Port St. Joe and Apalachicola

                             

entering Apalachicola

                                             eagles nest on channel marker

Apalachicola is known for its oysters.  It USED to provide 90% of the state’s oysters  and 10% of the world’s.  A couple of years ago the oysters started disappearing for an unknown reason. The oyster industry and economy here are dying.  They say the oyster production is down 60%. Some of the restaurants are now serving oysters only certain days of the week. Both Apalachicola and Port. St . Joe are now dependent upon tourism to survive.  We got all this information from the  friendly bartender in Caroline's restaurant that was right above our boat.  We went up there and watched the severe weather/tornado watch on TV, trying to figure out where it was in relation to us.
                                             

old oyster processing plant in Apalachicola

LOTS of oyster shells

               
                                              The Intercoastal Waterway    
       

The white sand on the beaches in the Gulf  comes from the nearby Appalachian mountains.  The rocks wash down from the west side of the mountains into the rivers, get ground down and end up on the beaches here as white sand.  The water from the Appalachian Mountains comes into the same streams and ends up in the Gulf here.  Locals say it is that water here which makes the oysters so special.

                                                                                 

Both Apalachicola and Port St. Joe are very tiny towns  with  cute shops and restaurants.  In Port St. Joe we rode our bikes to breakfast to a  restaurant that was recommended.  We got there at 10:30 (actually 9:30 to us as we just passed the time change line), it was closed, and they told us to get up earlier in the morning if we wanted to eat.  We ended up at McDonalds eating hamburgers as that was the only choice left.
                                                         

Apalachicola - we docked here for the night

  The old cemetary was pretty interesting.  In the Yellow Fever outbreak of 1850's the majority of the townspeople here died.  (New Orleans had 10,000 people die of Yellow Fever during that time).
                                                             

Bill changed the engine oil on the other engine.  We walked to town and carried 5 gallons (very heavy!!) of oil back to the boat for the oil change. 

At Port St. Joe we met loopers for the 2nd time on this leg of the  trip and had docktails and dinner with them. I think they were starved for looper company also as we were the only ones who have come through here in a long time and they have been there a month.