We’ve Sailed Kathryn Home!

We have, indeed, sailed SV Kathryn home to North Padre Island!  What a tremendous adventure it has been.  Thank you to all of our family and friends who have “sailed” along with us from Lake Michigan, Mobile Bay and now Corpus Christi, TX.  We made it!!!

We left Galveston, TX on Tuesday morning…it was cold, sunny and still blowing a bit!  Our destination was out of Galveston Bay and back into the GIWW…one more time.  We were headed to Freeport, TX and then on to Corpus.  Jeanie and Nancy kind of “wimped” out on this sail do to the chilly temps.  Plus, we’d “been there, done that” with all of the refineries and barges.  We were pleasantly surprised with the lovely new marina in Freeport.  On top of that, the dock master gave us a ride downtown to a lovely restaurant that was named one of the top 40 restaurants in Texas.  This was our LAST dinner out before the trip ended.  The last supper, so to speak J.

Baby it's cold outside!



Oil Rig Assembly.. Texas Gold

Lift Bridge at Galveston

Freeport Municipal Marina



Tide Control Gate at Freeport

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12-12-12 to 12-13-12

We sailed out of Freeport and into the Gulf of Mexico early Wednesday AM.  Our course was to sail at a southwest angle and hit the safe ship zone.  There are just too many oil rigs/platforms in the Gulf and we did not want to hit one sailing at night.  Our trip would be a 24-30 hour sail.  The problem with sailing in December is the short amount of daylight and long periods of darkness.  At night we needed to take “watches”, so we decided on 3 hour watches for each couple.  Steve and I took the 9 – 12 watch, Bill and Jeanie the next three and so on throughout the night.  The only problem with the plan was a case of seasickness that hit the crew.  Steve was the only person not effected,,,we won’t go into any other details.  Let’s just say we made it! J  At 7:30, we left the Gulf and passed into Port Aransas which is at the tip of North Padre Island.  The sun was shining beautifully, the water was calm and the dolphins were there to escourt us!  I just love dolphins and they were quite playful that morning!  It was another 18 miles to get us past Corpus Christi Bay and then under the Kennedy Causeway Bridge that takes cars to the Island.  It had been a joke between Steve and me, that he wanted me to swim to shore and take a picture of the boat going under the bridge. (I forgot my swimming suit, so that didn’t happen…hehehe)   As we approached the bridge, all of the emotion of this journey hit me and tears spilled out of my eyes.  We had come so FAR and now we were at our new home!  Almost too much to take in at that moment!  We passed some familiar sights along the waterway and finally pulled into Padre Island Yacht Club, which is Kathryn’s new home!  Last night Bill, Jeanie, Steve and I went out to dinner to celebrate.  We had finished the journey! 

Cold Morning on the Gulf

Nancy in foul weather gear

Sunset on the Gulf

Port Aransas

Our personal welcome committee

Kennedy causeway bridge at North Padre Island

Under the bridge... almost home

Snoopy's...  The best fish on the island

Padre Island Yacht Club... We are home!

We made it!  Home at last.  Where will we go next?

So my friends, this is the end of the blog.  Thank you again for “coming along with us”! We saw and did things that none of us had imagined!  WOW!  We will let you know we are off again on another adventure.

Galveston, Oh Galveston, I Can Hear Your Sea Breeze Blowing!

Yes, indeed, we have made it to Galveston.  Unfortunately, the sea breezes we hear blowing are more of a roar of 30 knot winds.  So this Monday we are REALLY in Galveston and staying put.  Instead of lemons we got lemonade. We got a brunch and a guided tour of the city with friends of Bill and Jeanie’s, Brad and Mary Robbins!  And what tour guides they were…a delightful breakfast restaurant, a riding tour, visits to a shop called Nautical Antiques and the city museum and library.  This, of course, was followed by a stop at the grocery store and liquor/cigar store!  Life is good!

Breakfast in Galveston

Unhand me, you cad!

Brad & Mary's son's model of the forms used to build the Galveston sea wall

Which one is the dummy?

Nancy's fish that got away

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now I must go back and update you on our travels to Galveston since the last blog.  Marinas and anchorages along the GIW are marginal, to say the least.  You get what you get, and don’t throw a fit!!!  Adam’s Bayou and Taylor’s Bayou might be a good example of this!  Adam’s Bayou was close to Port Arthur, TX and was down a long channel off the GWI.  As we came close to the little marina, we could hear a faint bleating sound….hmmm!  As we rounded the bend, on a tiny island across from the marina’s dock, were about ten goats and one horse.  Don’t ask me why they were there, they just belonged to the man who lived next door.  You could smell them, too. J  When Steve had called, we were told there was a restaurant on sight!  This, of course, brought a smile to Jeanie and Nancy’s faces….one less meal to prepare!  Well, yes there was a restaurant and the pictures I have provided, will give you the visual images.  It wasn’t the best breakfast we have ever had, but the owner, Lynn, was a most interesting lady to talk to over our meal.  She was from Ireland and served in their Air Force.  She moved to Canada and then the USA and joined our Air Force.  She and husband Ike are now retired.  He loves to hunt and she loves to run the restaurant!

We must be in Texas

Reported as having the best breakfast in Texas... Not bad

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next anchorage was Taylor’s Bayou somewhere next to a swamp and an oil refinery.  You can just picture it, can’t you? J  The Active Captain site that Steve reads for boating info mentioned a slight problem with mosquitoes!  OH, MY!  That was an understatement!  We arrived, set the anchor and then proceeded to sit down for a little happy hour!  WHOA!  The mosquitoes knew we had arrived and we were their fresh flesh!  Answer to that problem was to move down below and close the door.  OH, NO!  They had moved in and these guys were Texas mosquitoes…huge!!!!  We swatted, we ducked, we covered up but nothing helped.  They were everywhere and biting!  End of story, we just finally went to bed and tried to cover up as much exposed skin as we could!

Cocktails before the mosquitoes attacked!

Finally yesterday, Sunday, Dec. 9^th, we were headed for Galveston Bay.  The weather report took the wind out of our sails, since a cold front was coming with high winds!  We made the last 60+ miles and pulled into the marina which gave us protection from these forecast winds.  They hit around midnight and all night it howled and blew.  So, here we are and will try to get out tomorrow morning.  With good luck (I know, you have heard this before!), we will try a Gulf crossing straight to Corpus tomorrow or most likely on Wednesday.  Yes folks, we will make it!  What an adventure

Miscellanious Photos from the GIWW

Fire in the swamp

Shrimp Boats

Another crazy sailboater on the GIWW

Crossing Galveston Bay -  Lots of ships

Drive through lock

 

New Orleans and into the Delta (aka Bayou Country)

As we made our way across Lake Pontchartarin, we had a beautiful sail on an early Sunday morning.  Sunday actually became the “key” word here, because it was our ticket for a quick trip through the New Orleans channel.  This channel included two locks and a number of lift bridges. This is an industrial work place and full of barges and ships on weekdays.  All it takes to make it a LONG day is to have a “hitch” of some kind and then you wait and wait and wait.  At the end of the channel, we passed into the Mississippi River and right by downtown New Orleans.  St. Louis Cathedral, that we had just visited a month ago by land, stood out against the skyline!  We then entered the Gulf Intra Coastal Waterway (GIW) which takes you through the Delta.  For those of you familiar with the Cal Sag Channel in Chicago, this is very similar but with a swamp background J

 

Our first night in the swamps was at Jones Point.  Steve and Bill picked an anchorage right next to a grave yard…mmm!  Of course, all of the graves are above ground in this part of the country.  They had some trouble getting the anchor to hold, but we made it through the night.

Ship Repair Facility

 

Floating Hotel

Houma, LA was our next stop and we had a great tie up at the city’s municipal dock.  Dec. 3rd is Jeanie’s birthday, so we had to find a great place to celebrate.  We happened to find an outstanding Italian restaurant called Cristiano’s and felt like we were in New Orleans.  Their specialty was char broiled oysters and they were an instant hit with our table!!!!  (I don’t even like oysters, or so I thought!)  With a little hint to the waiter, they brought out a candle lit dessert and we serenaded Jeanie with “Happy Birthday to You”! 

Next morning, we left again along the GIW with a destination of Morgan City, LA.  You might have noticed I haven’t mentioned too much about the sights along the way.  You could sum them up with, lots of barges and tugs, large repair facilities for ships and tugs, and oil rig building facilities.  You see some birds and lots of swamp grass.  My pictures can give you a better idea of the lay of the land!  We arrived in Morgan City a bit earlier than usual, since we needed diesel fuel and groceries.  The dock we had read about was there, but FULL of shrimp boats.  One gentleman helped us tie up at the last available dock space and it was a tight fit.  After the usual docking procedures, I saw the same nice gentleman down at his boat working. Being the friendly girl that I am, I went down to find out the “scoop” about Morgan City.  (where’s the grocery store, is there a restaurant, where can we buy fuel, etc.)  Well, end of the story, he not only told us where to go but offered us his pickup truck to use!!!!  This was a blessing, since we had bags and bags of groceries and it would have been a LONG walk, let alone with our fuel cans that weigh a ton when full.  He, also, had a sign saying “Shrimp For Sale”.  Steve returned the truck and bought 4 lbs of his large fresh shrimp.  We had to take off the heads and shells, but they were voted the BEST shrimp we had ever had! Plus, we have two pounds still in the freezer!

Our stop last night was Intercoastal City.  The oil companies work out of this area and the workers take helicopters to their work sites. This A.M. everyone was “fogged in”, so we met a few of the workers up at the local grocery/restaurant close to our boat.  They fly out to the rigs and either have a seven day shift or stay for two weeks.  It is so interesting hearing them talk about this part of Louisiana and their work.  We had breakfast with the locals and then started out again on our trip down the GIW!  It’s a bit foggy, cool and overcast.  This is a perfect time to go down below and work on my blog!

Just one more update about our plans: We plan to take the GIW to a lake that is on the Louisiana, Texas boarder and head south to the Gulf.  (Hopefully this will be on Saturday)  When we reach the Gulf, we will enter the Safe Shipping Zone and head south to Corpus.  This is around 200 miles or about a two day sail.  Those plans, of course, are subject to weather conditions!  So, keep your fingers crossed for sunny skies and mild winds!  Christmas is coming and I am getting ready to be on land to Christmas shop.  It continues to be a great sail…so until next time, good-bye from SV Kathryn.

 

The Mind is the First to Go!!!!

This is a P.S. for the last blog entry.  Steve always helps me post on the blog spot.com page.  As we did this last evening, he always “proofs” my writing and, of course, he noticed something BIG was missing!  Actually, it was the WORST mishap we have had on the whole trip!  We had driven to Indiana to have Thanksgiving with our children/grandchildren after being in Iowa.  The Friday after Thanksgiving we drove 13 hours straight to get to Mobile Bay.  We arrived around 7:15 P.M., very tired and anxious to check out the boat, get on board and get some rest.  Those of you who know Steve, must know that he is very organized and thinks through his “moves” when it has anything to do with his boat.  So, he had tied the boat up rather loosely on the dock in the marina for the tides.  (Another note: Turner Marine is a boat yard/marina, and the docks are NOT fancy but their claim to fame is their spectacular work on boats.)  We both got out of the car, walked to the boat and noticed that it was high tide, so the boat was considerably higher than the dock.  Steve proceeded to pull the boat toward him and launched himself upward to pull himself on the boat.  Well, something went wrong…he just didn’t give it enough “umph” and I see him turn, try to grab hold of a line and into the water he went. (He just missed hitting the boat with his head and fell right between the boat and the dock)  It is VERY dark and the water is muddy and I finally see him surface.  I am yelling to him to see if he is okay, he grabs onto the dock and assures me he is fine.  We look around and, of course, there is NO ladder.  What seemed like hours and was really only minutes, two men came running from a dock over to see if they could help.  Yes, PLEASE!  After a series of tried ideas that didn’t work, we finally got him to the edge of the marina’s banks.  He and the men were able to pull him out.  Phew!!!  Then he noticed his glasses were gone, one shoe was missing and his phone, wallet, keys etc. were soaking wet in his pocket.  Good-bye Iphone (:  To make a long story short, his boat shoe surfaced a bit later and we fished it out.  Steve wears his glasses all of the time and needs them, so this was a big problem.  We went to bed after he was all dried off and showered off (who knows what is in those waters….ewwwww).  The next morning, Steve decides to put on his snorkle equipment and went into the water surrounding our boat. He WANTED those glasses.  Ever so carefully, he proceeded to move his bare foot over the surface of the marina bottom. (I told him later I thought he was foolish….he would never find those glasses!)  After doing this for about five minutes, he FOUND THEM!!!!!  The Iphone was “toast” but after a trip to Verizon, and some big bucks, he had his new phone!  You see, how could I have failed to mention this whole tale?  Like I say, the mind is the first to go!

We’re BACK!

Yes, we are back on board Kathryn once again and on our voyage to Corpus Christi.  Before I give you the “low down” on our trip, I need to go back over the past month.  When you last heard from us, we were headed to our townhome in Corpus.  We had two weeks to order new furniture, start some painting projects and just get reacquainted with Texas.  Our plans changed quite unexpectedly, when we received word from my brothers that Mom had suffered a stroke.  The following weeks ended with Mom being placed under Hospice care and she passed away Nov. 15^th.  We had a beautiful Celebration of Life service for her at the church she has attended (our whole family, too) since she and Dad were married.  She was a wonderful, accomplished 90 year old woman (the church organist for 58 years) and is now with the Lord and my Dad.

 

Nina Kimm 12-5-1921  -  11-25-2012  Banner at Funeral





Bill, our crew hand, had headed back to Michigan to get Jeannie.  She had broken her ankle in June and had just finished physical therapy the first week in November.  They headed south and met us in Mobile on Nov. 27^th.  So, the crew was ready to GO!

The plan that DIDN’T happen!



Kathryn at Turner Marine in Mobile with mast and sails

 

Our plan for our trip to TX was going to be a 5 day Gulf crossing (straight across the Gulf to Corpus).  We had checked with our “weather man, Chris Parker” and the weather was going to be great with no storms….hoooray!  Thursday, November 29^th was sunny and cool as we left Dog River Marina on Mobile Bay. We started south out of the Bay and passed many ships since we were in the ship channel.  This is a safe place for pleasure boats, since we did NOT want to run into an oil rig at sea.  We were quite giddy seeing the dolphins following the giant ships and our boat.  I just love those “guys”!  We had JUST passed the barrier islands and Steve and Bill decided to put up the main sail when trouble started!  Our original main sail (which was on our list of things to purchase for the boat) got a tear!!!!  For non-sailors, this means the sail would either tear more, or not be effective for our sail.  SO….plan B came into play!  We needed to take Mississippi Sound across to Lake Pontchartrain and then to the Gulf Inter-Coastal  Waterway (GIW).  This, of course, would make the trip much longer and Steve had been so excited to make a Gulf crossing.  So, that is where we are now.

Dog River Marina ready for Christmas



One of may Oil Rigs in the Gulf





Lots of Ships head out of Mobile Bay



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mississippi Sound and Lake Pontchartrain

The 1^st night we anchored along Daulphin Island which is a barrier island along the Alabama coast.  From there, we headed for Cat Island with its white sand beaches for our second anchorage.  Sailing along Mississippi Sound is quite peaceful and beautiful.  You’re really not far off shore, so you can see Biloxi and Gulf Port in the distance.  All along this area, we were delighted once again by our dolphin friends!  Just about this time is when I caught a “bug” that left me feeling kind of “punk” and coughing all of the time.  Good thing I had a nice crew and they didn’t throw me overboard!  There are just so many places to be on a sailboat (:  Saturday, late in the afternoon we arrived at the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain at the Oak Harbor Marina.  They had all of the creature comforts we wanted and a seafood restaurant on sight.  At the restaurant that evening, they had many pictures of the destruction Katrina had caused in the area.  The boats in the harbor, were we were docked, had all been tossed onshore right into the condos!  What a sight! 

My next blog will take us through New Orleans and into the GIW…stay tuned. 

Sunset on Mississippi Sound

Leaving Oak Harbor at first light