I couldn't get away from Texarkana until almost 6 PM on Saturday, but I wasn't going to wait another minute, so Fuzzy and I immediately set out for Baytown. I'll admit to a bit of trepidation, it's a 5-hour drive, Fuzzy is demented and doesn't travel well and the old land barge is showing her age, mostly in a complete lack of suspension and very questionable brakes. But if I stayed in Texarkana and tried to wait until morning I knew I wouldn't sleep anyway, so off I went.

Bud had told me that he had thunderstorms at the boat, but I had 5 hours yet to go so I figured they'd be gone. The storms in Texarkana tend to be intense, but brief. I was listening to the radio on the way down and the programming was interrupted with a weather alert. There were intense thunderstorms just east of me with quarter-sized hail, 60 mph winds and lightning strikes. People were being advised to seek shelter. Fortunately the storms were moving further east, so I just kept on going. Just after dark I did hit periods of rain that slowed me a bit. The open road (4-lane through the country, not limited access) had a 75-mph speed limit. I couldn't manage that in the rain and dark with questionable brakes.

Fuzzy was in his carrier. I'd found he was more comfortable in that now that he's almost totally blind. The top was unzipped so he could sit up or stand and look out. He spent about the first three hours nervously looking out and turning around. Finally he lay down and slept.

I ran back out of the rain, made one quick stop for gas, and kept on pushing. As I got closer to Baytown I started to see lightning in the sky. I didn't see any cloud to ground strikes and hoped this was the sign that the storms had passed or dissipated. About 20 miles north of Baytown I ran back into rain and arrived at the marina at 11:10 PM in rain and wind. It took two trips out to the boat to get Fuzzy and all our stuff aboard.

The first thing I noticed, besides the rain and the wind, was that it smelled like the ocean! And because of that I found I didn't mind the rain and wind at all (that and because it was warm!). It was odd and a bit disorienting to be back aboard Earendil. Her interior felt damp (several new leaks had been noodled out by the driving rain) and small. But I was tired so I put down my stuff and went to bed.

The next morning was clear and calm. After putting away my clothes and things I found the boat felt like home again, and not too small at all. Fuzzy had to be watched constantly, because he insisted on coming up the 6 inch step from the salon to the galley, but couldn't see well enough to step back down, and kind of fell down, which might end up hurting him. We ended up having him sleep in the carrier.

Sunday afternoon Dan and Sharon Murphy from TYC came by with their son, Kevin. Kevin lives in the Galveston area, as do Dan and Sharon in the winter. We had a nice visit and they brought us a bottle of champagne to celebrate getting the boat to Baytown! It made being back on board all the nicer.

Bud was too tired Sunday to move the boat to her permanent dock. Monday the marina office is closed so we couldn't get fuel or pump out, so we didn't move her then either. We spent the time cleaning and packing, tending to potential leaks and getting our chafe guard and dock lines sorted. We had a lot of stuff to pack in the land barge. Based on the first leg of the trip, Bud had really stocked up for the gulf crossing. We brought back 6 cases of water (leaving two on the boat), seven 12 packs of beer (leaving about 4 on the boat), about 5 bags of groceries and a cooler full of frozen and refrigerated food!

Tuesday morning we found out that it would be unwise to come to the fuel dock until the tide came in a bit. So we continued our packing and waited. At 10:15 we gave it a try. We had no problem; our depth gauge read 7 feet at the dock. We fueled up, and it only took 40 gallons. Since they had used the 20 gallons of fuel in the jerry cans that meant the 800-mile leg from Marathon had only taken 60 gallons of fuel. When I get a chance I'll try to estimate the number of hours motorsailing and just motoring, but I think the fuel consumption of the Yanmar is definitely showing improvement.

It took us a little over an hour to move the boat and secure it in the new slip. Happily one of the live-aboards in the marina came over to help us in the slip, as the wind caught Earendil and Bud came in very crooked. We were all secured and packed and left the marina at 1:50 PM.

We were only at the marina a few days, but already we met three couples and one single guy with boats there (and there are only 22 boats in this 103-slip marina). That's one of the great things about boating. No matter how different folks are, they all love boats and are willing to lend a hand to fellow boaters. We have three people who will keep an eye on Earendil for us. And that is good, because now we're back in Texarkana, 5 hours away.