Thursday May 15, 2008. 09:00hrs CDT. Intracoastal City, LA. Lat 29° 47.03’ N, Long 92° 09.28’ W

The good

Tuesday night we found a good anchorage south of Orange, TX in a cut-off from the main ICW. We cooked supper and fell asleep until the mosquitoes woke us up. We left around 6:30 am Wednesday and continued motoring down the ICW, enjoying the scenery and getting more used to the AIS and PC chartplotter. We gated through the Calcasieu lock south of Lake Charles and kept on going: 1700 rpm on the engine, about 5.9 knots and half a gallon an hour of fuel. On Tuesday late afternoon I got a call from Terry to say our sail repairs were already done and he suggested sending them to New Orleans. On Wednesday morning we arranged to have them shipped to Seabrook Marine which is located between Industrial Canal and Lake Pontchartrain. Great news. We planned to pick them up there on Friday.

When we reached the Leyland Bowman lock just west of Intracoastal city we found a long line of tows waiting to lock through. However we were fortunate as when Janet called the lock on the radio they told us to come on up and, after what seemed a long wait, they locked us through on our own ahead of 8 or 10 tows. I guess they wanted to get us out of the way but it was fortunate for us.

The bad

Motoring down the ICW can be pretty relaxing but this was the first time I had done it with a crew of two. It takes a lot more time than I had previously experienced. With one person at the helm all the time we found little time to “do nothing” between fixing things, cooking and negotiating the locks and other navigational situations. One of these was finding a place to spend Wednesday night. One anchorage came up at around 4:00pm but we really did not want to stop then. We decided to press on to Intracoastal city, LA where we eventually arrived and docked at Shell Morgan Landing at around 1:00 am Thursday morning. This was our only reasonable choice as there are no good anchorages in this 100 mile stretch of the ICW. It had been a long day. Now, Thursday morning we may have to stay here the day (not our first choice of idyllic locations) as more severe weather is threatened and it is now too late in the morning to make our next safe stopping point without that too occurring at 1:00am in the morning.

The Ugly

Docking at Shell Morgan Landing was not easy. The wind was gusting strongly from the stern and we had little room to dock behind the only other recreational boat there. In the process we went aground and then got off, made one attempt and then backed off and tried again. On the second try I got the boat to the dock and stopped and Janet got a mid ships line on but the wind was so strong it pushed the bow into the concrete dock before we could secure our second line. Our first scrape on the hull. We secured Melos and fell asleep. A strong thunderstorm woke Janet who got up to adjust the fenders while I slept on. Then the wind and rain got worse and I woke, put on my full foul weather gear and went out to check on the fenders. But not in time. The rising water and strong winds had popped two fenders and we now have a very nasty damaged patch amidships just below the shear. I’m not ready to share pictures yet: it’s too upsetting though really only a cosmetic issue.

Observations

We have already had a few problems: our sail failure, our loss of time getting to Florida, and now the paint damage. We could give up and come home but I see these problems as a test of our resolve. They remind me of the problems I encountered when I set off from Great Yarmouth UK, to sail to Falmouth UK which is were I left from to sail the Atlantic alone. Those early passages from Great Yarmouth to Ramsgate, to Plymouth (with a few more stops in between) also had their fair share of problems. The ones I recall now (20 years later) were going aground, scraping the hull sides, shearing the woodruff key on my propeller and then tearing the windlass off the deck and cracking the case. If I had given up then I would never have made it to the Caribbean, to Texas and would never have met Janet which has been the best event of my life! Without adversity there can be no elation. We will carry on from here and find more good than bad as we go.

Jeremy

PS: I was going to send this at 7:00am today but I am having a problem connecting using the satellite phone. The other day it worked flawlessly; now it doesn't. If you can read this I have figured it out. Who knows next time?