The beginning of our voyage....from Kemah, TX to Wax Lake, LA

It is hard to believe that it has only been nine days since we left Kemah. The last week has been filled with excitement, boredom, and many new and sometimes trying experiences. Here is a quick recap.

 

February 27^th – Hooray! We finally left the marina and officially began our voyage. We meant to leave at 7am, but last minute tasks delayed us until 10:30am. We went south through Galveston Bay, took a right into the Houston shipping channel, and then a left to enter the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). We decided to take the ICW, which is a system of rivers, lakes, bayous, etc. that runs from Texas to Florida and then up the east coast, since weather offshore was not looking good. We finally arrived at our anchorage spot (Taylor’s Bayou) at 2am. After battling 20 knot winds, dragging our anchor all over the bayou, and four tries, we finally got the anchor set. It was our first time to anchor, and I sure in the heck hoped that it would not always be that difficult. We fell into bed at 4am extremely exhausted.

February 28^th – We slept in and decided to stay put in the bayou for the night. Motoring on the ICW at night is not fun since HUGE barges pushed by tug boats are your constant companion.

March 1^st – We needed to get fuel, pump out, and refresh our water supply so we headed for a marina in Port Arthur, which was located on the north shore of Sabine Lake. About half way there, a thick fog rolled in, and visibility was less than ½ a mile.  Luckily, we were on a stretch of waterway that had no traffic. At one point, I was sitting up at the bow trying to look out for obstructions, and David was driving. We heard this huge splash on our starboard side (right side when facing the front of the boat) and looked over not knowing what to expect. There was a lone dolphin that broke the surface, and I was very surprised to see one in this area!  We only saw it once before it swam away. Soon after, we decided to anchor in the middle of the lake since continuing in the fog was too risky.

March 2^nd – We got up early since we had a long way to go to reach our next anchorage, Bayou Choupique in Louisiana. We arrived at the marina and a nice man by the name of Robert helped us dock since the wind kept blowing us away. We chatted for some time, and he gave us advice about where to stop along the way since he’d been on the ICW several times. He even offered to give us a lift into town if we needed any supplies.  I am still amazed by how nice people in the boating community are! After having issues with the pump out (which Robert helped fix), we were finally on our way again. At this time, I was thinking that nothing else could go wrong because we seemed to be having difficulties pop up every day. Boy was I wrong! Fog started to set in again around dusk. We were already a few hours off schedule and wouldn’t be at the anchorage until 9pm. Before we could get to our spot, we would have to go under a draw bridge. The height of the bridge is 50 feet so we wouldn’t fit unless they opened it for us. We were rounding the bend right before the bridge and called the people who control the bridge on the radio to open it for us. We didn’t get a response, and a feeling of dread set in. We heard back on the radio from a captain of a tug boat that we have to call LA transportation department and give a four hour notice to have the bridge opened. Great. This was not in the coast pilot! We had to turn around and embarrassingly go back the way we just came. We anchored between two barges on the bank of the river and called to have the bridge opened. I slept, David drank a lot of coffee, and then it was finally time to go back to the bridge, which we were told would open at 1am. Thankfully, someone was there to open it for us. We passed under it and got to our anchorage in less than 15 minutes. There were no issues anchoring, and we fell into bed exhausted again. As David looked back over the coast pilot the next day, he did find the detail about the 4 hour notice buried in the coast pilot. Now we know to read it over completely before we leave.

 

March 3^rd – In the morning, we had to reset the anchor since the wind had shifted unexpectedly, and we were pushed aground. To do that, David got in the dinghy and physically moved the anchor from one spot to another. We then pulled on the anchor rode, which would hopefully move the boat out of the mud. It worked, and we were securely anchored again! We stayed there for the night since it’s supposed to be another foggy night.

 

March 4^th and 5^th – We left by 7am determined to get to our next anchorage before dark. It was only 40 miles away and would take us about 8 hours to get there. Finally, the sun was out, the temperature was warm, and the wind was blowing in the right direction. We motor sailed and were able to average 6 ½ knots, which was our fastest speed so far. It was a nice, relaxing ride, and we arrived in the Mermantou River around 2pm. Perfect! We knew that a cold front was sweeping through the area that night, and David had chosen this place since it would provide us protection from the wind. Everything was great until we were woken up by howling wind and slapping halyards at 2am. I tried to go back to sleep and had crazy dreams about sinking boats. We were woken up again around 4am by an anchor alarm that told us the boat was moving. The anchor had slipped, and we were being pushed into shallow water. We dressed in a hurry to go reset the anchor. Once we stepped outside, the full force of the weather hit us. It was bitterly cold, the wind was blowing between 30 and 40 knots, and sea spray was constantly coming over the side of the boat.  Between the time the alarm had gone off and going outside, the boat had been pushed into mud. The boat had also turned, and the wind was now coming directly over our port side. With the wind pushing on the top part of the boat and the ground pressing on the keel in the opposite direction, we were heeled to starboard at an alarming 30 degrees. The water was just inches below the deck on the starboard side. I was a ball of nerves since I had not been in bad weather conditions on a boat before. David went to the bow and tried to pull us out of the mud by pulling on the anchor rode. He was unsuccessful at pulling us out, but the anchor dug in so at least we weren’t being pushed further into the mud. We weren’t giving up though! Next we took off our dodger and bimini to reduce windage. Just after that, the frame that holds up the bimini and solar panels started to come apart, and we frantically tried to put it back together while trying to stay balanced in the cockpit. Once the frame was secure, we tried again to pull the boat out of the mud but had no luck. Since we weren’t able to pull ourselves out, we decided to hunker down and wait until the wind died down. To make things more comfortable and to keep us from getting pushed further aground, we moved whatever we could from the starboard side to the port side to counteract the heeling forces and try to level the boat. As we were sitting in the salon getting some rest, I told David that it was officially the worst day of my life!

 

March 6^th – After an hour or two of some complicated maneuvering, David was finally able to pull us out of the mud, and we were on our way. He will write a detailed blog entry later to explain how he was able to get us out. He is awesome! We had an uneventful day and docked at a small bare bones marina for the night.

 

March 7^th – We left early and headed for our anchorage in Wax Lake Outlet. As we were motoring along, I noticed a pelican flying low to the water behind our boat. He flew to our starboard side and gracefully landed in the water just as he reached the back of the boat. He sat in the water for five or ten seconds before repeating this exercise. Apparently he was scoping us out and decided that we were harmless enough because on his fourth flight to the boat, he landed on the side of the boat right by the cockpit and right by me!! I was a little nervous (or maybe a lot since a few small screams came out of my mouth) and moved over to the other side of the boat. He was two feet tall, and I was a little intimidated since I wasn’t sure what he would do. He just sat there looking back and forth at David and me with brown inquisitive eyes. He seemed completely at ease with us. I am assuming that he had done this a few times before and was looking for food so I got some of David’s sardines to feed him. At first I tried putting a piece on the deck, but he couldn’t pick it up with his long bill. I then held a piece out to see if he would open his mouth and let me hand feed him. This worked once, but it was a little awkward putting food in his bill. He flew away and started repeating his earlier exercise by landing near the back of the boat. I would throw a piece into the water, and he would try to snatch it up. This went on 5 or 6 times until I ran out of sardines. He kept coming back several times until he realized there was no more food. What an experience!

 

 

 

Today - We are anchored in Wax Lake Outlet and are reviewing our options. The original plan was to sail close to the coast and make it to Florida in two weeks. However, we chose to take the ICW since the forecast for offshore weather wasn't good last week. This route has slowed us down, and we haven't covered as much ground as we would have liked to. The weather offshore seems to be improving though, and we will hopefully be able to head back down to the coast in a day or two.