Ship's Log - Past Trips

March 2007: Gulf Shores, Alabama to Pensacola, Florida

We left the dock in Gulf Shores, Alabama, on March 12, 2007, for a 40 mile trip east to Pensacola, Florida. Leaving was bittersweet. We were so excited to be taking the next big step toward cruising, but Gulf Shores had been our home for a year and a half, and we had made good friends there, and knew we would miss them.

The weather was calm and mild, and on the way we anchored overnight in Ingram Bayou, one of our favorite local anchorages.

This was Magellan's first boat ride. She loved it!

Next day, we encountered headwinds and a contrary current that put us behind schedule for our haulout, so we spent the night in the water in a slip at the Pensacola Shipyard Marine Complex. Next morning, we moved Landfall to the haulout slip and she was lifted up and moved to the yard. It's a long climb up and down that ladder when you have to do it 20 times a day!

We are working hard on completing our out-of-the-water tasks, and Landfall should be back in the water by March 29th. Then we can start sailing locally in the Gulf of Mexico to stress and stretch the new standing rigging for a final tuning before we leave the area. But before we do, we have one last motorcycle trip to Key West scheduled for April 13-20. And then we will still have a lot of work to do--see our Work List!

By May 1, 2007 we should be on our way down the Florida west coast to the Keys, and from there into the Caribbean. You can view our planned route to roam the countries of the Caribbean Sea, through the Panama Canal to the Pacific Ocean, and westward around the world, on our Routes page.

May 20, 2007 update: The motorcycle trip was cancelled due to attrition of all the other riders--which was a good thing, really, since we had so much work left to do! And we did not get out of Pensacola on our planned schedule...

Other Trips

Click here for the story of our trip to bring Landfall from Olympia, Washington, where we found her, to Half Moon Bay, California. The next story on that page describes how Landfall got from Half Moon Bay to Mobile, Alabama.

Back to Current Log