Day 7 Morgan City to Houma, LA

     We left the dock this morning at 7:55 am. Today we will be traveling 38.4 miles to Houma, LA. If our speed remains constant, the chart plotter calculation has us arriving around 1:30 pm this afternoon, although this calculation is continually changing as even without locks, bridges, etc. our speed is continuously changing with winds and tides as well as bends in the GICW. After we left the dock and headed South back to the GICW, we passed under a railroad lift bridge that remains open, except for approaching trains. The bridge only has a posted clearance of 4 feet so it would have to open for any but the smallest boats if it did not remain open.

     In a short distance we re-entered the waterway and headed East once more. Surprise, surprise! Almost immediately we encountered a lock that the Admiral missed on the chart.  Fortunately they had us float right in, and once again we got to practice our station keeping, which is nautical for "hanging out" as we waited for the gate to close behind us and then open in front. That's about as good as a lock through can be, but even then it added about 15 minutes to the calculated arrival time on the chart plotter.
   The first several miles of the waterway were filled with marine (and petroleum) related industries. I have included just a few pictures to give you a feel for the types of activities that we passed. One shipyard appeared to be putting the finishing touches on a new ferry named Woods Hole. So, it will undoubtedly be heading up to New England for a run from Woods Hole, MA to places like Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Island.





     We passed quite a few other shipyards, including this one with at least 6 floating dry docks. Some of them were in use, but as a sign of the times, the activity in a lot of the shipyards appeared to be minimal.







     This shipyard was a definite exception. They were in various stages of completing the construction of these new ships. There was a crew/work boat near completion on the left with one under construction on land . Going further to the right is a (very dark) tow boat and on the far right is a drill ship being finished at the dock.




     We also passed another shipyard that was building a seemingly large number of small drilling platforms. These will ultimately be lifted onto barges and towed to their destination where a large crane barge will lift it off and place it on the shallow bottom.



     The "last" picture of a sign of the times is one of many yards with a number of crew/work boats sitting idle. Many of them did seem to have been recently painted, which may be in anticipation of better days ahead...










     Once we cleared the Morgan City area, we spent most of the rest of today's trip in the swampy Louisiana coastal plain. The vegetation does seem to be changing slowly as we get further East. I felt that this scene along the side of the waterway has a remarkable southern feeling to it. The Spanish moss hanging from the Cypress trees that have their "knees sticking out of the water.






    We arrived at the Houma City Marina around 1 pm and are docked with four other boats from our home neighborhood (Clearlake area in Texas).  One is beginning the loop, two are traveling with the Looper to Florida, and the fourth just happened to be here too, like us. There was a problem with the electric panel on our power post, but the electricians from the city arrived a few minutes later and fixed the problem. They stayed to work on some other electrical issues since 4 more boats were due to arrive later. The marina has 6 slips of varying length plus a mooring wall about 100 yards long. If all of the boats actually make it here, this will be the most boats ever at this marina... The marina is basically a long skinny canal between two fixed highway bridges over the waterway here. The other bridge is just out of view on the left. The area around the actual marina is a grassy city park with picnic tables, walkways and nice landscaping. It would be an extremely nice location except for the traffic noise, which Lucky found most disturbing... She enjoyed walks around the grassy areas, but she did not want to get close to being under the source of the noise.

     We joined the other boat couples for "Docktails" at 5:30 pm. We took our folding chairs and put a bag of popcorn in a bowl and joined them for a lovely time until after 7:00 pm in perfect (bug free) weather. In the middle of this event another boat came in to dock for the night, and those folks soon joined us. Then it was back to Lucky Us for a dinner of spaghetti with a side salad. Sleep came early...

Day 6 Intracoastal City to Morgan City, LA

     We left the dock this morning at Morgan's Landing at 7:30 am and headed to Morgan City, LA which is a 65 mile trek. There are no locks or bridges that will require an opening on the forecast for today, and the weather is suppose to be superb! 

     All in all, the scenery today was pretty much a repeat of yesterday - not very exciting... So, I will continue to add more pictures of "interesting" things that we passed on the water.

  We saw this jack-up crane barge, and for a self-propelled barge, it was moving quite fast. Judging from the fresh paint and lack of rust on the legs, this barge had been in the yard for cleaning/painting quite recently.








    We passed the towboat Freedom, which is pretty much a normal towboat, but it represents the third "Freedom" that we have passed (a cruise ship and a vehicle carrying ship on Day 1 were the others). At this rate I wonder how many more Freedoms we will pass.









     In the waterway we continued to encounter more and bigger clumps of water hyacinths that have broken loose and were drifting with the wind and current. Some of them are undoubtedly cut loose by the propellers of fishing boats in the side channels, which are often overgrown by these plants. We do not view them as much of a hazard to us. However, the larger "islands" could easily conceal a good sized log, which would definitely be a hazard. Another way that they could break loose is during flooding. When Admiral Terry called for a reservation on the Morgan City wall, she was told that it was closed due to both construction and flooding. It seems that the river is 0.7 feet above flood stage (and 6.7 feet above normal), and that is enough to cause some water over the docks and mandate the closing of the floor doors through the levee. That's the bad news, and the good news is that the Berwick Landing mooring wall across the river is open and still above water.


     We arrived at Berwick Landing about 4:15 pm after a wonderful day on the water. The next photo shows Lucky Us moored to the wall at Berwick Landing. There is no electric service here, but we can run the generator if we need air conditioning, which seems doubtful. The photo was taken at dusk and Lucky Us is partially lit by the lights in the park here. The park including the wooden boardwalk is at least a quarter mile long and was very clean and neat.





    At the North (up river) end of the park there are two different high, fixed, highway bridges over the river. At the base of the first bridge is this picturesque lighthouse that originally served in this part of the river. Many of the lighthouses in Texas and elsewhere on the northern Gulf Coast are often round, made of cast iron and sit directly on the ground. So, this elevated, lighthouse is not only beautiful but is also distinctively different in style.











     The last photo for the day is one of the large shallow coastal drill barges. It was moored on the north side of the two bridges. This rig would be towed into shallow, back water swamps often along specially dug channels to drill for oil and/or gas.


     Time to walk Lucky for one last time today and then get some much needed sleep. See ya tomorrow...

Day 5 Lake Charles to Intracoastal City, LA

     We left the dock in Lake Charles at 6:35 am and are heading to Shell Morgan Landing at Intracoastal City, LA.  This is a long day as we are traveling 91.6 miles and have two locks and two pontoon bridges to go through. That gives us 4 possible waits of unknown duration. Bridges are generally not a long wait, but as we will see tomorrow, some bridges close completely for morning and afternoon rush hours and even for school times. For the first hour we retraced our path back down the Calcasieu River/Lake Charles Ship Channel to the GICW where we headed East once again. Almost immediately we came to our Calcasieu Lock our first of the day. When the Admiral called to request a lock through, we were told to come up near the lock and "hang out" for about 20 minutes. That 20 minutes turned into almost 2 hours as they were performing routine maintenance and checks. With another lock and the 2 bridges yet to go our worries about a (too) long of a day began to loom large. However, the only thing to do is push on and find an anchorage if we run out of daylight...

     This is not a very scenic portion of the GICW since there are very few people let alone towns along this portion of the waterway.  Aside from an occasional small herd of cattle, this was much of the scenery. Usually there are just the Pipeline Crossing/Do Not Anchor or Dredge warning signs, but this location also included a small gas compressor.

     The rotating pontoon bridges are a vanishing breed along the Gulf Coast, except for more remote areas.  They are somewhat slow and no doubt present a hazard for safety vehicles and hurricane evacuations. They are slowly being replaced by fixed bridges with a vertical clearance of 50+ feet.  The "pontoon often looks like an old flat decked, cargo barge that is fixed at one corner by what amounts to as a big hinge. The rotation to open/close the bridge is provided by a series of cables.

In this photo you can see part of the hinge at the far right, and the cables would attach to the other end for leverage to swing the bridge.













The bridge rotates into position across the waterway in front of these ramps that lower to complete the bridge. It really is an interesting process to watch, but I suppose for local residents it grows tiresome after the first few hundred delays...











    The next photo is yet another towboat, but I included this for A&M friends. It is the David Vitter, and she is named for former Louisiana Senator David Vitter. For the A&M folks it will bring back "memories" of his brother who was the Provost at A&M for nearly 2 years about 10 years ago. I'll just leave it there with no additional comment...

















     After another pontoon bridge (and a few more cattle), we came to the Leland Bowman lock and nervously awaited the Lockmaster's reply to our request for a lock through. We waited a couple of minutes for a west bound tow to clear the lock and went right inside. The locks serve at least two purposes. First, they prevent salt water intrusion into the coastal wetlands. Second, they prevent sediment laden flood waters from entering the GICW. The second purpose is really important where major rivers, like the Brazos River in Texas, cross the waterway. We were told to enter and just "hang out" until the gates closed behind and opened in front. Today, the difference in water level was only 0.9 feet between the two sides of the lock. So, once the gate closed behind us, the Lockmaster slowly opened the gate in front to allow the water levels to equilibriate. The photo shows the Admiral on the foredeck ready to fend off if I lose control, especially with a 15 mph cross wind.





















     Fortunately, the lock walls blocked most of the wind so we had a relatively uneventful passage.  The next photo is looking back at the lock after we exited.This lock is newer and at 1150 feet long it has room for three of the longer barges in a double wide, row with the towboat behind. The will pretty much handle the largest tows.

     By this time Lucky was getting bored. We sometimes put her bed on the control console so she has a great view. Even this was no longer enough for Lucky, and here she has gotten up and has decided that the port tachometer needed to be attacked. Both tachometers are old school analog and sometimes the electrical connections must not be too good at the tacks will vibrate wildly. Evidently, this motion attracted Lucky's attention. Well, I did say that the scenery today was not great...

     Intracoastal City is a small center for the oil field service industry. We passed yards for Schlumberger and Halliburton as well as this yard for Baker-Hughes (see photo below).  All of them looked "abandoned" with no signs of activity although it was about 6:00 pm by then.  However, during boom times there probably have been some activity on a 24/7 basis.

     Our stop for the night was at the Shell Morgan Landing fuel dock. It is mainly a fuel dock with room for a half dozen permanent renters in slips and several transient boats (that is us) on the wall. One of the renters is the Louisiana Fish and Wildlife Service. They have this all aluminum speed boat about 39 feet long with 4 (count them) 300 horse power outboards for power. This "baby" must do at least 70 mph... I can just imagine them chasing 18 foot bass boats through the winding channels of the swampy Gulf coastal plain (No, I can't actually).

Last but not least, or maybe least, I don't know... Tonight on the marina wall next to Lucky Us was this lovely stack of new crab pots. I almost "borrowed" one because after all who knows when you might have to live off the land after some sort of Armageddon? Sure hope that I did not jinx the whole World?

     Well, I had hoped to end today's post here, but remember we are talking about a boat. After dinner (the Admiral's spaghetti using spaghetti squash for our noodles), we noticed the aft bilge pump light was staying on.  I explored the engine room for water leaks and found a leak associated with the water heater, but that did not account for the pump remaining on continuously.  Further exploration revealed that one of the pumps was not pumping.  Turning it on and off started it working again.  It appears that about half the time it works and half the time it does not, and the float switch does not seem to be functioning properly as well.  They are going on the list to be replaced.  Not to worry, we have another bilge pump further forward and an emergency pump even higher.  That doesn't include the three sump pumps that we also have for the shower/washer and air conditioners.  We should not sink today. So, now I can say "See ya tomorrow".

Day 4 a rest day in Lake Charles

     What a beautiful setting for a (so-called) rest day. After I slept in until 9:30 am, we left on our electric bikes just before Noon. We rode out the main entrance road to the main highway at I-610, which is a ring road/bypass around Lake Charles. We do  still have our priorities so our first stop was for lunch. There is also a fairly large shopping area there, and we hit West Marine, Target and Sam's Club. We bought a new pair of fenders for Lucky Us and a new copy of the US nautical rules and regulations. Our old copy was out dated by one edition as noted during our Coast Guard inspection the previous day. The Admiral bought a new Fit Bit at Target since her old one had "drowned" in the swimming pool the previous evening. Mine got wet also, but it still seems to work okay (drat). The stop at Sam's Club was for groceries. Before the trip, Terry had purchased an electric rotisserie for roasting chickens for salads at lunch as well as dinners. If you had not gathered it from the blog for our first Loop, we eat a lot of chicken...

     The first photo shows the front side in a view much like what we saw on our return trip from shopping. The area between the Golden Nugget and the shopping is basically all golf course so it is a pretty bike ride, especially on a beautiful sunny day. After storing the bikes and our purchases, it was time for a quick nap followed by a trip to the pool complex.

     The second photo was actually taken at night, but it shows the lovely lazy river at the pool complex. Our standard routine is four laps around the lazy river followed by some hot tub time. It may/may not include any pool time.

     The last picture shows the beautiful main pool area. It really is not a lap pool but rather one for (adult) lounging. 

Along the way today, I did the engine room check since we plan on a 6:30 am departure tomorrow morning as we have a long day of nearly 100 miles planned. Also, there are two locks and two pontoon swing bridges. Any of these things can cause delays that would add to our already planned long day. Oh well, it is all an adventure, and we did have a rest day today (right?)...

Day 3 Port Arthur, TX to Lake Charles, LA

     We pulled up the anchor or rather I should say that the windlass pulled up the anchor about 8:00 am...  We were anchored at the intersection of two man made channel about a half mile off the GICW. After back tracking to the GICW we headed about a mile East to where the Intra Coastal joins the Port Arthur ship Channel and followed it North to the edge of Beaumont, TX.

     There are cargo terminals and at least one shipyard along the ship channel. This floating dry dock has a research vessel lifted up. The Geo Explorer provides on site (off shore) chemical analyses for the petroleum industry.  The ship is 147 feet long and appears to have the hull of a typical tow boat so perhaps this vessel has been converted? They had definitely added a helicopter landing pad high above the fore deck as well as repainting.

     On the edge of Beaumont, TX the Intra Coastal heads off East across the "top" of Sabine Lake. With mainly sunny skies the temperature rapidly warmed up from the mid 50s to about 70 with a light westerly breeze. As we were crossing the narrow end of the lake, we were boarded by the US Coast Guard for an inspection. They ask permission and then tell you to maintain course and speed. They come along side and two Coasties stepped off onto our swim platform. They make the process look easy, but it no doubt represents a lot of practice. While I manned the helm, the Admiral went below to show them the relevant documents, life jackets, fire extinguishers, placards (like safe disposal of oil, pump out rules for holding tanks, trash management, etc.) and let them look in various lockers and the bilge (for leaking oil or fuel). After about 15 minutes they came up onto the flybridge to check my ID before giving us a "pass" on the inspection. The photo below shows them about to depart. They are pretty "camera shy" so the Admiral feels compelled to "sneak" a picture of them. The Coast Guard does great work, and besides we had not been boarded for an inspection since June, 2013, which was early in our first Great Loop adventure.

     Our destination for today is the Golden Nugget Casino, resort Hotel and Marina in Lake Charles, LA about 61.1 miles away. I underlined the "and" for emphasis since the marina is small and only accommodates 10 boats (up to 200 feet long). The casino has only been open about a year, and the marina looks even newer. As is typical of the waterfront resort hotels with small marinas, the reservations staff never seems to know that they have a marina let alone how to take a reservation. Even though the Admiral had filled out a lengthy application and submitted it electronically a day earlier, it took several phone transfers before they could accept a reservation. Oh well, even at a relatively high charge of $2.00/foot, we had the cheapest room by far (!), and the amenities are superb.

     About 9 miles South of Lake Charles we turn North off the GICW and head up the Calcasieu Ship Channel (and River) to Lake Charles. Lake Charles is a busy port with refineries as well as loading docks for coal and machinery. The photo below shows a heavy lift freighter taking on a load of coal. The conveyor belts bring coal from a large stock pile barely visible in the back left. The coal arrives by barge from NE Alabama or the Midwest.



This same ship had probably just unloaded heavy machinery before loading the coal for its return trip (to Europe?). Oh joy! The U.S. economy at its best by importing finished goods and exporting raw materials... The next photo show a close up of this same heavy lift ship where you can clearly see the big cranes for off loading cargo.

The red triangular looking objects at the base of the cranes are clam shells that can be attached to the cranes to unload the coal at even small ports.

     The next photo shows an ocean going tug-barge combo. The barge has the (pointed) bow of a ship with a notch in the stern where the bow of the tug fits inside. It could easily travel to Caribbean Islands or other ports around the Gulf of Mexico since this configuration could handle much larger waves than a regular barge like we have been seeing.





     The last photo for today shows Lucky Us docked at the Golden Nugget. Seems like some pool time is definitely in order. Maybe a few trips around the Lazy River followed by some hot tub time? The NCAA Men's Basketball Final Championship Game comes on TV at 8:00 pm. Thus, I suspect we will be seated at dinner in one of the many restaurants just in time to watch the game. Following the game I am also pretty sure that there will be a pretty serious discussion about staying another day. I will definitely be a push over when this discussion happens...





     Lucky is already looking very anxiously at the nice green grass just a few feet away on shore. She has not been on shore for some 30+ hours so I am sure she is anxious.

Day 2 Galveston to anchorage near Port Arthur, TX

      We departed the Galveston Yacht Basin at 9:50 am after filling all 4 of our (diesel) fuel tanks, which took the better part of an hour (and nearly 400 gallons of diesel fuel). Due to the lower fuel prices compared to our first Loop in 2013-14, this is the first time that we have filled up for less than 1 BOAT buck. In this case BOAT means "Bring Out Another Thousand". A rather small consolation given the economic problems in Texas at the moment due to the low energy prices... As we left the marina we got a good view of the vehicle carrier from yesterday and a somewhat distant view of the harbor area at downtown Galveston. In the center area two cruise ships that arrived very early this morning and the "burned out forest" looking area on the right is a number of jack-up drilling rigs in port for service (painting, updates, etc.) at local shipyards.

     As we headed East toward the Gulf IntraCoastal Waterway (or GICW), we passed one of the 5 ferries that connect a state highway in Galveston with its extension on the Bolivar Peninsula. The ferry route also crosses the Houston Ship Channel and gets close to the GICW so the ship watching can be very good as well as watching dolphin playing in the wakes. Stay away from the stern where kids feed pop corn and bread to sea gulls. The very excited sea gulls flying over head tend to "poop" a lot... However, it is fun to watch from a safe distance.

     For the first few miles along the GICW we passed 22 tows that had been "parked" by pushing the lead barge into the mud bottom along the shore. Most likely, they are waiting for cargo to become available.



   We also passed another 25 tows underway today. In all honesty, we only "passed" 4 tows while the others were all going in the opposite direction. When passing a tow, it is proper procedure to call them and ask for permission to pass and to have them tell you on which side to pass them. Sometimes they will request that you wait until they round a bend or an oncoming boat or tow passes. We generally speed up a bit to pass, but it is usually a very slow process as we are at most going 3 feet per second (or about 2 mph) faster than a tow that can easily be 700 feet long.

     I have neglected to mention that we have an additional crew member along for the Loop...

 Meet "Lucky" (or Lucky Girl) who joined our family last December. She is a Schnauzer mix who, although she has been on the boat many times, has only been on two 45 minute boat trips before yesterday. When we started the Loop yesterday, we neglected to tell her that she was going to have a "new" home for the next 7 months. In the picture she is sitting on her bed on top of the control console on the flybridge. She has a great view from there, except when she looks down 13 feet to the water below...  Maybe that's why she has a slightly forlorn look? She also likes hanging her head out the window so the wind blows in her face and her ears fly in the wind!  Because of our slower speed, this is not harmful like it would be in the car. 

     Tomorrow we are off on a 7+ hour trip to the Golden Nugget Casino, Hotel and Marina in Lake Charles, Louisiana. I don't like to gamble. but I will accompany the Admiral who likes several of the slot machines. Last time she even quit when she was ahead...

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.