Mobile to Port St Joe

We had a fun evening in Fairhope the night before heading out.  We spent the evening at John and Donna Ballard's beautiful home on the bay, Michelle's friend Trisha's Parents.  Michelle was able to visit with Trisha as well as another close friend Ashley.  It was fun to see all of our kids get to know each other.  We had a very enjoyable evening!

We left Mobile early the next morning, even though we did not need to, kinda a habit.  I think a good one. Just before we entered the Intercoastal, the engine oil pressure spiked up, and the only thing I could think of was that there was an oil viscosity problem because the engine was doing it when we entered mobile. We paid a mechanic there to tell us, "gee I don know".  I thought about changing the oil, but it just didn't make sense.  I opened up the engine compartment and checked the connention to the pressure sending unit and tighten up the connection, wala, perfect oil pressure.  Lakewood Yacht Service had failed to tighten them properly.  With the oil issue behind us we were on our way.  We past Lulu's, which is Jimmy Buffet's sisters place, we are getting into cruiser territory.  The intracoastal opens up into a bit of a sound then.  We anchored with several "loopers" in Ingrams Bayou for the night, I would say the best anchorage of the trip to date.  There were dolphins jumping around us, and a great place to take the mutt to the beach.  The girls made sea turtles in the sand, and we had a very restful night on the hook, and a very happy 20th anniversary.

We left a little later in the morning, with only about 20 mile to get to Pensacola, and planning on spending a couple of days there.   We anchored in about 15 feet of water, well away from the cut, where there were about 50 boats anchored.  Our cruising guide said "local knowlege" is needed to get in there. 

The knowledge we have determined is to look for darker water and stay there- not to go to the shallow areas.  The Pensacola air show was going on.  We saw the Blue Angels perform two days in a row, and got to see a lot of the other aircraft from the boat.  Hard to get pictures

 We also toured Fort Pickens, making a lesson of it for the girls.  The interesting thing was not the barrel vaulted ceiling, but the fact that the floors are barrel vaulted as well to keep the fort from sinking into the sand.

The water is getting pretty now, and you can see about 5 feet down. 


We left early for Destin, which also requires local knowlege, but we were confident.  The trip was fantastic!  Emily wanted to fish, so we through out some mega jig, no luck, so we changed to a big lur, and within about a minute she had cought a fish.  We needed to determine what kind of fish it was, so we looked at all the books and determined that it was a Blackfin Tuna.  I butchered it immediately, and we put it in the fridge for the evening.  I use the term butcher, because it was not a Wallyee, or Northern Pike like I was used to cleaning. 

The wind and out speed picked up, so the lur would not stay in the water any more, so we switched to some tackle my brother sent me as a parting gift.  We left it out even though it did not appear to be doing anything.  Just as Emily got her lunch fixed, bam, another hit and another Blackfin Tuna. Plenty for dinner.  We blackened half and grilled the other half with a tereaki merinade.  We all agreed the blackened was the best!  

We got into the busy harbor early.  It was the busiest anchorage we have been at, and we had to anchor closer than I ever have, but I had confidence in the weather forcast of south winds, 5 mph all night and the next day, how could they get that wrong?  We awoke to north winds at 5 mph, but the 180 was not a problem. 

We left for Panama City early in the morning, and were making good time.  So about a third of the way there, we started considering Port St. Joe, another 20 miles down the road, so to speak.  We went for it, and ultimately, I think it was the right choice, even though you second guess yourself coming into a port in the dark with the minor problem of having to go to a backup running light.  The marina is great, and cheaper than Panama City.  We can walk or take one of the several courtesy bikes provided by the marina to the Piggly Wiggly!  We are contemplating our crossing to St. Pete from here, rather than a 100 mile trip to Caribelle.

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.

Morgan City to New Orleans

October 27  Morgan City to Houma- Then the Barataria Waterway
Left out after sunrise heading to Houma.  We were surprised to see many bald eagles along the way , about 35-40 in total!  Most were seen flying in pairs.  Really neat! The rest of the day was uneventful. The lock was open, and we made it though everything fine.   The number of bald eagles was incredible.

We came up to the city dock in Houma, and there was Texas Dreamer. They had stayed an extra day.  The only spot we could float was the end slip, and it was taken. So we went around, hit the mud, and tied her off.  I made a couple of trips to the convenient store, Watched a movie and went to bed early. Next morning, powered off the mud, went to the Barataria Waterway and tied up, does this sound like the movie Marely and Me?  Texas Dreamer anchored about 5 miles from the waterway.  I know this is a bit dull, but at least there are pictures on the blog.


Halloween
Set out and after we cleared the bridge, there was Texas Dreamer, right in front of us.  They took the lead today which is a good thing because we were having radio problems.  With about eight lift bridges and two locks to go, it would have been a tough day without them. The perfect day for going through New Orleans, no wind and very little current.  Last time it was running 6 knots, today it was about a half.  Spending the night at Seabrook Harbor tonight. We cannot get to Lake Pontchartrain because the Industrial Canal is closed for a year starting last week. 

Orange to Intercoastal City

October 25 Leaving Orange
Lizzy, Hannahs friend from Orange, came down to see us off, Davids windless worked perfectly, as I would expect from a master electrician.  We passed Honeywell early in the morning, and called Mrs Rachael to say hello to the Honeywell clan.  Planning to go to Bayou Lacassine tongiht, we had to wait about an hour for the Ellender lift bridge where another boat the Texas Dreamer, a 37' cat, was waiting too.  One of the two of us managed to get cussed out by a couple of barges. 

We started to try to anchor at Bayou Choupique, but it was blowing about 25, and if we had gone aground, we would not have been able to recover from it.  So we pressed on, following Texas Dreamer throught the lockes and bridges.  We tried Bayou Lacassine, same story as the last one, too shallow.  The sun went down, and I do not ever remember so much darkness.  We could not see past the bow, all we could do is look at the sides of the ditch and hope there was nothing in front of us.  We motored on, finding our way into the Choupique River where we anchored in total darkness.  About a half an hour later, the moon came up. It was quite nice even though it was still blowing over 20 knots.

October 26  On to Intercoastal City
I last checked the achor at about 4 am, and everything was fine, but we were aground in the morning.  I think it was a tide thing because we were in the same place as before from all of our bearings we took the night before.  The day was extremely windy again, but pretty uneventful.  Made it to Shell Morgan landing and fueled up.  Managed to dock on the windward finger to get fuel and moved around and dock on the leward side, with a 25 knot cross wind, without a scrach.  AAAAAHHHHH AC, power.  Changed the oil and the fuel filter, and a great night with AC.

October 22-23 Morgan City

Had our first rain of the trip over night in Morgan City.. it cleaned up the boat well, and the temperature dropped like a rock.  We did some chores, laundry, etc.



Sorry for the lack of postings.  Internet has been scattered, and we are still working through problems.  We just figured out how to compress our photos, so we'll be adding more soon. 

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! 

Moving Days

October 10^th The fun begins

We had spent the bigger part of six months packing and moving, so we did not think there was a lot left to do.  The house looked baron, and we had filled about 1/3 of our storage units with stuff, a 4 bedroom house is supposed to fit into one.  We began our final pack at about 6am and did not stop until 9pm, and it was just looking worse than it did.  Where did all of this stuff come from?  I took about 4 pickup loads to the storage, and it did not even put a dent in it.  I thought we might need some more boxes, so Michelle ran up to Uhaul and got there when they were leaving for the day, a near miss, we sure needed them.  Chicken from Popeye’s for dinner, they cooked it fresh for us.   We went to sleep exhausted.

October 11^th The Fun Continues; Another Day of Packing

We had loaded everything and took about 4 truck loads of garbage to the dumpster at the mini storage place.  Got the truck into the outside storage and loaded it up with outside stuff.   It fit and we were feeling ok, considering another 15 hour day. 

October 12^th Moving day

Up at 6 today, and went straight to work, packing, packing and more packing.  The movers from A1 showed up about 9, and they started loading.  Michelle went to find blankets to put in between the furniture once they started loading it into the unit.  It was not looking good when the movers began to pack the truck, so I called Michelle and asked her to stop at the mini storage and get another 10/10, there was one more available she drove home, about 2 minutes and looked at the truck and said, “your right, we need to get it.  She called the storage and someone had come in and rented it already, within 5 minutes! Had to go to plan B, we rented another outside storage area, and had to sort everything we had been putting into storage for the past 6 months into outside non climate controlled or inside climate controlled.  We got the truck back out, reinsured it, and started loading that unit with the stuff that could stand the heat.  By about 2:30 the movers were done, but we were not, a couple more trips to the mini storage.  Emily slept in the middle of the living room floor that night, and we had the only bed in the house.

October 12^th, Cleaning day

Up at five, and started cleaning after a couple of cups of coffee.  Start with the garage and go from there.  It does not look like a lot when there is nothing in the house, but it is.  Touch up all the nail holes, clean the base boards and scrub everything. The carpet people got to the house at about 11, we just kept cleaning: By the end of the day we were sore and exhausted, we left for the boat about 6:30.  We unloaded only what was really needed from the van and sat in the cockpit with a nice cocktail and a glass of wine and told each other how much we hurt.

Putting the last stuff on the boat ONE week to go in the house

We unloaded the last of the items we plan to bring along on to the boat this weekend, including our fold up bikes.  They didn't take as much room as either Michelle or I had thought, so we do still have some room on the deck.  The plan is to leave in about 3 weeks.  We are hoping to get to the Keys by Christmas.  Maybe stay for a little while there. 

A friend of mine at work gave us a parting gift last week of a Mai Tai's recipe and Yahtzee, along with some very nice hand towels for the galley.  We spent a good part of the day getting a few things around, and then headed over to the pool for an end of season swim.