April 6, 2014 – Keys Log: Day 4 – Clean Plate Club

I heard a light little shuffle up on the deck, a gentle swish of a bag and then the warm scent of fresh-baked muffins filled the cabin …  Okay, they weren’t fresh-baked, they were wrapped, but the gesture felt the same.  We woke on Sunday morning to find the Sunday paper and the two darling little banana nut muffins laid lovingly on the deck of our boat by the friendly staff at Port St. Joe Marina.

When they say they are the “friendliest marina in all of Florida,” I have to say … I believe them!  We sat and read the paper, and drank coffee and nibbled on muffins all morning.  After two nights in a row of two-hour shifts at the helm, a nice, leisurely morning on the boat was just what we needed.

Yes, we took pictures of it.  We’re just that devoted to the blog … 

Around noon, or even a little after, we finally ventured out to see what the ole’ town of Port St. Joe had to offer.  We were thrilled to find beautiful, breezy walking paths around the marina,

a potentially perfect cove for kite-boarding,

a quaint little downtown strip with several quirky bars, unique restaurants and other delightfully tacky establishments.  Definitely our kind of place!

Now, I don’t know about you fellow cruisers, but when Phillip and I eat out on our sailing ventures, we like to try and scout out the little local places that offer food we can’t really replicate on the boat.  Something unique to that area, or unique altogether that we haven’t had in a while – like some great middle eastern food, or a decadent french meal, or some funky little taco hut that has a line around the corner.  Not knowing at all what we were in the mood for, we stumbled upon this colorful little Mexican place – Peppers – and decided it was definitely worth a go.

And boy, was it!  A hot basket of chips and salsa hit the table as soon as we did, and didn’t stop coming the whole time we were there.  A hot, piping basket even came out with the check that Phillip and I tried to wave off, but that we actually ended up putting a pretty serious dent in anyway.  We split the “California Burrito,” which was about the size of my right calf (yes, the right one – it’s a little bigger than the left).

It was bursting with flavorful beans, rice, corn, chicken, cheese.  You name it.  A perfect combination of savory flavors and crisp greens, and it was doused in this addictive queso.  It was awesome!

Clean Plate Club!  We are card-carrying members.

We made a few more stops on the way home to provision up (milk, cereal, coffee and the like) and scoped out a few more eateries for the next day’s outing.  We saw a pizza place that some folks at the marina had been telling us about – Joe Mama’s Pizza – but found it was closed Sunday and Monday, and we were planning to leave on Tuesday.  Bullocks!  But, in all, we congratulated ourselves on such a fortuitous stop.  We had never been to Port St. Joe by boat and we were thrilled we’d landed here.  Everything was within walking distance of the boat – bars, restaurants, the Piggly Wiggly.  Whatever you needed.  And, while a storm brewing in the Gulf is bad news for sailing, it certainly was promising for some awesome kiting in the St. Joseph Bay.  We kept an eye on the wind, hoping the storm would bring us some great conditions for kiting while we were there.

On our way back to the boat, we met some great fellow cruisers that were docked up right next to us – David and Mary Lucas on Liza.  David and Mary were headed down the west coast of Florida to make the cut through the Okeechobee.  We invited them over for sundowners, shared some tall boat tales (although our harrowing dinghy debacle seemed to take the cake – as it often does), cooked up a great grilled chicken salad for dinner and called it a night.