On Our Way - Day 2
26 November 2012 | Caney Creek
Trish
November 26, 2012 On our way… Day 2
Wow! What a day! We awoke to a gorgeous sunrise in Matagorda Bay. We decided not to stay in Port O’Connor as one entry in Active Captain said that it was so bad there, one might as well just anchor in the bay…so we did. We knew the winds would be calm and we were well out of the traffic channel, so all-in-all, we had a good night’s sleep. We left at 7:30 this morning and motored our way across Matagorda Bay, stopping in Matagorda to get fuel, an ice cream bar and to mail our sales tax check from the purchase of Mariah back in May. We had it in mind to overnight in a sweet anchorage called Chinquapin South. On Active Captain, it talked about a nice anchorage, out of shipping lanes, out of surge and protected from all winds. Just be careful to stay away from the east tip of the entrance as that is shallow. Well, we stayed well away by staying in mid-channel and before even entering the inlet ran hard aground. I guess we’ve earned our grounding stripes now. I stood on the bow and did the damsel in distress routine and a very nice elderly gentleman named John, in his flatbottomed little skiff with a 200HP MOTOR!!!! Came to our rescue. It took him awhile to find a place to tie the line as it is truly just a platform for fishing with a huge motor. He ended up wrapping the tow line around his motor and gave us a nice pull. Well, we turned…did a pivot in the mud…but didn’t get off. Once we got him on our bow now that we were turned in the right direction, another good pull and we were away. Oh, thank you Gentleman John!! We would have been there for quite some time waiting for Sea Tow…like days, probably, with all the huge barges going by day and night about 40 feet away.
So, we were away…whew! Of course, we were now a fair distance from Matagorda and decided to forge on rather than going back. Active Captain showed a couple more marinas about 10 miles ahead and since it was only 2:30, we went for it. I called ahead to the Sting Ray restaurant to ask if their dock could accommodate a 5ft keel. Sure, come on by, said Carla, the owner. With the sun setting behind us, we pulled in front of Sting Rays to find that is was a tiny, tiny opening. With recent groundings in our brains, we were very hesitant to pull right in, so we nosed in, got some good ole boys on the dock to grab our lines to pull us in and lo and behold, went aground…again. Only this time, it wasn’t too serious as we didn’t have our motor driving us onto the sand/mud. We nosed back out into the channel and a very nice (again) elderly gentleman named CJ told us we could tie up to his shrimp boat around the corner. We can stay there all week if we like, he’s not going anywhere . So, we got all nice and tied up…and then a barge came through about 40 feet away and Mariah acted like she wasn’t even tied on. Threatened to just move herself right on down the channel. Well, now we have re-tied her to the shrimp boat with spring lines and about 40 fenders (just kidding, only about 12) as we await the next barge and a fresh-caught redfish that a kid on the dock had just caught and said he’d sell to us for dinner tonight.
The shrimper informed us that his wife would be down tomorrow and we could all have a glass of wine together, that the restaurant (that won’t be open until Thursday) has wi-fi and the nice manager, Jake said that he’d open it for us everyday if we wanted. So, we’re all set and just thrilled with our introduction to how nice people are on the cruising circuit.
I can only post one picture per blog, hence the separate blogs, and this one is of a barge coming at us from around the bend. It's a bit like riding on the Riverboat at Disneyland by Tom Sawyer's Island, when another river boat comes around the corner. Overwhelmingly HUGE is all i can say.