Pictures, First then Blog

This one is long guys. Sorry. I do hope you enjoy our adventure with us, though…

I didn't have time to arrange pictures with the blog. It takes hours to do that and I am overextending my time here at the coffee shop. The pictures are newest down to oldest.

DAY 10 BOW TIE MARINA TO BAYOU LACCISSINE…TALENS FUEL DOCK
We got up very early to leave Bow Tie Marina. We had a long haul that day and wanted t start out early so we could catch the times the bridges would open for us. We made good time. We had a long delay at the locks but we got right through the bridges. We had made it there two hours sooner than Brett thought we would. He thought we were twenty miles from the locks at Bow Tie, but we ended up only being about twelve.
I radioed to the traffic we approached around corners all day. At one point, a towboat captain got on the radio after I’d announced us.

“ I SSSUUWWRRR do LAAAWWWKK the way she tawks!” the captain exclaimed in a deep, hoarse Southern’ accent.

Brett and I laughed and laughed. I couldn’t think of anything clever to respond with.
Later, I was below organizing cabinets and we started around a bend. A barge peered around the corner. I quickly announced us and then Brett glided us to starboard. It was a very narrow corner. We soon slid to a gentle stop as the keel made its way into the Louisiana mud below us. The barge passed and Brett slipped out of the mud as fast as he’d slipped into it. We felt bad that we’d not announced ourselves to the towboat captain earlier. They have huge loads and cannot stop or turn on a dime to get out of our way. So we got out of theirs.

During my time on the radio, I have gotten to learn a lot about barge traffic. I’ve gotten to know what a “six pack” is and “passin’ on the one, cap’n” means. It’s been like learning a new language, both in radio talk terms and their thick, Cajun accents. Every one of them has been polite and courteous to us.

We continued down the waterway, watching storms build around us. It rained off and on throughout the day but we didn’t have the winds yet that were expected from the hurricane West of us.

I took my turn steering and Brett sat forward on the deck watching the scenery pass by. I looked ahead of us and noticed a sailboat coming around the bend up ahead! It was sailing and it looked like a catamaran to me. “Brett! A sailboat! Take pictures” I yelled to him.
He took pictures of the beautiful sailboat coasting by us. The captain on the vessel waved and stared at our stern. Then he turned to his first mate and pointed at us. He went below and within a few seconds we heard him calling us on the radio. Brett talked to him. They were on their way to Palacios. Brett said, “Serendipity?”

They said, yes. They were the catamaran that Dennis and Truda had been waiting for. So we didn’t miss seeing it after all. It was funny. Very small world.

The wind picked up slightly and we had clouds building around us. We reached the Bayou we were to anchor in for the night. Brett slowly approached the East entrance as per the book said to do. The water quickly dropped and we soon found ourselves hitting bottom before we got twenty feet into the bayou. Brett skillfully veered us out of the soft mud and back into the waterway. We tried again at several spots but it was too shallow for our 5’8” draft…
We had already traveled for hours and there was nothing better until Shell Morgan Landing at Intracoastal Waterway. We’d get there way after dark. We were worried to anchor in the upcoming river. I steered while Brett searched for options. A few miles beyond the bayou, was a fuel dock that had been closed to cruisers twelve years earlier. As we approached them at dusk, Brett called them.

“Do you have a place we could possibly tie up for the night?” he asked.

They found us a spot to tie next to steel barge for the night. We thanked them profusely and made our way into the docks toward the steel barge. The anchor scraped the side of the barge slightly as Brett parked our boat next to the heavy chunk of metal. He took the dinghy over to the office to pay them for letting us tie up. They refused money, but we had to be aware that a towboat might pick up the barge we were tied to in the middle of the night. So we had to keep channel 10 on to listen for traffic. We spent the restless night safely tied at the fuel dock. It was good to have a safe place to be in case those 20-25 knot winds hit.

DAY 11: TALENS FUEL DOCK TO SHELL MORGAN LANDING
The next morning, it drizzled but there was little wind. We made our way to Shell Morgan Landing. The Leland Bowman locks were ahead and looked busy on the chart. There was a lot of industrial happenings just West of the locks.
With blustery, rainy weather, we made it to the locks and ended up behind two barges and a small towboat, waiting to gather in the locks. We had passed at least a dozen other barges, parked along the waterway near the locks.

With the rain pouring, we called the locks and announced our approached. They had us line up behind the small towboat, Miss B. The two larger barges slowly made their way into the lock and tied up. Then, the small towboat crammed itself up next to the two barges. We had gotten a red light so I called the lockmaster to see if they wanted us to go behind Miss B. The lockmaster was very grumpy and there was a lot of miscoummunication between everyone on the radio. The west side of the locks was stacking up with barges as the lockmaster tried to even everyone out on our side.

The lockmaster replied to us to stand by, that the Miss B was NOT supposed to charge up into the locks like they did. We could have fit behind the Miss B but they had us wait as the locks closed. Brett had to steer the boat in figure eights as the wind howled around us. We were in idle and there were no sails up but the boat continued to creep forward. The rain started pouring. As we sat and waited, I grabbed Brett’s coat. I prepared our fenders and lines as it looked like the lockmaster might have us tie up. Brett hollered at me to get back below . The winds had gotten pretty blustery and he didn’t want me on deck. So we sat for an hour, waiting for the locks to open. The West side of the locks continued to complain about having to wait for us to go first after these barges went. I couldn’t believe they were complaining about waiting as Brett struggled to keep the boat near the locks in pouring down rain.

Finally they got us through. As we left the locks, we spun in and out of barge traffic. The whole thing had been extremely stressful for me. We finally came upon Shell Morgan landing. The guy helped us get diesel and water. We maneuvered the boat across the way to the transient slips after buying charts for New Orleans. The store was closed for the week and the other store was two miles away. So we had pancakes for dinner.

We spent the evening studying the charts, planning our next destination. We could make an anchorage another forty miles away. The waterway guide mentioned Cypremort Point where there were a variety of marinas and stores. This was on the other side of the Vermillion Bay. There was a cutoff near us that we could take to get into the bay. Then we could sail all the way across the eighteen miles. With the storms hitting us, we weren’t sure what we should do. The marinas sounded like a good place to stop and try to work on the transmission.

DAY 12: SHELL MORGAN LANDING TO CYPREMORT POINT
DAY 13, 14 AT THE CYPREMORT YACHT CLUB
We were awoken by extremely loud engines and lots of wake rolling us out of our berths. I peeked out the window and Brett scrambled out of the companionway. The boat we’d parked right in front of charged out of the dock. It looked like a gas station on an Interstate with workboats motoring in and out of the fuel dock, just a few feet from our slip.
Brett went to talk to the dockmaster about the cut and getting charts to the Bay. The weather had cleared up. It was hot and sunny and calm again. We made our way to the four mile cut to the bay. My hopes of sailing for the day were crushed as the wind continued to blow right on our nose.

I scrambled up and down the companionway, plotting our course on the chart every few minutes with the GPS. I navigated us using the GPS and the compass with the chart. Brett was sceptacle as we turned toward the point, off the channel. We approached an oil rig and he decided to head Northwest instead of West. I continued to question our course with the course on the chart. The tides kept pushing us North, too. Finally, I plotted us near the next channel and found us way North of where we needed to be. I had Brett go below to confirm. He came up and had me turn the boat almost 45 degrees. We were close but had drifted a ways north with the tides. We could not see land and only had our tools to get us there. The wind had picked up to about 5-10 knots. It was a perfect breeze to keep us cool.

I reveled in my navigation skills and teased him about questioning my bearings. Soon, we could see the point. As we passed marker 12, a small stick for a marker lay dead ahead. We had been watching for a shipwreck somewhere in our vicinity and, with only eight feet of water, I was on the sharp lookout for it. I hollered at Brett to swing the boat “hard to port”. (More like, I frantically waved my finger to the left and screamed “Go over there, move the boat over there!”)

We missed the small marker. I looked back as Brett said, “uh oh”.
As he swung the rudder, we lost steering. He dropped the boat into idle. I checked our depth and we had plenty of water around us. He quickly unloaded the lazarette (rear locker) so he could inspect the steering cables. A mound of lines, lifejackets, heavy tool bags and spare parts were soon scattered around the cockpit. As he called out for a flashlight and tools, I scrambled up and down the companionway to fetch them. I started to pack the gear into the boat to get them out of the way. He took a look and unhooked the steering wheel cable. Then he took our boat hook and jabbed it into the emergency tiller box. He started the engine and off we went, steering our thirty seven foot home with a boat hook. I looked at the remaining junk in the cockpit and quickly started packing it below. I didn’t want to enter a nice marina with crap everywhere. I couldn’t believe all the stuff we kept in the lazarette.

We made our way toward the point. We had difficulty finding the entrance as we watched small Sunfish sailboats playing ahead of us. Finally, a small sailboat approached and we asked them directions into the marina. They directed us near the restaurant and asked us if we were part of an association. Brett said yes and they offered their yacht club facilities. But after asking us our length, they said we were too long. We made our way to the small channel and toward the Baypoint Marina that the waterway guide had recommended. There was no indication of transient slips anywhere. Brett steered our boat, boat hook in hand, through the docks but couldn’t find a spot to land. Then we were directed back to the front at the yacht club.
They all introduced themselves. Barry, the ex-pro sailboat racer who owned the little sailboat, Butch, the sudo-commodore lawyer and Chip, the doctor. The friendly men asked us if we needed anything and bent over backward to make us welcome at the yacht club. They told us that the Bayview Marina was a private marina, that there were no public facilities at the point other than the small fuel dock at the restaurant. We explained to them what the Waterway guide had claimed. They told us that Bayview marina definitely had no transient slips for overnighters. It would have been disastrous if these nice men hadn’t let us stay at their yacht club docks. We were several miles from anywhere and it was getting late in the day.
We spent three days at the lovely yacht club, enjoying the company of other sailors. Everyone was extremely generous to us. We had a couple, Tam and Beth, offer to run our errands for us on the mainland. They also lent us the Skipper Bob books we needed and gave us loads of magazines. We couldn’t believe their generosity to us. Beth put it simply. “When we begin our journey around the Great Loop, we hope that others will help us when we need it.”
Brett spent hours the first day fixing the steering cable but finally got it into place. He then tried to work at replacing the transmission seal but after hours of battle, couldn’t remove the part to replace it.

I spent my days between building jewelry and visiting with Butch, Barry and Beth. They had all hooked me up with internet. Barry had driven me to a neighbor’s house to use the wifi in his driveway. Butch had someone out to the point to fix the yacht club’s internet so I could use it. I spent a lot of time trying to catch up on bills and the blog and jewelry. Beth and I swapped cruising tips and books. We all discussed the recent barge/tanker collision on the Mississippi River and how it would affect our travels.

Everyone had really detailed info about the upcoming stretch through the Harvey Locks. We even had Tam’s son, Tommy, talk to us about crossing the Gulf, around the Mississippi.

Brett and I discovered we were not part of the association that they asked us about. We showed Butch our yacht club cards but he didn’t care. He promptly tossed the problem aside and invited us to dinner with them and the kids at the Sunfish camp they were holding.Brett and I couldn’t believe how nice everyone was at the yacht club to us, these strangers on a blue and purple boat.
On the second day at the yacht club, I had returned from Barry taking me to his neighbor’s to use the internet. I looked into the water at the bow of our boat.

“Look! It’s an eel!” I squealed. A second later, I heard a splash. I looked to the stern, and saw Brett clambering into the dinghy from the water! He had just dove into the water to check the prop when he heard me mention the eel. I laughed as his dripping body sat in the dinghy. He had heard me say the word “eel” and panicked to be in the water. I watched the creature swim off and Brett jumped back into the water. He quickly dove under a few times. After a few minutes, he climbed into the dinghy.

“Well?” I asked impatiently.

“There’s barnacles and I think I cut my hand on an oyster on the prop” he declared as he peeled off the swim fins.

Later, Butch confirmed that the creature in the water was a Gar fish, not an eel. It was pretty funny to see Brett pop out of the water like he did because of an eel.

The second night there, Butch invited us to lasagna with the kids and adults. After dinner, we rowed the dinghy to the store/restaurant/fuel dock/bar. We strolled around a few times and settled on some Breyer’s chocolate ice cream. What a treat to sit on our boat, eating chocolate ice cream before it melted completely away. I didn’t use to like ice cream till I met Brett. He introduced me to Baskin Robins and now we both are ice cream fanatics. We sat in the salon and savored every bite.

I got up early the third day and discovered the internet on so I spent most the day updating the blog. Barry’s girlfriend got on the phone with me in the morning and she ordered some of my jewelry. Then Butch also ordered jewelry for his wife. It was so nice to have people look at my jewelry and enjoy it. We needed the money desperately, too.

We spent the rest of the day, relaxing. I made jewelry while we watched movies. It was very hot and nice to stay inside the cooler boat. We rowed back to the restaurant/grocery store/fuel dock for more of the delicious fried chicken we’d had a couple days before.

DAY 15 and 16: 07/27/2008, 07/28/2008
CYPREMORT YACHT CLUB TO MORGAN CITY
We got up, not so early, and planned our day for leaving. I listened to the weather report and discovered a heat advisory for our area. The waves were cresting and it was windy, too, out in the bay. After tossing the decision back and forth to leave, we decided to head out. We didn’t want to wear out our welcome and the weather was to only get worse throughout the week. We headed out into the choppy bay, both of us scared of the rolling waves crashing through the narrow channel. But Brett, once again, drove us expertly out of the channel and we rolled and pitched toward the markers.
I ran around lashing things down. Benny got sick right away and then went to sleep. I took every remedy I had that was natural and non-drowsy as I plotted our course. It was a sunny day but the waves were rolling. The boat performed beautifully over the ways, surfing her way toward her destination. We didn’t have to fight the wheel to keep her on course and she glided through the waves. With her narrow bow, she glided through the waves rather than pound through them. It was the most wave action I had been through with her. After awhile, I even took the helm. At first, I had to be careful about overcorrection. I had to steer toward the waves so they didn’t roll us off course. Soon, it was easy to get into a rhythm. I always am reminded of how thankful I was of the practice I had had in Matagorda Bay on Eddie’s boat an Charl’s boat. The experiences on their boat built my confidence and I wasn’t scared to steer our boat through these small waves.

As soon as we neared the waterway, I called Mom and Sue to let them know where we were at. I text Charl and Travis as well. It got hot quickly. We motored down the waterway, anxious about our approach of Wax Fall Outlet at the “The Jaws”. We were told the currents here were brutal. I announced our crossing to ensure no other barge traffic was coming through while we were.
The boat continued Eastbound with little resistance by any current. We made it through easily and without any problem. Brett breathed a sigh of relief. He had expected us to be pulled out into the shallow entrance of the Vermillion Bay through “The Jaws”.

We continued on, enjoying the beautiful scenery around us. The trees were so gorgeous. But trees also meant floating logs so we had to keep a watch for any debris in the water.
We approached the area I was so nervous about. There were radio checkpoints between mile 102 and mile 92. I had to coordinate with the Berwick traffic on where we were. We called way too early but everything went smoothly. Brett assured me that even if I was a little off on when to call, it wouldn’t be a problem. They just wanted to know where we were at for traffic purposes. They were extremely nice and helpful and helped guide us into the marina city docks.
At the second checkpoint, the Berwick traffic operator asked me over and over to spell the name of our boat. “B, as in boy, E, N, as in Nancy, E, V, as in victor, O, L, E, N, as in nancy, C, E” I slowly spelled out for him. I started to mess it up as I spelled slower.

Brett and I disagreed on where the marina was, so I called the marina and asked them directions. It was where I thought it was. Brett was wrong again with navigation. It was so nice that navigation fit me. He could steer and be captain and I could be the navigator. We made a good team.

The Berwick traffic operator asked me all about our boat and where we were from and headed. He was very nice and talkative. Finally, a towboat captain interrupted to remind the operator to get back to work.

As we approached the railroad bridge, I called the operator again and he gave us detailed instructions on how to get to the docks. He asked us (me) how long we were staying in Morgan City. I told him two days. There was a pause and he glumly said, “Oh , okay. Enjoy your stay in Morgan City.“ It was funny. It was like he had hoped we would stay in his city and enjoy things longer.

We were approved to go under the train bridge to the docks. We paralleled parked between two shrimp boats. The pilings were huge and there were no cleats. With some work. We got our boat secured. We had traveled almost eleven hours and approximately forty to fifty miles. The miles logged meter was in discrepancy.

The wakes proved to be bumpy ever half hour or so at our dock. We walked down to the box to drop our payment off and noticed that the pleasure craft docks were further up the docks and had cleats. Oops. It was late so we ate eggs and bacon while I called Mom.
The next day, we both had trouble getting up. The rolling waves from wakes and the river kept us up a lot of the night. It was to be another record breaking hot day. We slogged around, trying to get energy to do anything and go anywhere. We finally meandered to the hardware store, just on the other side of the seawall.

We decided to stay one more day to give Benny a break from the hot weather. I was relieved as I was extremely tired. I worked on the blog throughout the day. Brett and I walked to the nearby restaurant and had lunch. Then we walked to the main street and found a gas station with cigarettes, chocolate and water.

We went back to the boat and both took naps. It was a slow, relaxed day after the long day we’d had before. In the evening, we walked around the historical part of town, trying to find another restaurant to eat at that was open. The only one open was near the boat and looked very fancy so we headed back to the main street to a fried chicken shack.

We could tell that Morgan City was trying hard to pick up the tourism. They looked seedy from the docks, but crime was actually very low. Just outside the seawall, there were beautiful historical buildings and houses.

DAY 17: (07/29/08)
MORGAN CITY TO HOUMA
We got up early to start out in cool weather. We had to make a bridge at a certain time, too. I got Brett up and we prepped the boat to leave. I called the Berwick Traffic to announce our departure. He said a barge was coming through Southbound and we were to fall in behind him through the railroad bridge.

It was perfect timing, so we followed the barge and then headed East as the barge continued South. We quickly passed our checkpoints and made it the Bayou Boeff (buff) locks. We entered the locks behind a large barge without waiting. We coasted through the locks with no problem and continued to head East. The day was perfect so far. Our obstacles went smoothly. The day was clouded over and cool. Brett had made a good decision to wait until the next day to leave Morgan City. We knew we had a long day. Brett increased the boat’s speed to over 6 knots. We hadn’t run the engine that hard since we left. It seemed to like that speed. The vibration lessened and the engine was actually cooler. We surged along the beautiful scenery. I organized the nav table cabinet and then came out to steer. Cypress trees, with their “knees” just above the water surrounded us. The water turned a beautiful green. It was lovely. I took all kinds of pictures.

We had a barge in front of us after the locks and it took awhile to pass him. He wouldn’t answer our radio calls even though other barges notified him of our attempts. We finally blew our horn twice (passing on the two whistle) and proceeded to his port side to pass. As we begun to pass the towboat, he called us and asked us if we’d like him to slow down. I said that that would be great and he politely slowed down and asked about where we were from and where we were going. Butch had said that if you don’t say their name right, sometimes they won’t answer but I had heard other barges call him with the same name. But he was very nice and we will never know why he didn’t respond to our calls.

After a few hours, I began to notice that the batteries were still low. I switched the Perko switch to ALL to try and charge both. We turned the inverter on so we could run the computer. The chart program we’d loaded on here before we left was all we had to guide us down this part of the waterway so it was imperative to have the computer on.

Pretty soon, I heard an alarm. I was steering so I had Brett go below and we found the inverter alarm on. It confirmed that are batteries were indeed low, even with the four hours of running the engine. Brett said he thought it was because of everything we’d been running but I disagreed. We weren’t running anything more than we usually do when the batteries stayed at thirteen on the voltmeter The voltmeter was reading 11.9 now.
We turned everything but the computer off but the batteries remained low. We knew there was a problem somewhere but would deal with it when we docked.
We continued down the beautiful waterway, enjoying the cool weather and scenery.
We soon approached the Houma bridge, two hours earlier than predicted. Our faster pace had benefited our timing with the bridge’s rush hour. After a short wait, we were able to get through and on to Houma.

The narrow channel lead through town. It was heavenly to see manicured lawns and flowers again. And green water instead of brown.

We approached the twin bridges that the marina sat under and saw a barge headed toward us. We called him and told him we’d wait till he passed before making our approach to the marina. We pulled up and slid into our slip. It was still a beautiful day and everything had gone smooth. I called Mom to let her know we’d gotten there.
After setting us up and pumping out the very full holding tank, I set off on the bike to town. It looked safe here. I was anxious to see the shops nearby, scope out the coffee zone where there was internet and check out the post office to see if I’d gotten my jewelry package mailed here yet.

The rain had soaked my bike’s seat and my short were soon drenched on the bottom. When I arrived at the post office, I tied my jacket around my waist to cover the wet spot. I mailed out some letters and jewelry. My jewelry order had arrived already. I had not brought ID but she gave it to me anyway since my name was on the envelopes I was mailing. I headed back down the other way toward Main street. I discovered a Chinese restaurant. We hadn’t had Chinese in months! I discovered the Coffee Zone which closed at four o’clock and many other neat shops on my way back to the boat. The hospital was across the marina, too. I found many medical centers along my route. This would have been an excellent source of work for me. I felt at home instantly in this town. It seemed about the size of Springfield and felt much safer than the other towns we’d been in. But the marina was for short term only and it would be hard for Brett to find work here.

I spent the rest of the day napping and reading my book. At dinner, we shut up the boat and walked back to the Chinese restaurant so Brett could look around, too. The food was excellent and it was a really nice looking restaurant. The prices weren’t too bad. I actually relearned how to use chop sticks. I hadn’t used chop sticks since I was a little girl.

We spent the evening studying our books. We decided to watch a science fiction movie, called, “Virus”. I had forgotten what a bad script they had. It was on ships and it was about electric aliens taking over a ship and the crew being built into robots. It had me anxious so I asked to watch a different movie so I didn’t dream about Virus. So I found the perfect one. “Short Circuit”. LOL. Perfect sequel to VIRUS.
We both fell asleep during Short Circuit. We slept well for a change.

And now we are caught up!

Thanks for sharing our adventure with us. I would love any emails and I’ll get on the internet when I can.
Love- Kyla (and Brett)