Thursday, March 27, 2014

Waiting on Weather

Nice new floating docks with 50/30 amp power
After getting tied up and settled in at Sanctuary Costa Grande, we filled out the small honor system 1 day contract and dropped a check in the box at the leasing office that was not manned.  There were a few other boats in the marina including the Power Catamaran Nightengale that we passed us in Corpus Christi bay in the dense fog.  

Public patio with grill, sink, furniture and music
This marina was really nice.  They had nice clean bathrooms with 2 showers in the mens and women’s room.   They had 2 ice machines that were available to transient slip renters as well.  There was a great walking trail that went all around the housing development and marina with a boat ramp, gazebo’s with grills, fish cleaning stations and a big 40 by 40 foot patio with nice furniture, lights and ceiling fans.  They even had a control pad to play music all over the patio area.  This was a really nice place.

Since we didn't get to sail this day, I figured I would post a nice video of our sailing the day before in San Antonio Bay.


Clean bathrooms for marina users

club house (not available to transient slip users)

Several gazebo's with grills and ceiling fans

Nightengale (saw them pass us in the fog in Corpus)

The Crew for this trip (Deb, Kenney, Karen and Jim)

We chatted with Gene from Nightengale about the weather expected on Sunday.  It was supposed to be cloudy and the wind was going to be 15-20 knots.  We decided that we didn’t want to fight the fog again like the previous morning so we figured we would leave after about 9am after the sun had some time to burn off the fog.  When I got up at about 8am Nightengale had pulled out already.  As the fog started to lift we started to untie, and prep for departure.  Right when we did we heard Nightengale hail us on the radio.  He had poked his nose out into Matagorda bay and saw 4 foot waves and winds gusting to 35 knots on the note.  He let us know that he was turning around and coming back to our weather hole.  

We relaxed a bit and when he pulled back into the Marina we helped tie him up as he was getting pushed off the dock pretty good by the high winds.  In the end, there are worse places to be stuck.  We had a nice place to stay.

As Gene and I chatted, we talked about potentially leaving the next morning.  We agreed that whoever left would report back to the other on the weather.

Below are some of the pictures we took as we walked around the marina.  Anyone planning on transiting the ICW, this is a really great place to stop.