Houston to New Orleans

October 14 -17 The preparation on the boat

Lots to do on the boat over the next few days. Got the boat bottom cleaned, worked on the AC unit for the main salon, it did not seem to be working, turned out to be a temperature indicator.  Got diesel for the backup tanks.  Installed a new AGM house battery, AGM stands for a Grand Mortgage, relating to its cost. 

Installed virus software for the main computer, which later turned out to have caused failure of our remote internet connection, which is why we have not been able to communicate over the start of our journey. 

October 20  The Dream Begins

Left Waterford marina about 9 am under beautiful conditions, all of the other cruisers came out to wish us off, along with my parents who took the picture.  We went through the narrow channel towards the lake where we met a large offshore power boat, who entered another channel allowing us to pass and then back up and entered the Waterford channel, very courteous.  Very little traffic on the ship channel compared to what we have seen.  The plan was to get to Stieves landing, an early stop, but we could not enter the harbor due to our draft of 6 feet, we motored on… the same story there.  We then called a bait store whose number we got from a sign on the ICW.  The very helpful owner directed us to the next marina which again was too shallow for us; however, another helpful gentleman directed us to a narrow cut between the intercostals and the bay, where it was about 12 feet deep, the only problem was that this was the main channel that fishermen used to get back and forth, we heard several swear words over outboards, but all in all a reasonable place to anchor.

October 21  On to Taylor’s Bayou

Started off about 7 am, all in all a mundane day, a few barges on the waterway, a few cows along the shoreline, then a great place to anchor, the girls had a day of school, and Hannah began designing our home for when we get back, I think they miss the space of our former home.

October 22 Bridge city and Orange

Since the trip is relatively short from Taylor’s Bayou we started off a little later, about 8:30.  I thought there would be a lot of traffic in the ship channel, turns out we only passed one ship, but it was a little creepy.  The wind was such that the ship, and the barges, were skewed so that we passed port to port it appeared as though we were going to be run over, but no real issues,  We passed through the Cow Bayou bridge about 1 with our friends house the Fults’s in mind.  As we tried to enter the cut the depth meter said no, and we had to resort to plan B.  We med moored to one of the homes bulkhead in the main channel, the anchor drug little at first, but it appears to be a good spot.  David Fults then drove me to the gas station to replace the diesel we had burned.  Several of my coworkers joined us in the evening and Ron even bought the girls, and us, pizza.  Thanks Ron!