I really don't care! They are gone. Tuesday morning the Raymarine tech drove over to Hitchcock and spent the whole day going over the cantankerous nav and autopilot systems. This time the systems are working very well. What a pleasure to have the chart presentation and autopilot working. We departed Harborwalk Wednesday morning and started across Galveston Bay. The open waters were quite choppy but once we were back into the ICW where the narrow channel is cut through land masses the ride improved. Again the barge traffic was mind boggling. What scares me is that Sue and I are beginning to understand what the tow boat captains are saying on the radio! We saw our first pleasure craft going in the opposite direction. A handsome classic 45' trawler headed for Clear Lake, TX. The captain recognized our Great Loop Burgee and we had a brief conversation about his experience doing the loop. We planned on stopping at an anchorage listed in the cruising guide but again found totally unacceptable. We then attempted to stick the boats nose into a bayou but met with a soft grounding. Finally we found a construction site that was cut into the the ICW bank to prepare for building a dam. It was adjacent to the ICW but we were able to get the anchor set for the night. With the generator running we had most of the comforts of home. Being out in the middle of nowhere we had no cell phone or internet.
We got off to an early start today. At 1115 AM we finally left the state of Texas. We are now south of Lake Charles but again found the planned destination anchorage was not usable. So we had to press on until we finally found some poles to tie up to for the night. Soon after we got into Louisiana the ICW took a 21 mile straight course - most boring except for the barges. Verizon is available here so I thought I might bring you up to date and let you know our adventure is going well.
Y'all stay vertical,
Capt John and Chief Helmsperson Sue
aboard DEBRIEF
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