On Friday night, we checked the weather and noticed a small craft advisory had been issued until 1am covering our area. This seemed strange because the forecast only called for 10-15 knot winds and 1-3 foot seas. Nonetheless we kept our eye on it. This morning the advisory had been extended until 7am, but we realized it seemed more focused on the area to our west. The weather forecast still looked to have favorable seas and winds (North, 8-12 knots), so we decided to head on to Pensacola as planned (though we noticed that a few of the models were trending to show an afternoon wind shift to the West...). We picked up the anchor at around 7am.
The seas were pretty calm and the winds were comfortable and from the North, so we were off to a good start. But the wind died down, came back up again, then died down. A couple of times in the morning we had to switch on the motor because we were moving to slow, but we kept the sails up and would switch back to sailing when the wind picked back up again.
At around 11:30, Jason and I noticed a strange looking sea creature over the starboard beam (towards the shore). It was brown and, how exciting! It was a loggerhead sea turtle!! It dove back down, but we could still see it through the clear water, then it popped up and looked at us before swimming away. We had really been hoping to see a sea turtle! This time I thought I caught a video but hadn't hit record. Ugh!!
By mid-day, we were experiencing low winds and what seemed to be a wind shift towards the west (the direction we were headed). We switched to motoring after lunch and ended up motoring the rest of the way because although the winds picked up again, they were coming directly from Pensacola. (Yes, it appears Jason's hard work changing the fuel filter paid off!). The waves picked up a bit, but not too much. Still, as I saw more and more white caps developing, I started having flashbacks to Thursday's trip to Destin. I decided to focus on setting up our hand line fishing setup to take my mind off of worrying. Check out Marguerite's article, Trolling, for more on that. Spoiler, we did not catch anything.
Also during the afternoon, Jason and I saw another strange sea creature on the starboard side. It popped up and we were excited to see another sea turtle. But it was black. A leatherback!! We knew from our visit to the Forgotten Coast Sea Turtle Center in Port St. Joe that loggerheads were common in the panhandle, but leatherbacks are not. Pretty special! Its visit was too short for a photo, though.
We decided to try and anchor in McRee Cove on the eastern side of the Big Lagoon, which several people we've met have recommended. Around 5:30, on our way into the bay and towards the pass into the lagoon, we bumped the bottom. There was a lot of traffic to navigate around and Jason got distracted from looking at the charts! No big deal... The cove looked pretty full of other boats, including at least five sailboats and another ahead of us heading in. But we thought we'd have a look for space anyway. It was not meant to be. When we turned south after entering the Big Lagoon, we hit a sand mound. Jason was able to extract us from it, but we quickly ran into another! Then another. And finally we could not get the boat free. We have a membership with Boat U.S. that includes free towing and, looking at the membership materials when we were having engine trouble on Thursday, I knew they also help with soft groundings. So we called them around 6pm. A little after 7pm, a tow boat arrived. He hooked us up and with the assistance of a passing motor boat's wake, he freed us! Our rudder was still responsive and we were not taking on water, so it seems everything is ok (we'll need to do more assessment...). 
Apparently these sand mounds extend into deeper water on the charts. And we were cutting it too close to the shallow marked water. The tow boat operator told us that when its bright daylight, you can see the mounds. But presently, the water is muddier than usual because they have had a lot of rain. He also gave us a landmark for entering the McCree Cove to avoid the sand mounds. And he gave us some advice about where we could anchor nearby (we'd given up on the cove by this point!).
We watched the pink moon rise, we were able set the anchor nearby, and finally we could relax. Also, because the water is hot from running the motor all afternoon (it heats when we are plugged into shore power but not when we are on solar only), we all got to take a shower. And the girls even noticed some fireworks far away over the city of Pensacola Not as extensive or close by as the fireworks in Destin, but still, I had to wonder if fireworks are the way to end a hard boat travel day.