untie our dock lines and see for ourselves. Oh my it was all that and more! We headed out armed with the way points that the locals here use to get over the bar and into the anchorage, and in the company of our friends Ed & Lucy aboard their boat "I Love Lucy". Our plan was to rendezvous with another boat, "Sea Sea" coming down from Panama City and spend a couple of lazy days at anchor and enjoying the beach. I love it when a plan comes together without a hitch!


The sky was crystal clear, the sunsets were spectacular, the shelling was unbelievable. Part of the reason for the great shelling is that the only way to get to this beach is by boat so things aren't picked over by a zillion other tourists. We must have found over fifty sand dollars in just a couple of hours. After seeing the prices of these sand dollars in the tourist shops I sure think the name is appropriate.


An interesting thing about Crooked Island is that the North border of the bay where we anchored is part of Tyndall AFB. One of the things they do at Tyndall is to shoot drones into the Gulf. I thought they were doing this just for our Monday entertainment but Larry assures me there is a more compelling reason. The mission here is to train pilots to intercept and destroy enemy missiles and aircraft. From the shoreline on the North side of our anchorage rocket fired drones are launched out into the Gulf at subsonic speeds, planes then seek to intercept and destroy them. When these exercises are being conducted boaters are restricted from traveling in the "launch corridor"; this means that if you are passing by in the Gulf you must be some distance off of the shore. How far off depends on the instructions that they announce on the radio, sometimes 3 miles and occasionally as much as 12 miles off shore. Boats anchored in the bay must be on the far East end, if you are anchored to the West of their imaginary line you will be required to leave or to move farther East. If you are on the beach they will come and tell you to remain to the East of the "line". These precautions are to ensure that boaters and beachcombers are safe from harm when the booster rockets drop off, or in the event any of these devices crash as they are launched.

This was just another really cool opportunity that our somewhat unusual lifestyle affords us. I mean how many people even know this kind of thing happens, sure if you think about it it makes logical sense but I never actually bothered to think about it before.