Well it's happened again.
We set out on what should have been a fun sail to get from A to B but
ended up in an altogether different place.
When friends asked us to deliver their boat to Florida we
jumped at the chance. we love to be out
and are getting ready to do the same with our boat. It was straight forward, have the boat
somewhere in the vicinity of The Keys roughly March 15th. Take all the time you need. We set up the appointment with the boat yard
to get the bottom done, dropped the boat at 9 am on Monday the 17th and expected
it to be out February 21st for a 22nd departure weather permitting. Well the best laid plans and all of
that. The boat needed repair to the rudder,
the yard guy said no problem, they would still make the 21st, needless to say
they didn't. In fact they didn't splash
until 11:30 am on the 28th.
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Sunset Friday the 28th |
Oh, well. We checked
the weather, saw a window and a potential problem. There would be favorable winds but we needed
to get moving and be in an anchorage at the bottom of Louisiana by Monday
morning as soon as the sun came up. If
the front that was forecast arrived early we needed a plan to ditch the
crossing and get in shore. Everything
went great on Friday, we crossed the Jetties at Port Aransas at 1:00 pm and set
our course. We sailed between 8 & 10
knots for the better part of the night.
About 3 AM we realized there might be an issue. The auto pilot was acting squirrely. It's possible to hand steer, but it is
extremely tiring and not something that two people would want to do for three
days and certainly not with the possibility of a storm on the horizon. By 10 AM Saturday we had made our choice of a
new course, heading the 90 miles up to the Calcasieu inlet in Louisiana. The meant 24 hours of steering, much of it at
night or in dense fog, by sight and radar to dodge the many oil rigs out in the
gulf.
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Calcasieu Point Park |
We entered the inlet about 9 AM Sunday morning. The tide was coming out and the seas were
coming in. It was a major steering job
to keep us in deep water. Eventually we
made our way up the river, our boat speed via the GPS showed us that we were
moving 6 knots, but with the current pushing against us we were actually only
making 3.5 knots over ground. It was a
long but easy day. We entered the GIWW
(Gulf Intercoastal Water Way) about 4 pm and headed to a park at Calcasieu
Point.
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Sea Yawl Later snug for the night |
There is a boat dock there that
offers a safe place to park for a few hours but no overnight mooring is allowed
(per the posted sign). We promptly
covered the sign with the boat and hunkered down for the night. This is the second time we've used this spot,
the last time when we brought Second Star from North Carolina. The park is closed in the winter or I don't
think things would have gone as well. .
We are now under a bridge about 20 miles away, but that's a
tale for next time!
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