We're finally out of Seabrook and eastbound again.

Finally getting out of Seabrook was quite a relief. We had a good time there despite the circumstances and made several good friends whom we shall always remember.

The old girl left Seabrook Ship Yard with a new pair of shoes.  She runs great now (even better than before)

We had a lovely Thanksgiving Dinner on board.  Brenda broke out the

finery and I did the cooking.





Even Runway (the white cat) and Tarmac (the other cat) were
offered some Thanksgiving turkey.




Runway got to sit at the table having promised not to sit on the
table and lick her ass.  Tarmac wouldn't commit.




A cool shot of a pelican taking off towards the back of the boat.



Leaving Seabrook - The Kemah Boardwalk

 Since we only had a 24 mile run to the Galveston Yacht Basin (GYB) we were able to take our time getting out. We left Seabrook at around 1100 after two pots of coffee and a good breakfast. The weather forecast was for smooth bay waters with relatively mild wind from the southeast, The forecast was right on. It was a fantastic ride.

When you leave Seabrook, you follow a relatively narrow channel into Galveston Bay across which you pass to the Houston Ship Channel which takes you all the way down to Galveston. It’s a wide open bay with plenty of water under the boat. One captain I spoke to commented that there was 15000 square miles of water averaging 6’deep. Where we were, there was between 9’ ad 11’. However, when the north wind blows, it tends to blow all the water our of the bay, so it gets even more shallow.
This was some of the heaviest ship traffic we have seen to date. The Houston Ship Channel is very busy, even on Saturdays. We encountered huge barges, tankers, ferry boats, sail boats, and dredges. There was the biggest dredge I have ever seen working in the Pelican Cut on the north side of Galveston Island. His AIS information said nothing about the name of the vessel or the fact he was engaged in dredging operations. Yet, it was pretty obvious to a reasonably experienced person that this was a dredge. Moreover, once you learn their light patterns, it is easy. You pass on the side where the green lights are, even though it might appear that you are passing on what would otherwise be the red side. If the lights are green, that’s the side you pass on. Did I mention the cruise ships also moving in the channel? The cut is over 40 feet deep in places. This cut is quite busy and getting into GYB was interesting. We had to dodge a cruise ship, a dredge, a couple sail boats, crew boats, a barge, and at least several small go fast fishing boats.

Check out how close this ship came to that barge on its starboard side.

Once we got into GYB, we found the nicest fuel dock we have ever been to. You need neither fenders nor dock lines. Both are provided for your convenience. You just pull up, step off, and tie the dock lines to the boat. It makes it a lot easier to cast off since you can do it from a position on the boat, instead of having to loose your lines and then step onto the boat after trying to push away. The way the dock was situated, the wind would push us off, if the wakes from passing vessels in Pelican Cut didn’t push you back on. Either way, we took on nearly 100 gallons. The price was only $2.86 per gallon. That is the lowest we have seen in months. It was nearly $4.00 per gallon up in Clear Lake, so it made sense to use a few gallons to save many dollars.

A view of Galveston Harbor - Pelican Cut from Teacup

After we got fuel, we anchored in a cove just outside the GYB in a place called “Teacup.” I have no idea why it is called that, but it is. The anchorage was off the main channel, but not by much. We felt the wakes of passing ferry boats and crew boats, but it was no worse than anchoring at the east end of Santa Cruz Island. In fact, if there was any roll, it was due to a wake and it would end as fast as it would come. It was nice and calm all night as all but the ferry boats essentially cease operations. The ferry boats sound horns when they come and go. If you lived on the water adjacent the ferry landing, this could become irritating. I once lived less than 100 yards from the railroad tracks. You get used to it and actually have to concentrate if you wanted to hear the freight trains passing in the night. We like the sound.

After we were securely anchored, we put the dink in the water and cruised it back into the GYB. The nice lady at the fuel dock let us tie up there so we could walk into town. You have to understand that Galveston is not terribly cruiser friendly. You really need a car there (or one hell of a pair of hiking boots) as things are rather far away from boat access. Nevertheless, we tied up at the fuel dock and took off walking. There was this funny lady at the guard gate whom we asked about whether there was anyplace for tired and thirsty cruisers to go nearby. She didn’t really have much to offer, but she pointed us in generally the right direction. So we headed south and walked across the island to the Gulf side and then turned right. The touristy stuff (Fisherman’s Wharf) was on the Pelican Cut side where the cruise ships dock. We did our best to avoid it. That was easy since it was 20 or so blocks to the west. So, we walked and walked. When we got to the Gulf side, we turned right and just walked up the beach.

Capital Q Texas BBQ - Highly recommended.

Since we got to Texas, we have been looking for a place to experience some of that great Texas BBQ. Well, we found a place right on the beach that was perfect. They had an outdoor bar with tikki torches and great outlaw country music – Nelson, Cash, Jennings, Haggard, etc. We had a lot of BBQ’d meats – sausage, pork ribs, brisket, etc. along with a tasty spicy sauce. That, and a bunch of drinks and, despite the cold and wintery weather, we were feeling pretty good. The walk home was interesting. One has to pass through some questionable neighborhoods if on foot. It all worked out and we got back to the boat at around 10:00. Overall, it was a great evening.



Part of the Shrimp Fleet in Bolivar Pass.

 We left Galveston this Sunday morning at 0745. We had planned a 56 nm run to a place called Taylor Bayou. It is rated as a good all weather anchorage. Once again, we had to transit the intersection of Galveston Bay, Pelican Cut, and Boliver Pass to get back to the GICW. Once we got into the Boliver Pass, things really mellowed out. The aforementioned intersection is open to the Gulf, so if there is weather in the Gulf, it is felt in the pass. We saw all kinds of evidence of Hurricane Ike while heading east behind the Boliver Penninsula. There were blown out homes and boats that had no business being that far inland with holes big enough to drive a truck through in their hulls.

Near the east side of the Boliver Pass, we passed by the town of Stingaree. No reason for it to exist, but it looked like a cool little place with lots of bulkhead one could tie to if it got late. Then there were miles and miles of straights. Course corrections involved 1 to 2 degree changes. It was pretty much like this all day.

The barge traffic all day was pretty intense. There were at least three occasions where we had to simply hold position behind a barge moving 4 knots while we waited for another barge coming up to pass before we could ask for an outbound pass. One such instance was Rollover Pass. It’s pretty narrow there. You come out of the protection of the marshland and then have to cross a small body of open water (Rollover Bay - the south side of East Galviston Bay) and then make your way between the marks. It’s like 1’ deep on either side of the marks, but 16’ straight down the middle. We held position behind a barge, while two others were coming side by side through the pass. Clearly there was some passing going on as we could hear them talking on the radio. There was no fitting in there, so we waited. When they both cleared, we followed the other barge through staying right on his transome to ensure deep water. Afterwards, we asked permission to pass and were granted. I have said it before and I will say it again, the tug captains are really very nice, for the most part, and will actually move their rigs over for you to make it easier to pass. We make it a practice to always contact the skipper and ask permission to pass on one side or another. Yeah, you better know your whistles around here, so when they say, “Sure you can run on by on my 1 whistle” or “Push on by my two” or “Keep-a-comin’ on the one” you know where to go.

Some of the barges carry some pretty heavy duty chemicals. We saw at least 4-5 barges carrying hundreds (if no thousands) of tons of Benzene. I’ll tell you that, if one of those got loose, it would kill everything within a 50 mile radius. The Gulf Coast is refinery land. It might be easy to complain, but think of it this way: The stuff could all be made in China or somewhere else and then we would pay for it to be imported. Also, if you like your nonstick pans, efficient burning gasoline, plastics, pharmaceuticals, etc., you have to accept the fact that the stuff has to be fabricated somewhere, so it might as well be here where lots of folks can work and townships can thrive.

Those are actually donkeys on this spit sticking out in Willow Bay,

So we pushed on and on, on very straight waterways all day. We passed through grasslands, bayous, sloughs, marshlands, and everything else otherwise natural preserve land. It was quite beautiful. We haven’t seen so much as a hill down here. It’s kinda strange. We did get to go under the High Island Bridge, however. Way the hell out in the middle of nowhere is a bridge with a 73 foot vertical clearance. I don’t know what is on either side, but it’s there.

One really funny thing happened on the radio. Per usual, I would announce our presence to a barge in sight, using the vessel’s name as derived from the AIS. I would generally refer to us as “the white power vessel …..” Some character comes back as says, “White power vessel? That’s not very PC now is it.” It never occurred to me. There then ensued a conversation amongst unseen barges over whether we were a power vessel, a motor vessel or a pleasure craft. I guess it took us a while but we didn’t even think of the “white power” thing. Well, it was all pretty funny. Since that time, we have been referring to ourselves as “the pleasure craft”………

We saw this barge and though of our nephew, Brian Paul Donovan

Did I mention the bottom composition around here? When we pulled the hook in Galveston this morning, up came the gangliest, blue-black, oozy mud I have ever seen. What a mess on the bow! I have to engage a wash down pump up there or we will be completely covered in this ooze. Not to mention the fact that the anchor locker will be thick in it. The holding is really good, however. The old Bruce just digs in and sets immediately, burying itself in the process. This morning my windlass was pissing and moaning trying to pull out the hook, the mud is so thick. So we decided not to stress it out so much and used the boat to pull it. I was rewarded for my effort by globs of gooey, foul smelling, sticky, oozy mud all over the front of the boat. There is rain in the forecast (again) so it’ll get cleaned. I just hope it rains hard enough and long enough that it does not merely spread all the nastiness. It’s all good.

This evening, we anchored in Taylor Bayou. Actually, to be more accurate, we anchored in the Outfall Canal of the TB. You come off the ICW just short of mile marker 290 (WHL) and turn left. You go up about ¾ mile and then make your way through a fairly wide opening in the grass and then you are in this canal that was definitely man cut. It is quite wide, and the depth is 15 feet all the way back for the next 2 miles. We just went back around ½ mile as it is a bayou with nothing to do but sit and wait until you leave the next day. Once again, we are anchored in that gooey mud. However, it’s a good thing. Not long after we anchored, my Droid beeped a weather alert at me. Some rather high winds and thunderstorms are forecast for the next 24 hours. I let out more chain. We are sitting in 15 feet of water over gooey mud with 110 ‘ of chain out. We’re not going anywhere.

Around here, the wind is steady and fairly predictable (trade winds usually are). But, the shifts are dramatic. The NWS will say that there will be wind from the south in the morning and then from the north in the afternoon. Well, right at around noon, the south wind slows down and then stops, and the north winds fills in slowly, and then becomes steady and holds. The NWS around here has its act together. I think they are better at forecasting weather. In California, since we never really have any weather to speak of, I think the NWS gets lazy. It’s an old joke in California that when there is a 30% chance of rain, what that really means is that there are 10 guys in the NWS weather center and three of them think it might rain. Here, however, in the land of hurricanes, tornadoes, trade winds, and major shipping, I think there is a better quality of weather forecasting because so much depends on it.

At this point, we are only around 36 miles from Louisiana. From Galveston to Houma, LA, you really have to do some cruise planning since the anchorages are few and relatively far between and there are no marinas for a long ways. So, when you get into a good anchorage and you get a weather alert, you had better be in a place where you can stay put for a couple days until the weather passes. Keep in mind that on the GICW, there is no serious fetch to speak of, so when it blows, it does not really cause waves, which as some of you know, is much more of a concern for anchoring than the actual wind that creates the waves. However, when travelling on the GICW, you have to cross a number of lakes along the way. This is where it can get tricky when there is a lot of wind. Most of the lakes around here average 3-5 feet deep. This means that wind blowing over this relatively shallow water can do one of a couple things: In Galveston Bay, for instance, when the wind blows hard from the north, it pushes water out of the bay and the water level literally drops a couple feet. There are marinas in the back of Clear Lake where boats simply cannot get out because they are stuck in the mud when the norther blows. Also, you can imagine how the waves can get pretty dangerous in such shallow water. They are packed together and steep. The wind also blows marks off station so it is not uncommon to see a red marker well out of the water on the green side of the GICW. Always fun. For instance, there is a place called Rollover Pass on the way out of the Boliver Penninsula Cut where there is a really big jog in the waterway. It is unclear whether there is really a jog in the cut r whether the marks were blown that far off station. The best advice I can give anyone is to follow a barge through if possible.

So, here we are in the Taylor Bayou with a wind storm from hell bearing down and fixing to hit us tomorrow all day. We have snakes, gators, blue black mud; we are in the lights and shadows of the refinery hell that is Port Arthur. Sounds like paradise, right? Well, I guess it depends on who you’re with. It’s paradise all right. We’ll plan to stay put until Tuesday and let it pass before we move on to our next stop, Shell Island in Lake Sabine (just shy of the Louisiana line) if the norther that is coming behind this one doesn‘t change out plans.

By the way, if you have any questions about anything we are doing, please do not hesitate to post them. I will be glad to answer them.