Sailing in the Dream like Waters of the British Virgin Islands (Chapter 1 of 8)

Since we got our boat five years ago, we had talked about chartering a boat with our dock mates at Pier 121.  Typically these discussions would happen late at night when anchored out/rafted up In some small cove on the lake.  It would typically be after many drinks and we would forget the discussion the next morning.

These discussions ebbed and flowed like the gentle tide and it never seemed that anyone, including us, would commit to a date and just do it.  Years went by, Deb and I moved but stayed in contact with our friends there and would all get together a few times a year and these discussions continued over drinks.

Then all of a sudden it happened, the charter discussion came up, someone threw out a date and we all went and made the appropriate plans for taking off of work, budgeting, etc.  With that the plans were finalized.  Seven of us in early June on a catamaran in the British Virgin Islands.  Done.  Flights made, provisions ordered, booze planned, lists of things to bring, deposits made and then it was just counting down the time until it came time to depart.

So Thursday we all met in PuertoRico at the airport and then all took the same flight to Beef Island, Tortola.  We arrived about 8pm and the charter company had arranged for a van to pick us up at the airport.  Even with a delayed flight the driver was patient and waited for us.  Upon arrival at the charter base, the office was closed but there was a note on the door telling is which boat was ours.  We loaded our stuff in the boat, popped open a few beers and relaxed on the back deck of the boat.  We had made arrangements to spend the night before our charter on the boat rather than a hotel.  

A little bit about the charter company and boat.

We chose Conch Charters.  They are what some would call a tier two charter group meaning that the boats are not brand new.  If you use someone like Moorings or SunSail you will typically get a boat less than 5 years old.  When boats are a bit older than that they often go to the tier two charter companies.  As a matter of fact we could see on this boat where it once said "Moorings 4300" on the side.  The boat we had was in great working order, it was a 2005 if I recall and we were nothing but pleased with it.

Photo taken off Sandy Cay (Yes, we were flying our Texas flag proudly)

The boat was a Leapord 43' catamaran.  She was 24' wide and had a large cockpit that easily and comfortably sat all 7 of us.  The helm station was protected from the elements and the sun.  The large cockpit led forward through a set of opening glass doors to the large salon.  Galley to port, salon to starboard, and nav station to starboard facing aft.  There were views in all directions from the galley and salon with 6 opening ports/hatches in that area not counting the two large entry doors aft.  Down and to port forward was a stateroom with a large double berth and head with shower.  Forward of that was a small crew bunk that we used for storage.  The forward stateroom had 3 opening hatches and the head had two.  Aft of the forward stateroom was another that also had a double berth, head with shower and the same number of hatches/ports.  Under the aft bunk was access to the engines, bilges and water heaters.  The starboard hull was the same as the port so there were accommodations for 8 easily without feeling cramped.

We were very pleased with the boat.  The engines started right away and ran great.  Running them for two hours each day was enough to heat water and recharge the house battery bank with enough juice to run water pumps shower sumps, fans, lights, freezer, refridge, instruments, radios, etc and only one time in 10 days did we actually trigger the low battery alarm which was easily remedied by running the engines a little longer the next day.

Now on to Conch.  They were great to work with from the initial reservations, confirmations, answering questions, etc.  they provided a simple way to get them the information and experience of all crew members including the Captain and coCaptain.  When we arrived they had the boat lights on, air conditioning had been running to keep it cool and greeted us the next morning when they opened  They left a sign near the door of their office letting us know which Boat we should go to and where it was.  

They came aboard and briefed us on all systems, operations, etc.  This took less than an hour and was very thorough.  We then had the captains briefing where they went over the charts, provided all of our park permits, 

suggested anchorages, restricted areas, showed us where some of the more challenging reef navigation and provided us a cell phone in the event we needed to reach them or use it.  We scheduled our charter at the beginning of the "low season" which is essentially the first few weeks of hurricane season.  We had weather on the VHF and weather fax if we needed to download them.  Because it was low season, the rates were cheaper and the anchorages less crowded.  There was only one place where we didn't get a mooring like we had hoped to but were able to get one close enough that our destination was still just a short dinghy ride.

Upon return, they were just as good.  They asked us for anything we found that may be in need of repair and we pointed out a few routine maintenance items that would not be out of the ordinary for any of our own boats so certainly doesn't reflect poorly on the charter company or the boat.  These were as minimal as a sticking bilge pump float switch, a slow to drain shower sump, two heads with a joker valve that is likely approaching their time to be replaced but still working.  The only maintenance item we were not happy with was the anchor appeared to be bent and because of that just did not set very well.  We had a spare on the boat to use if we chose, but made do with what we had and picked up a mooring if it was a particularly grassy or rocky bottom.  They did a quick inspection of the boat, said that they would top off the fuel when the fuel dock opened and would charge it to the credit card on file.  They were going to have a diver check the bottom of the boat to be sure there was not contact with any rocks or reef that would do any damage to keels, rudders or props.  Check out took about 30 minutes and they arranged transportation for us to our hotel.

All in all, I would highly recommend Conch Charters.  We were all very pleased.  I had heard that in the past (late 90's) their reputation for good clean working boats was not that good, but that seems to have all a been completely remedied based on our experience.

Now back to our trip.  On the day of our charter we had preordered food for provisioning and the market would deliver right to the boat.  The first delivery was food and it came in boxes on a few hand trucks.  With a line of us handing boxes from dock to boat to salon we quickly loaded it all on board and the girls stocked the freezer, fridge and all of the dry goods.  Next came our booze/drink delivery.  This was embarrassing.  There seemed to be more of this than groceries.  The first load came down the dock and contained 3 cases of coke, 2 cases of Ting, 1 case of seven up, 2 cases of diet coke, 2 cases of bud light, 10 bottles of wine, 6 or so bottles of rum and 6 gallons of water.  Then the next load came down the dock and it was somewhere around 14 or 16 cases of Coors light. Conch provided us two coolers so we had cold water, soft drinks and beer.  We stores al the bottles of liquor in the salon seats and the cases of beer and soda in the aft end of the amas with plenty of room to spare.

We had planned on heading to Norman Island and anchoring in "The Bight" for our first leg of the trip.  The good news is that all of us on this trip have our own boats and most of us have or still live aboard, so we all "go with the flow" and on day one we needed to practice that.  During our flight to Tortola, one of our crew members arrived but their bag didn't.  We had confirmation in the morning. That it was on a flight and what time it would arrive.  It could be delivered to Conch but it would be a couple of hours after the flight arrived, so we decided that we would sail toward the east side of Tortola and stay in Trellis Bay right by the airport.  This meant day one was dead into the wind and as we got close to Trellis bay, we saw all the boats in the anchorage and chose to anchor inside the reef on Marina Cay instead.  It would be about a two mile dingy ride to get to the airport to pick up the delayed luggage.

The reef was nicely marked and we slid right in parallel to the reef and picked up our first mooring ball.  It was like we all knew what we were doing :)

             View to our right (See Reef)                                            View to forward, small waterside Cafe and Bar

Mike, ODay, and T took the dinghy to the airport.  Going between Beef Island and Marina Cay waves and wind conspired to make it a wet dinghy ride.  There were a few waves that broke over the dinghy and swamped it pretty good.  Running fast and opening the drain plug removed most of the water.  At the dinghy dock, there was a small store so trash bags could be bought to cover the duffle on its way back to the boat.  Those of us that stayed on the boat were oblivious to how wet the ride was until three soaking wet passengers unloaded from the dinghy and told us what they faced.  It was not dangerous, so just added to the stories that will be part of what has come out of this trip.

Oday and T took a swim over to the reef for a bit of snorkeling while the rest of us just relaxed in the sun and started to prepare for dinner.

We ate really well on this trip and just took turns making meals.  The first night Oday and T cooked and we had burgers cooked on the grill (mounted on the stern rail of the boat). For some reason food prepared on a boat just plain tastes better.  These had all the fixing including tomato, lettuce, cheese and onion.  We had a great fresh salad to go with it and chips to snack on.  The galley was fully stocked so we ate on china plates every day.  Someone other than the person that prepared the meal would clean up and it just sort of fell into a very well working routine on day 1.

The first evening we spent commenting on just how clear the water is, the weather being beautiful, the boat and how nice it was and just enjoyed being with good friends having a sundowner in the British Virgin Islands.  One of my favorite island type drinks is a rum and ting over ice.  I prefer spiced rum and I must say that Arundel Rum made in Came Garden Bay is pretty darn good.  Fill a glass with ice, add 1 part Rum to 4 parts Ting.  It is cool and refreshing. After a few hours of story and drinks, people were starting to get tired.  It is amazing how the fresh air, sun and water make you ready for an early bedtime.  With that, we each started to retire to our staterooms for bed.

What a great ending to our first night out on the water as opposed to at the dock.  There will be more blog entries related to this trip over the next few weeks.

We were playing a little bit with a little movie trailer for the trip.  This was based on little clips from the first day.  If you are reading this via email, you will have to click this link to see it.

The Fish Apocalypse

Today when I got up and went into the galley, I thought I smelled fish a little bit.  I cleaned the sink thinking that maybe yesterday when I scraped the bottom of the Dinghy, maybe carried a barnacle in to the sink when I washed my hands.  Nope, Couldn't find anything.

I then grabbed my stuff and headed out to the office and when I came out of the boat, I was shocked.  The entire surface of the water was covered solid with dead minnows.  They were all about 1-2 inches long and seriously were almost solid.  In every square yard, there were maybe a few inches of water showing.

I have noticed that there are a lot of these minnows swimming just below the surface all the time and yesterday we were at Waterford Harbor and I noticed they also had a lot fate little guys swimming below the surface.
So this morning when I saw these dead fish, I went and looked in the channel, PortoFino marina, StarFleet Marina and South Shore Harbor.  None of them were covered in dead fish, so I figured may there was something wrong at the Marina like a stray current in the water but that didn't seem to be the case either.

I talked to a few folks today who have seen this in the past, when there is an overpopulation of these things and they all grow and start absorbing more oxegyn out of the water, they essentially all go lethargic and float to the top and then die.

Really odd stuff.  So today when I got home from work the smell is getting bad now.  They have been sitting in the sun all day, so starting to get fragrant.
I put the boat in gear and throttled up against the dock lines to create some current and moved a few hundred thousand of these little guys, however it was just not enough thrust to push them the 250 yards to the channel entrance.  I was able to get them moving about 75-100 yards, but that is it.

The guys that work at the BoardWalk Beast and Boardwalk Shuttle (Boats that dock next to me) said that if they haven't workd their way out of the Marina in the morning, they are going to attempt to net them and haul them somewhere.

This does go on record as the strangest thing I have seen related to the water so far.

Final leg to Kemah

The Southwest International Boat show was going to be the weekend we needed to move the boat and we really wanted to go to the boat show, but also didn't want to chance waiting until Sunday to move the boat in the event that something came up with weather, the boat, etc.  The Marina we were staying at was charging me $75 per day so I didn't want to stay another week if I could avoid it.

Interestingly enough, we had several friends all come down on Friday and were staying through Sunday to go to the boat show.  It was Mike and Kerry O'bar, Robert and Mary Fields and Oday and T Roark.  They got in on Friday so we went and had dinner with them Friday and then decided that we were going to hit the water early on Saturday to get the boat moved and be back in Kemah in time to get to the boat show for a little while and more importantly the Cruising Outpost Cruisers Party.

A few years ago when the magazine sold and the new owners screwed it all up, the previous owners decided to bring it back again.  They needed some people to commit to a long term subscription and we really enjoy this magazine as well as the couple that have sailed around the world and are the inspiration for so many that are living their dream on a boat.  We helped out at that time and became part of what they referred to as the Founders Circle.  Each year, they throw a cruisers party after the boat show with free pizza and beer and a live band.  It is always a good time.  But not to get ahead of myself, we still had to sail the rest of the way to make it...

We tossed the dock lines early Saturday morning and motored into the rain and strong wind as we headed to the east.  Barge traffic was still pretty heavy but things were starting to move again so the barges were not sitting along the banks.   We worked our way along East Bay, passed Offats Bayou, and worked our way under the I-45 Bridge between Houston and Galveston.  

Going under I-45 in the rain and spray

Things were fairly smooth and as we started to hear the ICW, Galveston Ship Channel, Texas City Channel and the Houston Ship Channel the water was rough, the wind was strong and it was raining on and off so visibility was good but not good enough to read boat names with the binoculars.  

We had to cross the Texas City Channel and should have crossed the Houston Ship Channel as well but there was SO much traffic out there now that the channels were open, I had a hard time feeling comfortable that I could cross the ship channel in enough time.  With the wind and waves we were making slow progress and the last thing I wanted to do was be half way across the channel when an tanker or 1000 foot ship was bearing down on me at 18-22 knots.    

Perkins poking his head out to see what is going on

The cat does not seem to like the rougher water.  The first day of this trip he had blood in his stool and the vet ended up thinking it was stress related.  We did find that if we put his carrying case out, he would go in that to feel secure and when it is rough, we take him up top in the cockpit so he gets some fresh air.  On this particular trip, he actually ventured his head out the front of the carrier for a few minutes.

It was a little hairy there for about an hour and a half until we go through all of that and settled into a rhythm running north along the Houston Ship Channel but a few hundred yards west of the actual channel.  According to the charts that seemed to be a good path as there was enough depth for me to keep out of the channel and from getting run down by a big ole' ship.  To give you a sense of the size of some of these, we took this video as we passed one of them after things calmed down a bit.  He was making about 17 knots.

We ended up passing Red Fish Island where these is a pretty major dredging operation going on in the ship channel in that area.  For those that don't know, there is a good country sound about this little island.  Listen to "Red Fish Island" here..  The song is by Kelly McGuire  We made it to Kemah, passed through the cut and the boardwalk and turned into the Marina.  We backed into our slip and got tied up in time for our friends to come pick us up and take us over to the boat show !

Freeport to Hitchcock

We knew we would not have a long day today since the distance we could go was limited due to the closed waterways from the oil spill.  We slept in until about 8am and pulled off the dock around 9 or so.
We pulled off the dock in a pretty good cross wind.  I ended up rubbing the hull on the side of the rubber dock protector as we left.  I turned into the ICW and Deb came up the companion way and in a very direct voice, said "Gil, I need you down stairs now"   I had someone else take the helm and quickly went to see what the issue was.  The engine room was full of smoke.  I could tell right away it was the smell of rubber and likely a belt that was a bit loose.  I had Deb turn on the exhaust fan and took the helm again keeping a very close eye on the temperature gauge in the event the belt gave way.   I reduced throttle and radioed to the tugs approaching in both directions to let them know I was going to be pulling an about face and then heading to the South side of the channel to get back into the Marina due to a mechanical issue.  Both Tug captains were great and the one coming from the West slowed to let me pass in front of him.

I pulled right back into the slip and in the end only made it about 1/4 of a mile or so in all.  It was a loose belt, I tightened it real good, checked it all the way around for any worn spots and we were back on our way within 30 minutes.

This was a pretty uneventful part of the trip.  It was fairly short.  About the most exciting thing was to

Dodging Barges - They were stopped everywhere along the ICW

navigate the traffic of barges and tugs EVERYWHERE.  With the ICW closed down to most traffic and vessel traffic service allowing some commercial traffic through, the barges had to radio and get a "slot" to pass through.  Because of that, many were just nosed up on the bank since there was no room at the barge docks or dolphins to tie up.  Sometimes they would be on the north or south side of the channel.  It was hard to know which side of them you needed to pass on so I would first check the AIS to see if they were broadcasting their vessel name.  If they were I could radio them directly.   If they were not, I would get the binoculars and attempt to read the name on the back of the tug and then radio for them by name.  It was like running a slalom course.

We made it to Hitchcock and got tied up on Wednesday (a day later than we anticipated being all the way to Kemah).  Deb and I took a taxi from there to where my car was at our intended destination.  Our friends/crew stayed at the boat while we picked up the car.  When we got back to the boat, it was about time to get them to the airport.  We dropped them off at the the airport, with enough time for them to have dinner before their flight.

Kenny wanted to see if he could sleep in rough water - Yep!

It was great to have our friends with us on this trip and I think Kenny really had a great time, he just kind of rolled with the flow and this was something he always wanted to do, so the oil spill delays, the rough weather, the delays, none of it bothered him at all.

 We haven't spent much time with Jim and Karen in a few years since we left Lewisville so it was cool to catch up and spend a few days together again.  When we lived in Lewisville and our boat was 2 slips away from theirs, we
spent every weekend together and then got together 2-3 times during the week for dinner or a sporting event or something.  I miss that so it was great to get a little of that time back too.

Jim and Karen

When we got back to the boat, they had cleaned everything up, dishes, put away all the clothes/blankets/towels, etc.  It was a really nice surprise and allowed Deb and I to just relax that night, which was great.

I ended up working on Thursday and Friday from that Marina and we planned on sailing the rest of the way ourselves over the weekend.  On Thursday they opened up the ICW and Houston Ship Channel for recreational boaters, as long as you had a specific destination and were not just out joy riding around in the area they were cleaning up.

The last leg of that trip will be covered on the next blog post...

Matagorda to Freeport

When we arrived at Matagorda city Marina, The crew from Nightingale came over and assisted with the lines, which took quite a bit of patience because I was having a heck of a time backing into the slip I was attempting to get to.
I finally made it, but not before seeing all of the mud churning up from how shallow it was, no wonder why I couldn't rotate into the slip, I was likely plowing some mud with the keel.

After tying up, getting everything in ship shape and checking the water intake strainers for any mud, we were set to relax.  Deb fixed dinner and we had a bite to eat and then went up to the bar/restaurant at the Marina for a couple of drinks.  While we were there the crew from Nightingale came up and offered us a round of drinks, on them, for coming back and helping them get ungrounded the evening before.  I thought it was a really nice gesture, and certainly not the reason we did it, but it was nice either way.

Karen making Coffee

We had a good night sleep, and I must have slept sound because when I got up at about 6:45, I noticed that the shrimp boat that was docked 10 feet off my bow was gone and I hadn't even heard it leave.
We showered, fueled up, restocked a few beverages and were off the dock good and early in hopes that we may be able to make good enough time to make it all the way to Hitchcock.

As we started out into the next open body of water, it became apparent that we were NOT going to be making it all the way to Hitchcock.  This whole week had been filled with winds at 20-35 knots and today was no exception.  It was slow going slogging into the wind and waves for several hours which put us behind schedule a bit.   We decided that the best place to stay was going to be Freeport.   If you would like to see some video of the slogging into the wind, go to this link on Youtube for the Video.  Link to "Slogging up wind in the open Bay"

Mid afternoon, we happened to notice Nightingale coming up behind us.  They were making a few
knots faster than us and we talked on a radio for a while as they were passing.  We got some good pictures of their boat and sent them via email.  I am hoping they have some good ones of us as well and can send them our way.

They were also staying in Freeport but not at the same Marina.  I was concerned about a fixed bridge near the Marina they were staying at so we stayed at Seaside Marina (mainly a large fishing boat Marina for offshore fishing yachts).

At some point during the trip, I decided to troll a lure for a while.  I certainly didn't expect we would catch anything on the ICW since I was still rigged up for offshore fishing in deeper water.  I figured what the heck and we did troll for a little while but then pulled it back in when coming up on some more barge traffic.  What I certainly did NOT want to catch was the prop shaft of a tug boat.

We ended up going through a set of flood control locks on this leg of the trip as well.  We didn't have to wait too long, but the water coming down the

Brazo's River East Lock (on the ICW)

river was flowing at a pretty good pace into the ICW and had about a 3-4 knot current.  It felt like forever before we made it through that lock at about 1.5-2 knots over the ground.  When looking at the water, it looked like we were cruising full speed, looking at the locks we were crawling.  We went through the first lock and then had to circle in the river a few times to let some other traffic go through, they were heading West on the ICW and going north up the Brazos so we had to stay on the down current side of the intersection until he passed.  Once through, we were able to go through the second flood control lock and continue East on the ICW.


Tonight, I wanted to go out and grab a bite to eat rather than stay on the boat.  Last time we were through this Marina about 6 months ago, we stopped and had one of the best burgers ever at a little place called "Castaways" and I was determined to go back to this place.  We walked over for dinner and drinks and in a bout of crazy small world stuff, we met some folks there.   One of our guests/crew posted on Facebook that we were in Freeport.  Someone she went to high school with happened to reply to that post and said, I have 4 crazy aunts that are down there on vacation.  Sitting at the table next to us were 4 older women having the time of their life.  They were toasting drinks, dancing with each others and other people in the bar and Deb, in only the way Deb can, Goes over and asks if there is any chance they know "So and So".  As it turns out, that was his "4 crazy aunts".   The night went down hill from there.  Deb and Karen joined their table and next thing I know there were trays of shots and drinks, etc going that way.  

Jim, Kenny and I had our beers and just watched the girls have a great time.   While we were there, there was a gentlemen at the bar that had drank more than he should have to safely drive home.  The owner of the bar insisted he not drive.  This man was on a motorcycle and very worried about the safety of his bike leaving it out front.  The owner helped him wheel the motorcycle into the
bar/resteraunt and then got him a ride home.  That, in my book, was one really cool move.    I must admit it did allow for one photo of Karen on a Motorcycle :)

So now it was time to head back to the boat.   I am not sure what it is about my lovely bride, but when she has a few drinks, you never quite know what she is going to do/say.   On this particular day, apparently she thought she should talk in a British  accent the rest of the evening.  So the whole walk home, she rambled on in a perfect (or maybe it just sounded perfect to me after a few beers) British accent.  She even used the English words for things rather than what she may normally say, referring to the bathroom as the Loo and the elevator as the lift.  I do have some rather funny video of this, but I decided that I would not post it, but I must admit, I just had some pretty good laughs going through them all again while writing this blog.

So off to sleep for the night and tomorrow we are headed to Hitchcock.  That is going to be as far as we can get because the Waterways around Galveston, Houston Ship Channel and the ICW are all closed on the other side of Hitchcock due to the Oil Spill.  (At the time we were sailing through (on March 24th) not at the time this posts)

Oil Spill, locks closed, an unusual docking situation and a rescue

After spending the day holed up awaiting a weather window, we left Sanctuary Costa Grande at sun up.

As we headed out to the ICW from the Sanctuary cut, there were quite a few barges lined up in the ICW heading east into Matagorda bay.  We waited for traffic to pass and merged into the line.  

The wind was down today to about 10-15 mph out of the north east which we assumed would make the 17 miles across the bay pretty rough taking the waves on the quarter.  As we approached the jetties we contacted Nightingale (the other boat that we shared our weather hole with to let him know what kind of weather we were seeing) and let him know the weather was like in the bay.  

We were just coming through the jetties so we told him we would contact him in 15 minutes as we were out in it.  The good news is that the waves were only about 2-3 feet but they were stacked up right against each other and we were heading into the wind so the spray was constant.  We were thankful for the dodger and bimini as we stayed dry and fairly warm.

Here is a nice little video of us sailing in San Antonio Bay the prior day

Barge traffic wasn’t too bad in the bay, and all of the tugs are good about responding on the VHF when you contact them to see which side of them they want to see us pass them on.  As we got to about the center of the bay, the waves were starting to jump up to 4 feet and were stacked 3 and 4 in a row.  For us this meant that we would go up and down the first 2 and then have the 3rd break over the bow and the 4th just slowed us down a bit.    We attempted to call back to Nightingale to let them know since they have a power catamaran that has a fairly low center between the hulls.  For him this would have been a bit of a pounding.  We were too far away from him so we contacted a tug “Reedemer” that was 8 miles behind us going the opposite way and asked him to hail Nightingale and pass on the report.  He did so and we could hear him relay the message.  (Mental note, we don’t have as strong of a VHF signal as I want)

We made it across the bay and into the protected waters again and as we were passing up a tug “Janice Roberts” the captain informed us that the Colorado River West Lock was closed until 1900 (7 pm).  The problem for us is we were hoping to go another 18 miles past the colorado river for the night, now it looks like we need to take a Plan B that is about 5 miles past the lock.     Just over 3 miles from the lock, all of the barge traffic was stopping.  We were able to see them stacked up on the AIS.  After contacting the lock master, they let us know that we could go through the west lock and down river on the Colorado and take the bypass cut around the east lock.  The problem is that cut only has 5 feet of depth and we need 6.  So it was time to just bite the bullet and get in line.  Looking at the tugs, I counted 16 ahead of us.  

We were circling in the ICW trying to determine what we were going to do for the next 4 and half hours and decided that there was no barge traffic coming at us with the locks closed so we would just anchor in the middle.  I went to the bow to ready the anchor and heard one of the tug captains talking to another to let him know that we were behind him.  Deb was manning the VHF and let them know that we were going to anchor here while we waited on the locks to open and then through in a “unless one of you tug captains would let us tie up to you”  We heard one tell us that he wasn’t sure what the company would think of that but he didn’t mind and asked us to just tie up to the first barge in his strung out load.  The cleats on these things are about 3 feet across and docking on it is like pulling up to a nice 10 foot deep bulkhead.  We stopped right next to him and tied up.  He asked us to just make sure we stayed on our vessel which we were glad to do and thankful for the generosity of letting us tie up him rather than anchoring in the middle of the ICW.  

So here I am writing a blog while sitting at the nav station while tied up to a barge.  I made sure that the company name was not visible in these because this was a really cool thing this guy let us do.   As I write this the thunder and lightning is picking up and I am just hoping that the captain of the tug doesn’t call me and ask me to shove off due to my 50 foot lightning rod (mast) tied up to his tug.  If he does, I completely understand, but hoping not.  

I got a call on the radio from the Tug Captain, he said that he was going to start moving on up the ICW a bit further.  We told him we would toss the lines off.  I went down below and had she wouldn't start.  I couldn't believe it.  I called the Captain back and let him know that I was having an issue and working on switching over to an alternate battery.  He asked what we drafted, we answered and he said that he would just carry us along for a while and he would be sure that he kept us in water deep enough (not a problem as he needed 4 feet more depth than we needed.  But it was really cool of him, he just left us tied on and carried us with him a mile or so while we swapped batteries.  We untied while doing about a knot and a half while tied to him.  

So it will get a bit more interesting tonight because these tugs in front of me will take a little bit of time to get going through the lock, which means we may not hit it until dark.  The place we will stay for the night is about 4 miles past the lock.  This delay certainly impacts us however as we were planning on making 55-70 miles today and with this stop we are oily going to make 34, which puts reaching Kemah out of the question by Tuesday.  The goal now is to get to Hitchcock on Tuesday if possible so that our friends can catch their flights back to Dallas.  If they can’t we may need to take a cab from Freeport which may be oostly but potentially the only option.

We were trying to figure out why the West Lock of the Colorado river was closed and then learned it was to keep the traffic from stacking up in Galveston where everything is shut down due to the oil spill and collision between a ship and a barge carrying oil.  It appears that there was about 168,000 gallons of oil spilled into Galveston bay right at the Texas City dyke.  Due to this and the clean up efforts the Intercoastal water way east and west bound is closed at the Houston Ship Channel, the Houston Ship Channel is closed, the Galveston Ship Channel is closed and the Texas City Channel is closed.  This basically means there is no way to get home right now so our plan is to try to get to Hitchcock on the West side of Galveston.  

We received a call from Nightingale, they had attempted to go around a tug and had the prop wash push them into shallow water and had run aground.  We waited for a while to see if they were able to free up and they were not so we turned and went back to give them a tug and see if we could free them.  The good news is that we were able to and we made good time heading up the ICW.  The Captain on Nighingale radioed the lock operator who was willing to let us run through ahead of the barges.  That allowed us to get to our designation for the night.  We both ended up staying at the Matagorda City Harbor for the night.

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.