We left Turner Marine in Mobile Alabama on Thursday March 4th around 10 AM. We did an overnight run to Panama City Florida. It took us about 27 hours. The weather was pretty good for the trip. The wind was pretty low when we left so we had to motor sail down Mobile Bay. After exiting the bay we took a left and sailed a straight line right into Panama City channel where we tied up at the Panama City marina.
We had some auto pilot problems on the way. The fluxgate compass would not hold a course. I called the factory and they thought maybe it was having some magnetic interference. I did add some additional chain in the chain locker and that could be the problem. We moved that chain to a locker on the starboard side of the main cabin.
On Saturday we decided to leave for either Port St. Joe if the auto pilot was not working or head to Clear Water if it was. The pilot worked perfect so we headed south to a point 46 miles from Panama CIty to miss some shoals before turning southeast. After exactly 17 hours the pilot started doing S-turns again and then failed completely. We had to hand steer around the clock for the next 31 hours. You can't believe how hard that is when you have no land to point to. Luckily the wind was not to strong and the seas were fairly calm. The trip to Clear Water took a total of 48 hours. We had to slow down some at the end so we could run the Clear Water pass in daylight.
We will stay in Clear Water for a few days. I am ordering a new fluxgate compass and we are having another friend, David Dunagan, join us for the rest of the trip to Marathon. We hope to leave here Saturday weather permitting.
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