Day 2-355 back HOME -that says it all...

     We departed the Galveston Yacht Basin at about 7:00 am in 15-18 mph winds with gust of 25+ out of the northeast. Our trip to League City was 28.7 miles with about 2/3 of that in the Houston Ship Channel. These conditions are within our comfort zone, but in retrospect, we should have waited until later in the afternoon when the winds had died down to about 5-8 mph. However, hind sight is always 20/20. The ship channel at Galveston runs east-west between Galveston Island and Pelican Island to the north. Thus, we had been underway about 15 minutes before we rounded the corner of Pelican Island and could feel the true effect of the wind. The AIS had at least 30 vessels plotted in our general area. Fortunately, at least half of those were tows "parked" along the GICW waiting for the winds to die down before they headed up the ship channel to Houston.  It takes about another half hour to pass the GICW crossing and the turn off to Texas City. At that point all of the turning and cross traffic is behind you, and we could settle into the routine of staying out of the way of the commercial traffic in the Houston Ship Channel.

      We passed three ships coming toward us in the sip channel as well as about 6 tows. That is the easy part since on a clear day, you can see them coming for many miles and have plenty of time to move over to the side of the channel. The picture at the right shows the Ocean Aquarious about to pass as she heads out the ship channel. I said that you have plenty of warning with approaching ships, but I did not say that one is ever prepared for how big they are or how fast they are going. In this case we were closing at about 30 mph...

      The picture at the left shows the outbound HS Carmen about to pass. Both of these pictures give you a good idea of the waves. Although we were inside the channel markers, we were pretty much at the red markers on the east or in bound side. Generally, we record about 26 feet of water in the channel, but along the sides it gets shallow very quickly. I'm not sure what the average depth of Galveston Bay is, but we rarely see more than about 12 feet of depth minus 4 feet for our draft. So, with shallow water the waves cannot get very high, but they can be steep and close together.

     Okay, so ships and tows coming toward you are easy to see in clear day light, but as the skipper, I need to keep a lookout for ships coming up astern of us. This is a necessity since they are closing from behind at over 25 mph and can "sneak" up on you if you are not careful... Fortunately, the Admiral is much better at checking astern than I am, which helps a lot. The picture at the right shows the Nordic Ann about to pass us. She is going into the wind, and you can see the spray flying in continuous sheets  15 to 20 feet in the air.

      There are a number of places where we could leave the ship channel and head for the entrance to Clear Lake at Kemah, Texas. We chose to say in the ship channel until we could turn and have the wind almost directly from the stern. After the turn, we noticed that the dingy had partially torn loose and was about to fall off its davit on the swim platform. We slowed down and were able to pull her partially back on board (picture at left), and thanks to the Admiral we secured her with several dock lines. Not a perfect fix, but it was good enough until we reached our dock. The photo may look strange since it was taken from the flybridge looking down at the dingy.

      Earlier we had heard an announcement by the Coast Guard that the Lakewood Yacht Club was having sailboat races just off the Kemah Channel starting at 10:00 am. So, we wove our way through about 40 sailboats as we headed into the Kemah Channel.  Fortunately we made it into the channel before the racing started (picture at right). There is a power boat headed out the channel, and in the background you can see some of the amusement park, including the roller coaster (at left) and several rides that go in loops or drop you from tall towers. On the far right there is a sailboat just exiting the channel that connects Galveston Bay to Clear Lake.

      Our destination is at the far (western) end of Clear Lake about 4 miles from the spot where this picture was taken. Most of Clear Lake seems to be no more than 6 feet deep so we need to stay in the marked channel if we want to speed up to normal cruising speed. The picture at the left shows our view as we turned into the channel to South Shore Harbor. Yup, it is definitely not a great picture since we were headed right into the Sun, BUT at this point we could see our town house on the left and the lighthouse on the right which we can see from any of 4 rooms on the back side of the town house.

     Pretty soon we were opposite our town house, and the slip for Lucky Us is just out of the view to the right.

     To be honest, the next little while was all a blur as we docked and walked the short distance to the town house.

   Yes, it was a great feeling to be home, but...

     Anyway, here is the final picture (at left), and it shows Lucky Us sitting happily in her slip probably wondering where we are going to take her next???

Day 2-354 to Galveston, TX - Almost home!

     It was not a long trip to Galveston (64.2 miles), but especially with shorter days this time of the year, it would really have been too long a day to have gone all of the way home today. We will save the next 28.7 miles for tomorrow... Of course, we did start the day at sunrise as the time stamp of 7:31 am on the photo at the right indicates. There is some good news here since in two more days we will lose Daylight Savings Time, and then this picture would have been taken at 6:33 am... Somehow that knowledge does not really make me feel any better. A sunrise departure is still too early! We were anchored about 1 mile off the waterway up the channel in the foreground. There were as many as three tows anchored to the north (left in the photo) of us during the night and one anchored to the right. As luck would have it, two of the four tows decided to leave at sunrise also.

     The Gulf Intra Coastal Waterway and these side channels all seem to have good holding for our CRQ plow anchor. The mud is black (i.e. has a high content of organic matter), and as a result, the smelly mud needs to be washed off the anchor chain before it goes into the chain/rope locker under the windlass. The picture at the left shows the Admiral hosing down the chain to wash off the mud. As you can see in the photo, the Admiral is warmly dressed for the cool morning air (about 58F). Our "official" start time was 7:39 am when the anchor was locked into place.

      In the early morning air, we saw some unusual sights, such the feral hogs along the bank in the picture at the right. One of the things that we have both loved about this trip is that every time you think you have seen it all then you see something new or different.

     Continuing on the theme of new and/or different, we also saw these two "Texas Canaries" along the shore. Of course, these canaries sing something that sounds more like "hee haw" or whatever it is that donkeys really sound like. They seemed to take no notice as we passed by them while they munched on the grass.

      We also had a visitor on the bow rail for a few minutes. Of course, we have seen many birds, but this is the first one that I remember seeing land while under way and stay. Clearly, we were not a port of refuge for the bird since we were only a few hundred feet from shore... Still it was a day for strange sightings given that this is Day 2-354 and these are not exactly exotic animals.

      We continued to see many tows again today. The picture at the left shows a deck barge loaded with "stuff" headed for a new refinery near Lake Charles (?). This is the second tow headed east that we passed loaded with towers like this. According to the chatter on the radio, this tow is headed for a new terminal near Lake Charles.

     We also passed 7 tows headed in our direction. Several of the tows, like this one, looked like they had just been repainted. We always try to wave at the operators, and if we are passing one, we always try to thank them on the radio. Today must have been a good day in general for them since they were very chatty on the VHF radio.

     We also  went by a pelican convention that was taking place on a narrow spit of dredge spoil along the north side of the channel (picture at left). The white and brown pelicans were really packed together tightly. We do not usually see many white pelicans around Galveston Bay during the winter so maybe the white pelicans are headed west and south along the coast. At this point we were travelling along the southern boundary of Galveston Bay. The tows in the background are actually in the Houston Ship Channel in Galveston Bay. For reference, The Bolivar peninsula is behind us in the picture, and it actually forms a physical barrier separating the Gulf of Mexico from Galveston Bay. The Bolivar Peninsula is generally very low and narrow. It is (or was) a popular area for summer cottages, but it was heavily damaged when the storm surge from Hurricane Ike swept over the peninsula in 2008.

      The Houston Ship Channel goes between the western end of the Bolivar Peninsula and Galveston Island. The two white buildings and the black lighthouse are what is called the Bolivar Lighthouse. The lighthouse is a classic 19th Century cast iron lighthouse that was made in Pittsburgh, PA and shipped here by barge down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.

      The traffic really picked up as we approached the Houston Ship Channel (picture at left). The Houston Ship Channel is the second busiest in the World, and the "intersection" where it crosses the Gulf Intra Coastal Waterway is just bonkers. There are tows going into and out of the ship channel as well as tows crossing and ship channel. Within a mile or so both north and south there are other channels that lead into Galveston and into Texas City. Throw in numerous shrimp boats and between 3 and 5 large car ferries that run from Bolivar Peninsula to Galveston. Well, you get the picture. It is a very busy stretch of water...

     We docked at the Galveston Yacht Basin without any problems, and we managed some time to relax. Our friend, Debbie S., picked us up to take us to historic downtown Galveston for dinner (picture at left). We had great seafood and got caught up over dinner. Debbie dropped us off back at Lucky Us about 9:00 pm, and that was it for the day...

Day 2-353 Back in Texas, back in Texas, back in.... Whoop!

      Today we had a short but busy 61.1 mile trip to an anchorage just south of Port Arthur, TX. The first 10 miles took us back down the Lake Charles Ship Channel to the waterway. The L'Auberge Casino is on the south side of Port Arthur so we only went past about half of the refineries,  and cargo terminals, etc. Never the less, I started a running count of "vessels". We also went through part of the ports at Beaumont and Port Arthur. Altogether we passed by 16 harbor tugs, which are used to help ocean going tankers and cargo ships dock and maneuver, 3 ocean going tug-barge combos, 9 ocean going tankers or cargo ships and nearly 100 tows (towboats with one or more barges) and 6 lite tows (towboats with no barges). In Lake Charles we saw several of the relatively new style "tractor tugs". In map or top view these tugs (picture above) have an elliptical (or egg) shape, and the drive unit with the propeller rotates 360 degrees, which makes them extremely maneuverable.  In the count I attempted to avoid any vessel that appeared to be abandoned (and there are a number of vessels that hopefully will be scrapped soon).

Speaking of cutting up boats for scrap, we passed a row of oil storage tanks mounted on flat deck barges that were being cut up for scrap. It was truly a busy traffic day. We passed 8 tows going in our direction, which altogether took about 2 hours of our travel day. By the way our travel day lasted about 7.5 hours. We left our dock at the casino at 8:05 am and arrived at our anchorage at 3:45 pm.

     Once we reached the waterway and turned west to head for Texas, we could see a large backlog of east bound tows that were waiting for the Calcaseau Lock just to the east. This is the same lock that we had passed through late yesterday, and it is closed daily from 7:00 am until 5:00 pm. This picture was taken at about 9:00 am, and it looks like there will be a huge traffic jam in another 8 hours when the lock re-opens...

     Once we left the Lake Charles Ship Channel and turn west in the waterway, we resumed making positive progress toward the Texas-Louisiana state line. I guess that we were missed by our friends in Texas since someone kindly erected this huge bill board on the state line ha, ha... Well, minus the sign that I had pasted in using PowerPoint, this is pretty much what it looked like as we crossed the state line. Miles and miles of coastal marsh...

     When you approach Beaumont from the east, the waterway joins the ship channel on the south side of Beaumont. The ship channel continues on north under these bridges into the center of town. As you can see, this is a very busy intersection.

     Just before (east of) this intersection, at least one company has a major staging areas for tows, tow boats and barges. There were big and little tow boats moving everywhere. When I said earlier that we had passed a lot of (active) traffic today, I really was not kidding.

     Another interesting sight was this ocean going tug in a floating dry dock for repairs. You can see the large steel cylinders that surround and protect the propellers. Obviously, the protection is not perfect since both propellers and drive shafts have been removed for repairs (?). This huge tug fits into a large notch at the stern of ocean going barges that are shaped more like small ships. There is a man in the picture for scale so that you can get an idea of the size of the propellers, etc.

      The cities of Beaumont and Port Arthur are seemingly joined at least along the waterway/ship channel. The area along the shore is protected by a high (?) dike (picture at left). It is a strange sight because you can see a lot of roofs looking over the dike, but there are very few two story houses that therefore have a chance of a view.

      It was in Port Arthur that we actually passed alongside 3 ocean going cargo ships (picture at right). Most of the dry cargo ships that we have seen along the Gulf Coast were being loaded with coal (and some with grain).

      I included this picture of the bow of an empty ocean going freighter since you get a good view of the bulb on the bow below the water line. The bulb serves to reduce the effect of approaching waves and to increase speed. Below the level of the anchors, you can see the international signs for a bulbous bow and a bow thruster, which is below the waterline even when the ship is empty.

      On the south side of Port Arthur the waterway turns off the ship channel and heads west along the coast. The ship channel continues south to the Gulf of Mexico. It was in this are that we saw several large fleets of Gulf shrimp boats. They are much larger that the coastal boats that make short one day trips. These larger boats range further out into the Gulf Of Mexico on multi-day trips.

      Once the waterway turns off and heads west we went under a high fixed highway bridge, dodged a bunch of tows and this dredge. There is also a refinery in the background. Very soon we reached our turn off into a man made channel that goes to the north. The channel seems to serve no purpose, but it does head along the back (or west) side of the refinery in the picture. There were three tows "parked" in this side channel as well as a lot of long floating pipes for the dredge. We go about a mile up this side channel to a wide place where we can anchor and swing completely around without hitting anything during changing tides or winds. Then we had dinner and were about to settle in for a quiet evening when I remembered that half of the 360 degree white anchor light did not work. The  anchor light is the highest point on the boat, and it contains two white (or clear) bulbs. The reason for the two bulbs is that the forward facing bulb is also turned on with the running or navigation lights. With the Admiral's help I removed the screws that hold a two foot long pipe that elevated the light fixture above the radar. To do this I had to stand on top of three seat cushions on top of a fiberglass storage chest. It was a pretty shaky set up at best, but fortunately the Admiral held me steady. Then of course, we discovered that the replacement bulbs that we had were about a 1/4 inch to long to fit into the snap in socket... Well, boaters are and have to be resourceful... I ended up using ordinary cotton string to tightly tie the bulb into place as best that I could. It worked, and in fact the light was still burning brightly the next morning. Not exactly the kind of repair that would pass a rigorous (official) inspection, but we were lighted as required while at anchor for the night.

Day 2-351 to 352 At L'Auberge Casino & Resort in Lake Charles, LA

     After a long day yesterday, we decided to stay here at L'Auberge for 3 nights (i.e. 2 full days) to rest up a bit before the final 3 days "push" to get back home. When we "crossed our wake" and closed the Loop on Mobile Bay that was fun and a feeling of accomplishment. However, neither of us really knows how it will feel when we arrive home, and our trip/adventure is really over... As always, time will tell.

Day 2-351
      Boy, it felt great being able to sleep in and not seeing the sun rise. We went to the buffet at the hotel for lunch. I did pretty good on portion control until I got to the desserts... Then, since the buffet was adjacent to the casino, the Admiral decided to take her second plunge at the electronic roulette. It turns out that after her morning walk, she had been magically "drawn" into the casino. Her second adventure was quite successful. So much so that when she cashed out, she was up $3.00 for the day... Rumor has it that each of the three Grandkids is going to get a share of her winnings. Then it was my turn, as I got a delightful nap on board Lucky Us.

     In the late afternoon we got the bikes out and headed to the new shopping district about a mile away. It is quite a pretty ride along a beautifully landscaped parkway with a golf course along one side. We made a brief, unsuccessful stop at Target, and then we started to look around for possible dinner places. After we rode by several different restaurants, the Admiral suddenly said "follow me". Yes, we had dinner at the Sonic Drive In, and in the picture at the right the Admiral is placing our order. They have a small area with picnic tables and of course, the sign where you place your order. I had a burger with tater tots and a very tasty (diet) cherry limeade. It was perhaps a little off beat but a fun experience.
     Then on the way back to Lucky Us we headed to Sam's Club for some staples like salad mix, bananas, and ice cream.

     The ride back to the casino was very pretty as the sun was starting to set. The picture at the left shows the beautiful sunset over the beach at L'Auberge just after we had loaded the bikes back aboard Lucky Us.

     Then we settled in for a "typical" evening of TV and blogging. As usual, the evening ended early...








Day 2-352
     Wow, I could get used to sleeping in, but being a realist, I know that we will be heading out tomorrow morning for an anchorage just south of Port Arthur, Texas. Today was even more hanging out on the boat. We had the seals on both rudder shafts repacked before we started the Loop, but the packing nuts needed to be tightened. The packing on the propeller and rudder shafts consists of waxed thread that is woven into a square "rope" that wraps around the shaft. There is a packing nut that is compressed by either large nuts (on the propeller shafts) or a cast brass fitting (rudder shafts) that is compressed by bolts on opposite sides. As the packing is compressed (squeezed), it expands outward to seal the gap around the shafts. It is very old technology, but it both seals the shaft to keep water out of the boat, and it is also a relatively low friction seal. After about 7,600 miles, the rudder packings were worn enough that water was coming into the boat at a rate of more or less constant drips. The seals needed to be tightened enough to slow that rate to a drop "or two" per minute. It is a pretty easy job, except for the contortions involved getting into a prone position down near the bottom of the hull inside the lazarette. Fortunately, the Admiral was able to hand me the wrenches and a flashlight once I had squeezed into position. Once again, some of the muscles involved were a little"reluctant" to make some of the contortions involved. Well, I survived, and the flow of water was once again down to acceptable levels. One of those general maintenance tasks that I probably should have done earlier, but it also means that the bilge pumps will have to work less often.

      We had lunch on board Lucky Us, but for dinner we went back to the Jack Daniel's Restaurant (and sports bar). At the end of the ramp that leads from the floating docks up to the casino and hotel, there is this classic sign (picture at left). I had seen the sign before during our two other stops here. This time I actually read the city names... It was pretty cool to think about how many of these places we had actually been during our Great Loop adventure. Also, we will be passing through Beaumont tomorrow, and Houston is just a few miles north of our final destination of League City, Texas.

     After dinner, we went across the way to the casino for one last "visit". They don't miss a beat since as you exit the restaurant, there just happens to be an entrance to the casino about 20 feet away. This time, in an uncharacteristically crazy moment, I even tried my luck at roulette. The craziness only lasted about 3 minutes until I had lost all of the money that I cared to lose... Even the Admiral was less than successful this time. Oh well, we will be back here again no doubt!
     Well, it has been another fun stay at L'Auberge. There are not a lot of pictures, since they are definitely NOT encouraged at any casino. You have probably heard the old saying that "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas". That saying includes photographs for a lot of reasons, from crazy behavior to the fact that not every one here is married (or at least to the person that they are with), etc.

   Time to hit the sack before another early start tomorrow.