So many things to do, But HOT HOT HOt

It has been an eventful week. June 29th was the first anniversary of our departure from Muskegon. I can still see Meghan and Eric waving good bye. Of course we only made 30 miles of the 4016 miles in our total trip. Those miles are strictly on the water and don't include numerous road trips we took along the way.

This week Tom got our manual bilge pump working. We received the parts for the davit and he repaired that  numerous other small tasks. Friday he and Josh (future son-in-law) went to pick up our car in Fort Myers. He should be back by Monday.

I have worked at creating shade covers for the boat. Yesterday it was 106 degrees at 1 PM and our small air conditioner could only keep the interior warm. I bought some material and I am experimenting. If I can keep direct sunlight out of the cockpit and off the air conditioner it may work more efficiently. I also hosed down the boat as soon as the sun went down. That helped cool down the haul. I think the struggle will be staying cool this summer. 

I love our new home. Waterford Marina is sail boat friendly and has excellent amenities. We have a pool with it's own entrance to Sun Dance Grill. Sun Dance is our on site restaurant where members of the marina get a discount on food and non alcoholic drinks. They also serve pool side. There is plenty of parking in the shade, which helps a little. We are close to the laundry and shower facility, which are blessedly well air conditioned. They actually have four of these facilities on site so that most residents don't have to walk very far. 

The pier we are on is mostly live-aboards. I am not the only one who hibernates coming when it cools down in the evening. I have started to go to the pool around 6 and get in a good 45 minutes of water exercise most nights. 

This weekend I made two trips into Houston, to find craft stores and just explore. I found a fantastic bakery, Gourmet French Bakery http://www.fgbakery.com/ where I enjoyed their lunch special.

I also found Merribee Needlearts http://merribee.com/. What a shop, and customer service !!!! Karuna Snood helped me get threads, supplies and canvas to restart my Heron project. Her shop is filled with needlepoint canvases, and a yummy selection of yarn. If you are in Houston and a love doing craft projects, this is a must stop.

I also stopped at Nimblefingers and found a few things. 

Another adventure was the routing of the GPS. It apparently did not want me on any thoroughfare that did not have stop lights. I saw parts of Houston .... well they aren't in any tourist brochure. Also yesterday was Houston Pride day. I was stuck for 2 hours in a six block area where there was a Gay pride festival and parade going on.  It was a very interesting 2 hours.... to be honest I would have chosen another route if I had known.

We are spending the Fourth with Jennie and Josh .... Wedding plans continue.... I found my favorite Starbucks.... Life is good.

Tom check our dock lines

Cool Hands new home

Office is on top with a small meeting room, Ice Machine, Change
machine and letter mail for each pier is set out underneath.

Our laundry and shower building. Above each one
is a picnic area with a gas grill

Pool and hot tub area

Flowering trees, they are in Reds, whites and
a variety of pink shades. I still have not
gotten a name for them

One of the many birds that visit us. We have lots of fish 

My new cooking pot. It is a Thermos Cooker.You fix
your meal in the liner on the stove. Heat to 160 degrees,
cook for about fifteen minutes then remove and
insert into the thermos..... no electricity... no heat radiating
from the outside of the pot.
Depending on what your cooking, like a slow cooker, 4 to 8 hours
later you have a meal. I cooked beans and 8 hours later they were
still at 160 degrees, done and delicious. It did not heat up the boat.
HOORAY.

a Houston Traffic circle

4016 miles to Waterford Harbor Marina, minus one anchor

We woke the next morning to gray skies, pulled up anchor and started the long trek. We had 167 Nautical miles to travel to get to Galveston harbor. We finally saw the night lights, ship lights, channel markers on Sunday night and dropped anchor, hot, sticky, tired at 12:26 AM off Baffle Point.  We had a full moon that illuminated our way, the chatter of tugs and pilot boats calling out in the night, and we passed one other sail boat going east. 

We woke the next morning to a horrendous metal crashing sound. Luck... Anchor was stuck fast on something, we had drifted in the night. Luck... we were about 50' from oil rigs.  Bad luck.... we had to cut the chain and leave 100' and anchor behind. 

There are not a lot of options for stopping along the coast, or in the GWII. Most of the facilities are for commercial traffic and have no amenities like showers. You can imagine our relief to tie to our new home port and get warm, long, luxurious showers, wash all the salty clothes and bedding and get a fabulous meal in the Sundance Grill.

I will continue our adventures as we explore the area, get ready for Jennies wedding, and try to learn how to enjoy extreme heat. 

4016 miles in 360 days

Lost ... one feathering prop, transmission, anchor, computer

Found... life long friends... 

Discovered.... wonders, blessings, joys, courage, faith

IT JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER

THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES

sun setting in Gulf 

Full moon to show us the way

I wonder if this group would have warned us before we hit
this was about 50' from where our anchor finally stopped us

I love to see the birds lined up on the fishing boats
Waiting line for lunch

Porpoise riding the bow wave of a large ship 

you can make a boat out of anything.... determined to fish

arriving in Kemah

From Grand Isle to Belle Pass June 21st

June 21, 2013

Map of routeWe left Pirates Cove Marina early with the intention of going to Bell Pass and getting into the GWII through to Belle Pass up to Houma. We were hoping to avoid some of the large barges, bridges and locks by staying on the outside. We had a three day weather window so we left with great enthusiasm after resting up.
Going out we did spot several porpoise, however not in the numbers we saw the night before. We did have a few follow us for a short while, out of curiosity, but we weren't dragging a fishing net or tossing out scraps so they lost interest.
We crossed several oil rig field which have large crew boats delivering supplies, equipment and crew. One was going to intersect out path, and we decided not to play chicken with it and back off. I had the front hatch propped open about two inches.... disaster in the making. We have not encountered this large of a wake. The trough pulled Cool Hand down and into and out three times sending tons of water over out bow, and through that two inch opening. Good news, the bottle was knocked out with the second wave, bad news is water everywhere. Dirty, gritty, stinky, salty, Mississippi, Gulf water. My small trash can was full, cloths, blankets, bed, dripping soaking wet, and computer fried.
We stopped, for the night looking like a gypsy caravan with cloths, bedding and towels hang out on boom, and life lines.
The odd thing was the absolute stillness that fell around us. We also watched fish boils, I can't think of another way to describe them. The water roils in a patch that is at least 4' long and about 2' wide. Occasionally something runs through this bubbling patch creating a splash like wave. It is weird to watch.
We had a quite night. Tom and I looked at the route up the channel and listened to the barge traffic and decided with the weather window we had we would just go all the way to Galveston and not try going inside.

to be continued

leaving Pirates Cove

one of the many rigs we past

unbelievable calm, no one else around

small visitor 

we had a glorious sunset

for a while I thought I was having hallucinations because I
could hear voices. We finally spotted this tug pulling a work
barge waiting for his turn in the pass

fish boil

from Mississippi to Louisiana

We did it, we are staying tonight at Pirates Cove Marina on Grand Isle in Louisiana. We left Gulfshores Mississippi on Tuesday morning and went out into the Gulf of Mexico for 152 nautical miles, around the Mississippi delta and TA DA we made it.

  Tuesday was a little iffy. with some ups and downs. We did get to sail for almost 4 hours before the waves picked up and the wind switched direction.  I had propped open our forward hatch and forgot to check on it when the seas picked up. Several ( about 10+) gallons of water, sandy, salty sticky water, poured through soaking the berth and filling our bilge. With some scrambling we cleaned up, but it still fells a little gritty.  We finally called it a day and motored as close as we dared, dropping anchor in 19' of unprotected water off Chandeleur Islands. It was a rough night with lightening illuminating the sky all around us. 

Waking early to calmer seas, and very little wind, we plotted course for our next stop over. With all the Oil rigs out in the Gulf, many abandoned, we were strongly advised not to travel at night. There is a Safety fairway where there are no rigs, but all commercial traffic use the same area. Also fishing boats weave in and out and around the area, stopping at night even in an less than ideal spot, was the safer thing to do  We spent Wednesday night east of the South Pass into the Mississippi river, off Burrwood Bayou surrounded by large ships and oil platforms. 

Finally Thursday we entered Barataria Pass, and found a slip. We were greeted by Andy who helped us get situated and later he and his wife Sue took us for a tour of Grand Isle and we enjoyed dinner and excellent company.

Along Beach Highway several of the trees that were
destroyed during Katrina have been sculpted . They are scattered
from Gulfshores to well past Long Beach
These are just a few

Sun rise leaving Gulf shores, Mississippi

Look at all the birds lined up for dinner

sunset our first night

Ship emptying its ballast

Dragonflies came and visited us, This one stopped and looked
like he was doing a yoga pose

The closer we got to the Delta the browner, turned up  the water  looked
At one point I thought there was a beach, it was just the slit in the water

South Pass, Mississippi River

sunset on Wednesday night