Sea Scouts Ship SouthWinds 100 of the Atlanta Area Squadron recently completed a sailing adventure in Saint George Sound and the Gulf of Mexico near Carrabelle, Florida. Ship 100 was founded in 2008 and completed our first trip to Florida in 2009. We’ve continued for nearly every year since then, short of a year or two when gas prices rose over $4/gallon.
The Activity Chairman and Ship plan months in advance for boat preparation, menu planning, condo/slip reservations, GPS waypoint plotting, and chart review. We typically sail Catalina 22s, which are trailered easily. Stepping masts gets easier on each trip, too. Ship 100’s fleet includes six Catalina 22s and we find them easy to sail with a crew of two to as many as five on board.
This year we left early Saturday morning on our Spring Break and headed south with boats in tow. Our destination was the Moorings at Carrabelle, which includes a boat slip with each condo rental: one for females and the other for males. We got boats set up and splashed the evening we arrived so we could get an early start the next morning. We scheduled three days of sailing in the Gulf of Mexico and in the sheltered Saint George Sound behind two barrier islands: Dog Island and Saint George Island. The Ship was able to sail two of the three planned days.
Read the full account of the trip here, including lighthouse tours, dolphins, and lots of sailing!