Finally Florida!

Happy New Year from Pensacola, FLORIDA. We are at last in the land of palm trees, beaches and dolphins swimming around the boat. But try as we might to slow them down, Flipper and friends WOULD NOT stop swimming long enough for a picture.

We spent our last night in Alabama at Barber Marina in Orange Beach — a beautiful new facility with every amenity, but since it was finished right at the start of the Great Recession, there is basically nobody there.

Then on to Pensacola for a much-needed dose of tourism. Started with the Musuem of Naval Aviation out at the gigantic Pensacola Naval Station. I suppose for my generation the space program was the crowning technological achievement, but I have always been enthralled with the story of the development of aviation, and have done a lot of reading on the aviation pioneers over the years. So a good aircraft musuem is always a thrill for me. The Pensacola naval air display did not dissapoint.

Even lunch was fun. When they closed the Cubi Point Phillipines naval base in the 1980s, they dismantled the entire officers club bar and shipped it to the museum. All the plaques, memorobilia, stuff from the walls, it was all as real as the aircraft — and also great food.

Which brings us to Pensacola’s second most well known attraction — Joe Patti’s Seafood. It is basically this huge warehouse, where the fishing boats come in on one side, they throw the fish to the cutting tables inside, and then onto the ice where you pick out what you want. Plus there is a gourmet and wine shop with everything accompaniment to fish you could ask for.

So last night’s New Year’s feast was wild shrimp cocktail, fresh cauught redfish teriyaki, rice, slaw and Key Lime layer cake. A dash of crawfish etouffe for lunch today.

For our last act of tourism, we visited the replicas of the Nina and Pinta, visiting Pensacola over the holidays and going in for winter work at one of the nearby shipyards. Very well done and presented. They came down the Western Rivers from Chicago just the way we did. I can imagine the surprise of the lockmasters on the radio: “Okay, come on down, skipper. What kind of boat you got there, and what’s your registration?” “Two fourteenth century caravels, 80 feet each. Registration Seville, Spain.”