Butterflies and Dolphins

First Day Out

We left Palacios just after 9am, with South winds around 8-10. Our wonderful friends bid us farewell with happiness and tears. Eddie took his boat out with us to the first marker to wish us good-bye. I cried as my dearest friends became tiny specks behind us. We motored down the channel, as the South winds were directly ahead of us, making it impossible to sail. We averaged 3.5 knots with the engine in idle. I took a Ginger Root pill (Thanks Sue!) and put on my armbands to ensure I wouldn't get sick during this first part of our voyage.

This shrimp boat, Capt Tino, is well known in Palacios harbor as one of the few bay shrimpers left still shrimping.

It was neat passing him and having him come in behind us. Almost like a farewell from Palacios, the shrimp capital of the Gulf Coast

Unfortunately Benny did get sick and had his usual panic attack. Jack handled it well.

We turned on our GPS and used the chart to guide us near Half Moon reef, to cut into the channel. We discovered that after a few minutes the GPS went blank with a line acrossed it. So I went below and changed to new batteries. The same thing happened. I dug out our rechargables that I had used before with the GPS and it still happened. We had had this GPS for 4 years just for this moment and the first day out, it gives out. So we had to turn it off every time we got the lat and long. I recharged the batteries last night and I just turned it on and it didn't shut off. So hopefully it was just a fluke about the batteries.

On our way toward the waterway, we saw a lot of dolphins! They were jumping and flipping right in the channel fore and aft of us. I saw a dolphin jump at least 8 ft in the air! It was amazing! We also had a beautiful yellow butterfly guide us into the channel.

As we mosied down the waterway at 4.5 knots, Brett had me radio the tug boats to tell them we'd "pass them on the one" which means we'd pass on the right, just like a car. The first tugboat I had to do that with was not happy with me because I didn't give him our location even though we were directly in front of him. Then Brett had me radio to the Colorado River Locks and they seemed really nice and happy to have a woman on the radio. Then I called the swing bridge and they also were more than happy to stop traffic for the female "captain". LOL We got right through both with no delay.

We pulled into Matagorda Harbor at around 4pm, 8 hours from when we'd left Palacios. Craig (who I kept calling Dave) helped us tie up and we took showers. I was so embarrassed to get his name wrong because he was a good friend of Eddie.

Tom and Sue met us here and we had dinner at the restaurant here. I had been looking forward to the good food since we decided to head out, but my fish and Sue's fish ended up tasting like dirt. Literally. They made me still pay the $16.00 even though I couldn't eat either plates of fish they brought. So I had had a $16 plate of grilled veggies and dinner salad. But the company was great and that's what counts.

We walked the docks with Tom and Sue and then they left and we went back to the boat. I called my mom and we chatted for a long while, while opening her care package. We had some other cruisers invite us aboard their boat and we had a wonderful visit with them. George and Carol Remington. We swapped tips and tricks with them and are planning on meeting down in Isla Mujeres next year.

It was a grand first day out except our kitty getting sick. The boat did really well. Today we're heading toward Sargent which is closeby so we can tie up for free and spend some time getting things done on the boat. I want to pull into Freeport tomorrow but we are very afraid of the slip fees after Carol and George told us they paid $2.00 a foot for their 42 foot boat for one night at the new marina. But Freeport has a West Marine and I desperately want to get a few little things.