Polite Compromise

I have been trying to step up a bit and take on more responsibilities around the boat: handling sails, emptying the holding tank in the head, keeping all the hand-held equipment charged, learning more about the navigation systems, understanding all of the systems in the boat. Ron kept the water maker running all day to get us a full tank of water. So when he was finished and needed to close the equipment down, I offered to close the valve and shut off the water maker. Only, I closed the wrong valve and during the course of the evening - managed to dump ALL of the fresh water we had overboard. Aarrgh! All 90 gallons. The good news is that I didn’t break anything. The bad news is that we had to use the few bottles of clean water we keep for emergencies to make coffee and brush our teeth. Maybe I should just stick with taking care of the head. I think I can manage that equipment. Just call me “Poop Girl”…

Tropical Storm Colin has been moving around the GOM so we’ve been keeping an eye on the weather and trying to stay out of it’s way. We sailed from Pensacola and did another long hop and arrived in Port Eads, LA to tuck into their marina for fuel, to fill up our water tank, and rest. I actually saw an alligator swimming across the marina but didn’t have the camera ready. Loved this place! They treated us like visiting relatives and made us comfortable immediately (kept calling me Miss Karen and bringing me iced tea). There are no roads leading here so the staff (mostly college kids) is brought in by boat and stay for a month at a time - pretty remote. It is a fish “camp” and you can rent a slip for your boat, or a bed for the night - or both! No phone signal, but they had wifi!

We stayed for one night and then pushed offshore again to Grand Isle for our next stop and anchorage. During the night the boat rocked and bucked around quite a bit. We recorded 50 mph winds! TS Colin was making his presence known. The storm made landfall east of us in Florida. Next morning, we headed out and sailed to Cat Island Pass and started to make our way up to the ICW. We figured it would be more protected from winds, plus we would be able to get fuel/water/supplies if we needed them.

I love coming to Louisiana. Maybe it’s because we have personal/family history here. Maybe it’s the bayous, most definitely it’s the people. Whatever the reason, I always enjoy my time here. I took lots of photos from the back of the boat - of shrimp boats, oil platforms, sunsets, birds, mossy trees, alligators, mounds of floating hyacinth in the bayous, whatever caught my eye. During one section at DuLac, we had to call the bastille bridge ahead of us to ask for permission to cross. The radio operator answered and said to call him when we got closer. “Call when you get to the rich man’s camp”. Not quite sure what that was, we thought we had misunderstood and he said “Richmond” or something - so we watched the bank. The fish camps we had seen were normally shacks or old houses on the water edge. Just a place to go fishing. When we rounded the last bend, we saw what he meant. There were luxurious little cabins build on stilts, with concrete bulkheads, landscaping, and underwater lighting. (Kind of like Tiki Island?) Most definitely a rich man’s fishing camp. Later on when we heard a tug boat skipper on the radio saying he was just passing the “rich man’s house”, we knew exactly what he was talking about!

We spent an evening in Houma, enjoyed a quick visit with an old friend and made a stop at the Fluff & Fold laundry mat (we were starting to become slightly ashamed of ourselves…). Ron had used our satellite tracker to pull up a weather report and saw that it was clear on this side of the GOM. Light winds with small seas. Time to go home. Our last last stop in Louisiana would be going through the lock on the Fresh Water Bayou before heading back into the Gulf. We had decided to do one more long jump (133 nm) and get ourselves to Texas. Another overnight sail, but it was an easy ride with a steady wind. We reached the Galveston jetties around lunchtime and are anchored tonight in the Galveston Yacht Basin. The wake from the Bolivar ferry is giving us a little rocking and we are ready for a rest.

I'll write more later as we plan for the next trip.
-- Karen.