Day-Christmas
25 December 2013 | Rigolets
Finally the winds let up to under 15 knots. The bad news was we were in an 80' slip with only 1/2 of the slip having a finger pier. The back half of the slip had pilings that the big boats used. Slowdown only took up the front half of the slip. That means we had to back her out of the slip into the wind without hitting the 2 sets of pilings behind us. Sounds simple enough (if it were a car). We spent 2 hours handling lines, getting Slowdown as far back into the slip as we could before we untied the lines. Did I mention it was freezing cold. Using a spring line at the bow of the boat running to the aft cleat on the dock and back to the bow of the boat and a stern line we cast off. Not sure exactly what went wrong. it could have been that 85' of line takes too long to pull in, or the wind gods were angry, or Ed didn't have the helm under control as he was backing out or some combination of the above. The crew and the boat survived without a scratch, however, the life raft mounted on the starboard side of the boat was kissed by the pilings. The life raft was fine as we had put a fender in front of it but the cradle it sits in got bent.
We were glad to be out of the slip and back on our way. We had a short day as we motored across Lake Pontchartrain and exited thru the Rigolets. The lake water was way down based on the reported bridge heights as we passed under I10 and I90 bridges.
We anchored just where the Rigolets meet back with the ICW. This was a very quiet secluded anchorage and we found a fixer upper if we ever decide to give up the cruising life....See pictures in the gallery.