Day 1 Starting our second Great Loop Adventure

Here we go again...
     On November 1, 2014 we arrived back at our home dock on Clear Lake, Texas and in the process we completed our FIRST trip around America's Great Loop. Not counting a 4+ month break for Winter we took 355 (wonderful) days completing the Loop after starting on May 14, 2013. Now we are about to try it again. The traditional trips around the Loop go in a counter clockwise direction (e.g. up the East Coast, across the Great Lakes and then South from Chicago along the river system to the Gulf of Mexico). We are going to go clockwise by heading from Mobile, Alabama up to Chicago. We hope to spend the next two Summers on the Great Lakes. Spending summer on the lakes will be kind of like being "inverse" snow birds. So, there you have the plan in a nut shell.

     After 5 days with cloudy skies, strong winds and some light rain, today dawned in the low 50s with partly cloudy skies. It warmed up to about 70 by departure time at 2:00 pm.  ...but first! Bob (son), Jill (daughter-in-law) and the 3 Grandkids stopped by to give us a happy send off. These 5 people are a very special pat of our lives, and the hardest part about leaving on our second Loop adventure was saying our goodbyes. They have grown a lot since you last saw them way back in Chicago on Labor Day in 2014. Sarah is 7 1/2, Will turned 6 on New Years Eve, and Katie will be 4 in about two weeks. The first picture shows them on the stern of Lucky Us feeding some of the "permanent" collection of Mallards at our dockominium.

     Before heading out to lunch at one of our favorite local Mexican restaurants, Bob took this photo of Terry and me with the 3 Grandkids using Lucky Us as a backdrop. We said our "Goodbyes" at the restaurant after lunch and headed back to board Lucky Us and start our new adventure.

     Lucky Us started right up, and in a few minutes the Admiral (Terry) cast off the last of the dock lines. Then we headed down Clear Lake to Galveston Bay. Once out in Galveston Bay the Clear Lake Channel heads almost due East out to the Houston Ship Channel. We are able to head ESE to cut off the corner and save a couple of miles. Saving a "couple of miles" may not seem like a big deal, but remember that our normal cruising speed is only 8.3 miles per hour...
     The Houston Ship is the second busiest in the World, and today was no exception. We stayed about 200 feet outside the channel to give the commercial traffic a break, but the channel seems pretty close when you are being passed by a tow with 3 barges and a heavy lift cargo ship at the same time (photo below).



     The next photo shows two tows passing just in front of us with another 5 tows barely visible off to the right.

 Just before we get to the Galveston Channel, there is an intersection where the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, Houston Ship Channel, Texas City Ship Channel and the Galveston Channel all intersect in a distance of about 2 miles. In the middle of this maze I counted 17 tows and two tankers moving along the various channels within about 2 miles of Lucky Us... Thank goodness for all of our experience in this area because it is no longer as scary as it was the first couple of times that we transited this area.

     As we approached the Galveston Yacht Basin (our marina for the night), we encountered the Carnival Freedom backing down the channel to reach a spot where she could turn around to head out for a week long cruise.

     While waiting for the Freedom to clear the entrance to our marina, we did get a lovely view of her (photo above). The final photo for today is of the vehicle carrying ship the Freedom. Yup, that's right. Both ships are named the Freedom...
  These ships bring a lot of heavy equipment (bull dozers, graders, rollers, etc.) into the Port of Galveston.

     Time to close for today. We plan to fuel up in the morning and then head East on the IntraCoastal Waterway.