New Orleans to Mobile

New Orleans to Mobile
Headed out a little later in the day because of a short run.  We were a little concerned with the weather, but it appeared nice and calm.  The railroad bridge took almost an hour, we are glad that is the last one for a while.  We passed the new New Orleans levee, a massive structure that appears almost the same size as the Delta Works in the Netherlands where we used to live. 

It is still under construction, but traffic has been established on channel 18. Its the first time traffic has contacted us, rather than us calling over and over to get their attention, they were also very polite. 



We arrived at the Rigolets at about 3, and set anchor.

 We were in for a rough night.  The wind picked up to about 30 knots after dark, we layed down about 9 and at midnight Michelle woke up hearing what sounded like the anchor hitting the boat.  It was.  The wind and the tide had balanced so that the boat was
headed down wind, in line with the current, and the anchor was under the boat holding the bow off the wind.  This is a funky place to anchor because of the current.  We moved Emily up font and I layed down, eyes glued to the chart plotter.  I nodded off several times, the last just before sun up, Michelle woke
me again, we were draging toward the intracostal, and almost in the channel.  A barge was coming.
We got our bearings and decided we needed to lift anchor, and reset it, in the darkness.  We managed to get the anchor up, in 25 knots of wind and got it reset without incident.
 
The winds are supposed to be gale force today, so we decided to stay here for the day.  It was a funny feeling in the morning, nothing I had to do.  School and to do lists, and a nap.  We questioned our decision in the morning the winds appeared to be much calmer than was forcast, Wunderground had prediced about
15, which would be fine with us.  About 10am, the wind pick up to gale force, and we were glad we stayed. I finished the Hunger Games, one of the girls books, it was interesting, kind of the Running Man from a girls perspective.   Calmer now, about 10, its time for dinner and rest.

Riglots to Mobile
We made good time getting to Boloxi and decided to stay at the Maritime museum.  A guy there said the tide runs 11 knots, not even close, it was only running about a knot.  They opened up the laundry room for us and we spend the evening doing laundry and watching another beatiful sun set.

We headed for the ship channel in the morning and hit the bottom right in the middle of the cannel, I guess that explains why the dredge was in the channel across from the marina.  We headed out to Mobile, one of the best days of my life, the boat was doing about 9 knots in the right direction, for about 8
hours, we thought we would make it to Fairhope before dark, but we were wrong.  The slog up the bay was rough, it took about 4 hours and it was rough, it got very dark when we arrived at Eastshore Marina on Fly Creek.  We came in slowly and found the slip we were assigned, it was a relief to be tied up.  The tide
was very low in the morning so the boat is hard aground, and up about a foot.

Some friends of Michelle met up with us the next day.