Today the weather remained beautiful but the wind picked up some. We were traveling through the GIWW (Gulf Intracoastal Water Way) and the scenery was very beautiful. Lots of pines, cypress and swampy areas. We saw a fair amount of birds (eagles, osprey, pelicans, etc.) There isn't much in the way of development or boat traffic along the way, which made it very peaceful and gave a feeling that we were alone in our exploration of this waterway.

To get to Port St. Joe, you leave the GIWW and take a channel that has been carved out - with high sandy soil banks to the channel. It empties out into St. Josephs Bay. We stayed in a nice marina which was close to the small town. I was hoping to do some shelling at the beaches and there were some sweet shells but unfortunately they were all occupied:( It was interesting to go into the grasses on the beach at low tide and see an army of little crabs scurrying away when you stepped through the grasses. Kind of creepy but really cool to see and hear their progress as the scurried.

We had a limited bike trip through the area because the sidewalks were limited and the main street was a 4 lane interstate with no bike/breakdown lane. The town consists of one main street with lots of shops and restaurants.Because the oysters were so good yesterday, we opted to eat out and have more tonight! They were from Galveston TX again and were equally as delicious as the day before. Nice and plump, softly briny and absolutely no grit.

At around 10 in the evening, we were doing our evening ritual of watching one TV show (we are now enjoying "Seven Seconds") and we heard rushed footsteps on the dock and someone shone a light in our window. We then heard voices and Kevin stuck his head out to see what was happening. There was a derelict looking boat down a little further from us and apparently the owner had fallen off his boat between the boat and the dock and was hanging on to a line. He had yelled for help but we didn't hear him because of our TV watching. A man on the next dock over heard his call and was the one running down the dock and flashing the light in our windows. The man who had fallen in couldn't swim and appeared to have imbibed too much. He was petrified. He kept on saying he wasn't going to make it and we thought he was going to let go of the line. Kevin was able to get some life preservers under his back but he wouldn't let go to get one around him. I got another bigger horseshoe preserver, hoping we could slip that around him but that wasn't happening.

So Kevin propped him up further and kept a hold of the man's shirt while I got on the boat and down to the swim platform. Getting down was a balancing act because there wasn't a ladder or a door to the platform so I had to hang over and lower myself down hanging on from a creaky railing and my toes barely reached the swim platform. Once on the platform (which was partially submerged on the side near the dock) I was able to grab the man's feet and we were able to pivot him around to the stern and drag him on to the platform. It was a good thing the platform was submerged on that side because it made it easier to get him on board. The man was cold but not really hurt, except for some shin scrapes, and was able to stand up. I made him put a life jacket on and then he said: "How are we going to get back up?" The railing to the deck was above both of our heads and he appeared to be over 6 feet. Luckily we had a two-stair ladder on our boat and Kevin got it and we were able to get back up. Problem solved and man rescued. Quite an evening...and we went back to watching our show.

PS - the man that had heard the man in trouble was an older gentlemen and couldn't really help because he had a bad shoulder, he was a big help because he had a flashlight to shine on us while we were working to get the guy on board. As luck would have it the batteries for the flashlight were dying and the light kept cutting out but having the sporadic light was better than nothing:)

The rescue ended on a kind of funny note. When we got the man that fell back in the boat, he kept saying: "I can't tell you how much this means to me." The older gentlemen said: "I think we know."