sittononthebeach.com

Tuesday August 12^th

9:54 AM  This morning around 8:15 SYL filled back up to the brim with gas at the “Fishing Capital of the World” fuel dock / cleaning station….. she took 76 gallons. The trip home from Venice to Kemah is almost 100 miles closer and should be down current so we have plenty gas because we filled up every can.  We left Venice about 9AM and are headed down the mighty Mississippi River toward the Gulf of Mexico.  I found Venice very interesting.  After we docked and guy named Dave walked over and welcomed us.  He and his wife Susan have a nice houseboat they use on weekends tied up in the harbor.  After meeting him and his dockmate next door Bob, we noticed there are many houseboats and barges with houses built on them all thru the harbor… apparently it’s a popular thing to do.  Dave has a Hydrosport fising boat they go out harvesting with and bob has a large sport fishing yacht.  He and Bob invited us over for a fish feast last night.  The meal started out with fresh yellowfin tuna sashimi (I brought the wasabi)  Even Russ who has never considered eating raw fish loved the fresh tuna.  Dave fried up some deep water fish, then Bob put some lemon pepper and olive oil on more fresh tuna and pan seared some steaks.  OMG my brothers….. we ate good last night.  All protein, all delicious.

I made up a couple pieces of sea glass and let Dave’s wife choose the one she wanted and gave Dave a signed Bahamian 1 dollar bill.  She chose a nice white piece I double wrapped with half round gold.  There was a lot of aaAAAAhhEEE!’s and LSU purple colors embracing us as friends last night and after the long passage…. the invitation and loving treatment was readily and graciously accepted by the crew of SYL.  Thank you to our newest friends in Venice.

10:19 The Mississippi is giving us almost 2 knots of help as we drop out of Louisiana into the gulf.  We got some fishing tips from our hosts last night so we might give it a try later on today.  They convinced us to take the main delta exit (the SW Pass) as we headed out for Texas.  It’s 20 miles to the end of it so we will be “inside” for 3 more hours.  We have two speed indicators, one is a paddle wheel under the boat that measures our speed on the water, the other is the Global Positioning Device (GPS) giving us ground speed.  The paddle wheel was stuck this morning so while we were in the river I jumped over and cleaned it.  I didn’t drink any water but the bit I tasted on my lip seemed fresh, no salt water.  I understand the salt water is in the depths and any fresh water stays on top.  That makes sense to me… salt water is much heavier.  Our water speed is 5.6 knots but our ground speed is 7.4. Jono has been fixing his cell phone, last night the batteries went dead while he was skyping and his phone got into a boot loop so he reset the whole operating system.  We are about a mile from our turnoff into the SW Pass.

11:23Tuesday:  The SW Pass is a busy place…. we have met 2 ships and been overtaken by another.  We put our sails up with winds over the beam and picked up nicely.  We are bumping 9 knots ground speed, 14 miles to the end of the pass.  I keep remembering those tuna steaks we ate last night… man they were awesome.  Completely chilled and fresh in the center with nicely seared surfaces laden with wonderfully light seasonings….. dang that was good.  The SW pass is making us sail at a very good angle to the wind.  Unfortunately when we enter the gulf and we angle off 45 degrees to the right, the wind might be back on our nose a bit too tightly to fill the jib.  The main sail will make power at 20 degrees so hopefully we can still have that tool in our arsenal of speed. (“speed” being a relative term on a sail boat)  The word “progress” might be more appropriate.  Early this morning (6:00ish) we had a light rain shower in the marina.  Right now skies are 40% cloudy, sun is coating our photovoltaic panels nicely.   The men of SYL voted unanimously to leave today and do another crossing.  Our systems are tuned to 3 hour intervals and last night all of us got over 8 continuous hours of air conditioned quiet sleep. 

Noonish:   A friend calculated travel distance for us if we come out of the delta and go direct to Galveston… versus heading up Vermillion Bay into the ICW around Shell Morgan then taking the ditch home.  The results are 280 miles direct, 340 miles via ICW.  With the current behind us offshore and about a million wooden pilings in front of us in the ICW we opted for offshore.  Additionally…. we can’t travel the ICW 24 hours a day, its not a good idea to go around dark corners at night… you might be facing a 10′ tall high barge bow!  Plus we want to catch some fish…. not that we will, but theres more opportunity in blue(ish) water. 6.65 miles to the gulf (still in the SW Pass)  still bumping 9 knots ground speed.  We are making 5.5 with the motors, the sails are making 2 knots and the rest is current.  I expected more current, like it was in New Orleans proper, but I guess multiple passes divert the main flow in several directions… and the tide may not be rolling out at full speed right now either.

2:12 in the afternoon:  The current outflow from the Mississippi is our best friend right now.  If we keep heading offshore we get a boost.  If we turned directly toward the target we only have .4 kts of good current, this way we have twice that (.8 kts) and the wind is such that we can gain a knot or better boat speed.  If we turn to the target it’s dead to wind.  I’m hoping that as we get offshore a ways the current goes more East to West.  If that happens we will tack toward shore and watch our VMG (velocity made good)  Our present VMG is 6.5 kts. Boat speed is close to 6.8 knots, and we are at 7.8 knots ground speed.  VMG and hull speed are very close, and that amazing because our direction of travel is 40 degrees from our target.  The answer to the trigonometric riddle is.. we have good currents pushing us toward the target so VMG and boat speed are close.

7:00 PM:  Fish ON!  We have caught 4 fish and two got off before we got them to the boat. unfortunately…. they were all a fish called a “little tooney” they stink horribly and are almost useless to eat, you have to fillet them just right to make sure the strong flavored meat isn’t in the pan.  We kept the first one to make sure what it was… when we identified it ,it went overboard.  The  next 4 we released right off the hook once we got them in.  Just now (7:20) we got a heavy strike that started ripping line off the reel.  That had to be a big fish because the 10 pounder we threw back didn’t do anything like that to the tackle, the fish chewed the hook off and we lost it.  We are in about 80 foot of water 16 miles offshore directly out of Fourchon.  Jono is manning the reel and I just finished my shift so Russ is the captain at the moment.  I lit the radar and got him set up for night work….. the sun is low on the horizon but the full moon will light the night sky and the water in front of us.  About 6:00 we found out  we were in a restricted area… a supertanker loading zone.  This boat came up blowing his horn so I turned on the radio and found out I was “interfering” with mooring a supertanker some ¾ of a mile away.  I hope my big wakes didn’t disrupt their operations so much that it knocked large chunks off their 1000 foot supertanker.  I started to offer to come repair any damage I may have caused… lol. 

FISH ON!  7:33.  It doesn’t look that big tho….. Jono reeled in a Frigate Mackerel, which looks a lot like the Little Tooney, except there aren’t any dots on it’s belly, and the lines on their backs are longer. Caught…..and released. 

8PM  wind is on the nose, all sails are down and we are a motorboat.  We are putting medium power on so our progress is 5.4 knots dead into 2 to 3 footers.  The sunset is gorgeous though…. orange and fuchsia streaks fill the Western sky. So the first 11 hours we had good progress, hopefully the night will give us something better than we have right now.  We have been tacking around to make our best VMG but now its just motor toward the target because the wind is on the nose and not enough to break off and go fast to make speed.  There seems to be no current bad or good in this area so what we make is what we get.

3AM Wednesday  – wee hours:  I’ve been on since 1AM, before that we have been struggling to maintain 5.5 VMG for hours.  The sea state was against us, current was against us at ½ a knot and we had no wind other than what we were making. Just before 2AM I started dodging thunderstorms… the best part is they gave me some wind.  I’ve successfully been going above them as they come offshore.  They made enough wind to sail up and around them.  I’ve been holding 7 kts VMG for an hour and a half.  30 minutes ago I took one motor offline so we are holding almost 7 on one engine.

4AM The wind slacked up quite a bit. Still able to hold 6 to 6.5 with the one motor. Just before Russ came on shift we went ahead and added 10 gallons of fuel….enough to hold us over until daylight when it will be easier to do. We are approaching our 20 hour mark and wanted to ensure we didn’t run out. By 4:45 Russ had to start the other motor just to maintain 5 to 5.5 VMG. Quarter after 5 the sails came down. The wind was completely gone. Motored on towards the target at 5.5 knots. Russ decided as the darkness started to fade into light, (around 5:30) he would put a lure in the water and see what happens. Hoping for Mahi or Tuna, but knowing, if anything does strike, it will probably be something much less desirable due to the shallow waters we are now in. 

Almost 7AM and the winds are starting to pick up a little. Not really enough to justify raising the main just yet….but enough to move the muggy stale air around. Jono will be coming on shift in about 20 minutes….maybe the winds will continue to pick up. 

9AM Wednesday:  We passed the Houma area a while back.  About that time we got a bit of wind and better than that a good current behind us.  The wind started shifting to the North (or more from the North) about 4AM and has been slowly shifting that way all morning.  It passed North earlier and is now a bit behind us from the NE.  The sails are set all the way out and we sometimes catch a wave just right and surf to over 8 knots.  Average VMG speed is probably in the low 7’s at very low power settings so we are happy with that.  We passed the 1/3 point sometime last night, presently (9ish) we are 173 miles to the Galveston jetty.  That being said we should be half way from Venice to Kemah around noon today.  Currently we are seeing 2 to 3 foot waves (a bit confused due to the wind shift) off our starboard quarter, speed now in the mid 6’s as wind has dropped off a bit.

10AM Wednesday – Well, our speed hasn’t been too snazzy for the first half of the trip.  So far we averaged 5.7 knots. The waves are becoming more regular after the wind shift, not so confused so that’s nice.  Not much wind to speak of tho… so it’s all on the motors right now, bumping over 6 kts but barely at 10:26. If your watching spot, our track has been very irregular, there are several reasons we have altered course.  The number one reason is “Velocity Made Good”.  We are constantly aware of how fast we are moving toward our target, sometimes that means bearing off to take advantage of a wind flow.  You can motor straight at the target at 5 knots but if you bear off 20 degrees and can go 7.5 in the wind… even though it’s not directly at the target your “VMG” might be in the high 6’s so you will get there faster.  The second reason is to hunt current.  A half knot of current either way is a nice percent of your total travel speed.  Thirdly, we alter course to avoid large “cities” of drilling rigs… especially at night.  Another reason we have changed course is for ride comfort.  If waves are right on the nose or right on your beam not only is the ride rough.. waves right on your nose will slow you down dramatically.  Veering off 10 degrees may help the boat ride over approaching waves.  So you spot watchers.. as you can see we have been trying hard to optimize our arrival time.

11:31AM No wind…. descent current tho.  I found out that if I go outside the weed line (the open water side) we lose our good current.  Nice find.  I found about .6 or .7 knots of help inside that weed line.  For those that don’t know… weeds and floating junk build up in clumps and lines where the tide changes.  Apparently the good tide is closer to shore heading West. I attempted to run the AC for a while to dry out the boat and cool us down but the batteries need charging first so thats what is happening now.  With a following wind that is non existent it’s really hot and humid here on the boat…. welcome to Texas huh?  Boy I’m glad to get the boat back to Texas… In the Bahamas hurricanes seldom get to a category 2… now…. here in Texas we get category 4’s pretty regular…. glad to have ‘er home and safe huh?  SYL has attained her Gulf of Mexico mustache….  the bows and aft steps have a chocolate coating we didn’t get in the Bahamas….  this brown water leaves a marked trail on a white boat.  Again.. glad to be home………

12:02PM The AC is up and running. It already feels bearable inside after 2 minutes of cool dry air.  Or at least that it’s going to be bearable shortly.  Last night on my shift the pre-frontal showers came off the shore.  In front of every Northern there are always pre-frontal showers.  They weren’t strong or many of them.  I was able to dodge 3 cells by heading behind them to the shore side as they passed by in front of me marching offshore as far as their energy will bring them before playing out.  We got sprinkles from the last one but nothing that wet the boat. 

12:12 PM Wednesday – 153 miles to the Galveston Jetty, boat is cooling and drying inside.  Russ and I filled the main tanks earlier so I’m feeling good about how much gas we have. Opposing currents can use it up, but we may have found the seam of good current toward Texas… inside the weed line in 60 depth or less.  If your going offshore to Florida, get outside the weed line… coming home….. inside.

4:28AM Thursday  No wind since noon yesterday…. we pretty much just burned gas and chased good currents until we finally got some wind from the stern (East) about midnight. Predictions were for 7 knots, that’s probably what we have with some gusts to 10 or 11. I ran the AC for a while yesterday, it dried out the boat nicely and each of us got some AC sleep.  After the light Norther we got the humidity went down in the 60% range so keeping the boat dry has been easy.. the cushions still feel nice and dry to the touch.  Before midnight it was pretty uneventful… but the new day changed all that……. Otto decided to spill his guts (the autopilot came apart)  I was off duty asleep but the boys did what they knew how to do but needed help so I got up.  The belt looked pretty bad so I decided to change it, I couldn’t find one of the new belts I have so I replaced it with one I had previously taken out of service.  It promptly broke when I put it all back together so I went back to the original belt.  We were still having problems.. it would turn right but was having trouble turning left….. after removing the wheel pilot several times I took the wheel to see how it felt.  There must have been a weed build up on the rudders because I couldn’t turn it left very easily by hand either. After a couple hours and trading parts I have Otto back on line, but not at his best, it still slips a little when turning left.  While I was working on the autopilot the left engine died……   We diagnosed the issue quickly it was out of gas… lol. Russ put 10 gallons in each tank, that should get us very close to Kemah.  We have 4 more full cans in reserve.  

5:25 AM 50 miles to the Galveston Jetty.  I have a fairly large rainstorm in front of me,,,, I’m heading North to go around it.  Successfully rounded the storm, the next one I skirted closely to see how much wind was in it and there wasn’t much so the third one I went right thru it.  I got the boat washed but the price was widely varying wind directions and speeds from zero to about 12 kts.  All in all it was lumpy and a bit slower to go thru than to steer around it, I could have kept a better pace driving around the big ones.

7:53 AM  35.9 miles to the jetty. It sure looks good on the chart to see how close we are to home plate.  My boys have learned a lot and have become very capable sailors.  I’m very proud to have had them with me on this voyage. I’m just plain proud of my boys.  The weather is still pretty rainy looking.  Nothing severe, just not shiny and hot.  From the Galveston entrance we still have 4 hours of travel to get to Waterford Harbor in Kemah.  Arrival at the jetty is showing about 1:30PM, so we might arrive at the slip before 6.  Last night the boys and I did some star gazing from the front of the boat before the moon came up, it was glorious to see.  We probably saw 10 satellites and 3 or 4 shooting stars.  It’s 8:05 I think I’ll help Russ dump the sea grass off the engines one more time then take a nap.

9:22 AM  After a nice doze on the salon seat I woke up to better weather.  The skies have cleared to some extent, seas are still 3 to 4’s behind us and some useable wind. We are bouncing between 5.3 and 6.2 kts as the waves catch us and roll under the boat from the stern.  We can’t see Galveston yet…. but man we are close.  We are still motor sailing of course… its a shame we didn’t get better sailing winds… but we did enjoy the low wave crossing.  Russ has been dodging clumps of sea grass like I was on my 3 hours shift.  I thought it was a tide line but apparently there is just a lot of sea grass floating on the open water this time of year.  Last night I reminded the boys that this was our last night on the open sea, As glad as we are to get here it was kind of sad too.  The sunrise was pretty this morning, as we get closer to home the colors are a different red.  I understand pollution does that, the more smog and chemicals there are in the air the more vibrant the colors of the sun as it shines thru the maximum amount of atmosphere.

11:21 AM  WooHooo…7 miles to the jetty.  Jono is driving as we pass all the anchored ships waiting in line to load or offload in Houston.  Land HO!  We can see the taller buildings of Galveston thru the field of ships.  We count 30 ships visible at one time.  I’m getting the boat ready to leave at the marina…. sort of… I changed the peat moss in the toilet so that will be fresh.  The new kind of Moss I’m using is tons better than my original brand.  This is also Sphagnum Moss, but it’s large leafs of it rather than being ground into a powder.  We tear up the “leaves or branches” of this new coarser material enough so our Natures Head can aureate it into mulch.  Once we enter at Galveston and get in calm water I’ll start packing a bit.  I’m not taking much off the boat right away, but I will need my electronics, special pillow, crocs, a couple hats and my toiletries and all the dirty clothes.

DOCKED!  We docked SYL in her old slip at 5:15PM Thursday.  Linda and Erin were waiting….. it was nice to have such a warm reception.  Inside the Jetty on our way to Clear Lake we came across a sunken sailboat with the sails still up…. I have to think it happened very recently because of the look of the sails.  I’m sure we will hear that story at the club.  We did find a good sailing wind.. finally……  from the end of Bolivar Peninsula to Kemah we sailed at 7 knots or better without the engines.  We sailed with a couple other boats as we approached the Kemah channel so we weren’t out there alone on a Thursday evening.  My first request when I hit Texas was some Taco Bell food… Linda had a cheesy gordito crunch for each of us in the car when we arrived!  Michael showed up after work and he helped us load the car.. we did that in short order and left to bring the boys to their car in New Caney.  Linda and I continued up highway 69 and made it to the lake house around 9PM.  I hadn’t driven a car in quite a while, I got tired and Linda drove a while then I finished up when it got close to dark.  It was very nice to get home to fresh sheets and a cool non-moving bed.  I sleep good on the boat, but it’s nice to not have to deal with waves at night or during the day.

So far at the lake I haven’t done much, but there is plenty to do after being gone half the year.  I have been in the easy chair most of the time, only accomplishing one small project.  After two days of doing almost nothing, I started grilling every day.  I’ve grilled 2 kind of ribs and my stand up chicken, today we will have left over chicken and I’ll roast some corn on the grill for a 2:00 meal.

Our plan is to go back to the boat the end of this week to clean it out, we intend to set it up for weekend cruising, we’ll remove 90 percent of the food and long term sailing gear.  I also have an appointment at work I need to make while in the Houston area.

Sea Yawl Later   Rusty

We are sitting in the smelliest place in Louisiana… Venice Marina.  There are more fish carcasses freshly cleaned.. bloated and floating and in trash barrels here than I have seen anyplace on earth.  It truly must be the advertised “Fishing capital of the world”  Out at the end of the pier… with the AC on we can’t see or smell any of it so life (not moving with the waves and listening to outboards 24/7) is good.

There are supposed to be some showers in the Gulf the next few days but there is also supposed to be following sea currents all the way home so our plan is to get out of Venice mid morning tomorrow (Tuesday) and make for Texas offshore.  If all goes well we should arrive in Kemah Thursday.

I had 80 gallons of gas onboard for the Florida to Louisiana passage and we got here with probably 3 gallons left.  Opposing currents drained us.  We could have slowed down and delayed our arrival but we had the gas so we went for it.  Tomorrow I’ll put a fresh 80 gallons onboard and head for Texas.  The trip from Florida ended up being around 400 miles given the tacking and indirect travel to maximize forward speed.  Texas is about 100 less than that.  Our 3 hours shift schedule is working well so we all decided to get out of Dodge in the morning and motor on!

It would be nice to sail some…. hopefully we can do some of that on the next leg since I have this tall 50 foot aluminum thing here on the boat….. but so far it hasn’t seen much action.  That’s not totally true because the main often gave us an extra knot or two over engine speed so that’s nice….. but it’s not “sailing”.

The boat is cooled off nicely in the 3 hours since we turned on the power and AC.  It’s almost 6PM, the boys just got back from walking the docks… discovering our dinner options.  OK.. there is a guy named David that came by and asked us to come eat fried fish with them on his houseboat 4 slips over.  He’s got tuna and fresh fish they caught today.  He’s from Mandeville Louisiana.  We will bring them something from special the Bahamas in trade for the already expected good food

Sea Yawl In Texas…..  Rusty

4AM Monday very early morning:  Its amazing that we are still bucking a current, not much anymore but its still there. Almost 24 hours of head current has been a gas eater for us.  We have been at almost full power for a long time trying to beat our way out of this malady.  I can tell you it while its possible to do a one gallon per hour burn… its also possible to do a 2 gallon per hour burn.  We will have enough gas to get there but not with much reserve.  I’ve throttled back to 5.5 knots of water speed and only put 5 gallons in each tank that was all but empty.  I have two more  full cans and I want to save them to grind my way into Venice if the current requires it, so when what I have in the tanks runs out we are slow sailing to the mouth of the Venice Inlet if we have to. We only have 43 miles to go to the inlet, at this speed the GPS is showing us to need 8 hours worth of fuel to get there.  Even if we don’t get any sailing in I think we can just do it.  What that does is gives me a full throttle burn of 5 hours to make Venice.  Surely all of it won’t be up current.  I expect the inlet to be adverse, but it’s only 10 miles long.  Surely I can hold 2 knots at full throttle up the inlet……

4:38 AM Monday  The wind filled in a bit, enough to hold 5 knots on one engine so that will help… we’ll see how long it holds up.

5:08  Sailing at 4.8 knots directly toward the target…. no motors… it sounds really nice, lets see how long we can hold it.

5:38  Port engine back on, speed had dropped to the threes.  We are currently holding 4.5 water speed, ½ a knot of current so we are making 4 knots on one very lightly throttled engine.  In the past hour we probably got 4 free miles of gas.

6:11AM Monday  We are in the middle of about 12 drilling rigs, I put both motors on for safety and to pick our speed up to over 5 knots.  We need to get to the inlet as soon after noon as possible…. before the tide starts flowing out of the delta.  34 miles to the cut.  Still fighting that nagging .5 to .6 current.

6:55 almost the end of my shift. The suns coming up and that always makes me sleepy.  31 miles to the cut and we are doing 5 knots with both motors on lightly.. the main is up but no jib.  There’s not enough angle for the jib to do much good.  Jono is up next I guess I’ll go wake him up.

10:30AM Monday morning  I just woke up after 4 hours sleep and feel pretty good.  We are 13 miles from the pass doing 5 knots water speed and 4.5 over ground…. we still have a current to contend with.  Russ just came on at 10.  The GPS is showing a 1:44 arrival at the mouth of the cut.  So far the gas in the tanks has held out, 2 ½ more hours to go and we can load the last 10 gallons in for the push to Venice.  Hopefully we won’t have a hard current in.. but judging by what’s happened so far I’m hoping for only 4 knots in our face inside the cut… lol.  High tide is at 1:00 so maybe there won’t be much of a tidal outflow right away. Without getting up from the table I can count 50 wells and drilling rigs around us right now.  Land is only 6 miles away, but the Mississippi Delta must be flat as a flitter because you can’t see it from here.  Russ made me some coffee, it tastes pretty good this morning.  At least the waves are gone… there is only a bit of wind ripple this morning…. no swells. 11:15ish – 11 miles to go.  Its pretty humid here in the New Orleans area, hotter and more humid than the Bahamas.  The water is pretty much the same tho.. it holds the boat up and feels wet….. other than that there are no similarities between this water and the Bahamas…lol.  Actually for the Gulf, we are in 26′ and its not too bad.. there is a green tint to it instead of solid brown.  We sure hoped for more sailing weather on this leg…. I’m feeling smart for adding the extra 4 gas cans 🙂  You never know what will happen to cause extra fuel burn.  On this passage it was 24+ hours of opposing current, as strong as 2 knots and often over one full knot.

11:48  Monday morning:  LAND HO!!! Its been a few days since we saw land.  I guess the delta can be called “land”.  If it holds up a car I guess it qualifies.  Russ and I just had a sandwich, we have some really nice thick and well seasoned turkey breast meat on board.  It makes a hearty meal.  Big Louisiana flies have showed up on the boat and they don’t take no for an answer…. there’s no “shooing” these flies, you either take them out or they will get on your food.  Luckily there are only 3 or 4 flies zooming about, I got 2 of them easily.  OOPs, now theres 3 down… too easy.  Russ has the boat running nicely at 5 knots over ground.  We have a little wind that is not directly from our bow… how nice.  Its from Starboard though, strange how much wind shift we have had on this leg.  It’s not been on the beam very long (there was one short time it was) but we have certainly seen wind from all points forward of the beam.  Seven miles to the cut!  Before we enter the cut I’ll put the last two cans of gas in so I better round those up.  One is on the bow tied to the center.  We carried 5 cans up front to balance out the fore to aft weight.    Fifty five gallons of gas in cans weighs around 400 pounds so some of it rode up front in the wind.  The last of the gas is in the main tanks.  We should arrive with 2 or 3 extra gallons we didn’t even need…. lol.  That is if the current isn’t 4 knots in the cut.

12:35  We just saw some dolphin in the distance, it reminds me of the time we had a pod of 30 chase us down in the Mississippi Sound heading to Florida in 2010 (I think). Less that 4 miles to go for our entry into the Delta.  The job backwinded so we just rolled it up.  It will definitely come back out when we turn for Venice.

5PM Monday  Venice Marina….  We got here “The fishing capital of the world” around 3:30.  The Entry pass carried very little current, the Mississippi River had a couple knots to the good (for 300 yards) and Tiger Cut outbound had a knot or two in it to the good.  Dockage was $5 bucks, cokes are cheap again, 20# of ice was cheap….. back in the land of plenty.  We intend to get fuel in the morning and head out Tiger Pass to continue our trek Westward.  Our arrival target date in Kemah is Thursday the 14^th.  Proportedly the currents will be favorable from here to Texas, tomorrow night and Wednesday morning might be a little rainy… but the three amigos on this boat prefer open water travel 24 hours a day to ICW pole dodging for 10 hours then sleeping 14 to avoid hitting tug boats at night even if the open water might have a rain shower or two in it. 

SYL  Rusty

It’s almost 3AM Sunday morning, I’ve been on watch since 1AM. We have encountered patches of floating sea grass all along our route.. about once a shift we raise the motors to make sure they are free of debrisfinding and often find sea grass in front of the prop.  About 20 minutes ago I litterally hit an island of sea grass that would fill most marinas in surface area.  I actually saw it on radar but was confused about what it may be.  As it got closer it appeared to be a calm spot of wind on the water…. Just before I got there I smelled it, not a sour smell.. but something different than sea air.  The engines both choked down immediately but kept pushing thru it.  After a couple cleanings SYL emerged unscathed but slower…….  I knew the engines were clean, and I was doing about 6 knots when I hit the grass…. but now I’m down to 5.2 knots so I turned into the wind and reversed the engines until I was doing 3 knots backwards to clear the rudders.  Resuming good progress, I found 6.3 knots immediately so the reversal was just the ticket.

When I took over from Russ at 1AM this Sunday morning we passed the half way mark, about 175 miles to go and the same amount travelled.  Russ’ shift was a bit slow, the wind came right on the nose… he tried everything but it was best to roll up the jib and wait for a change.  That change came about 1:30. I was able to redeploy the jib and push over 6 knots again.

The moon is full, making night work quite plesant.  It hides the stars but reveals the water surface quite nicely.  It’s 3AM… one more hour before I wake Jono for the next shift.  The radar looks clear, we are holding over 6 and the boat sounds happy.  I just checked and we have a 3/10ths following current so that’s good.  I assume the sea grass island marked a major current change.  The center of the gulf has a clockwise rotating current and our path brings us very close to that boundry. I bet that island was created by the central gulf currents.

The boys and I talked about our schedule… as it is now we are 2 or 3 hours ahead of expected arrival time.  If it becomes apparent we will arrive before daylight we intend to go to sails only even if it’s 4 knots during the wee hours of Monday morning.  My GPS doesnt calculate arrival time until its under 24 hours to go so when it does start calculating… we can adjust more accuratly to enter the pass to Venice during daylight hours.  With the full moon it wouldnt be much of a problem either but I’ve never been in that cut so we will wait until daytime.

3:23  Sunday Morning I just noticed a change outside and went to look, the wind is not full abeam, but changed off the nose at 30 degrees to about 50.  I let out the sails and we took off!  I’m bumping 7 knots.  160 nautical miles to go. Yeah.. that 20 degree lift didn’t last long… about 10 minutes.. back to 35 degrees apparent but still at 6.8.  Looking good.. nothing on radar.

The “spot” batteries ran down during Russ’ shift around midnight Saturday so there will probably be some missing dots on our digital track…. we changed them when I came on so it should be consistent again.

3:45  I walked up to the front of the boat and there was a dolphin playing between the bows. I watched for a minute then turned on my flashlight to see him better.  He did not like that and sped away…. lol.  Almost time to wake Jono for his shift.  The wind is good right now… we are holding 7 to 7.5 knots.  Just as I said that we slowed to 6.6  the wind is certainly variable if nothing else tonight… and on this trip as a whole. Jono will be jealous, I got a 7.9 knot run earlier… he’s been trying to match my speed but its all about the wind… when it decided to blow.

730AM Sunday morning: Near the end of Jono’s shift the sun was rising at the same time the full moon was setting. He said it was a really interesting scene and got a panorama photo of it. 

10AM Sunday morning:  Sad but true,,,, we have been bucking a full knot of current for 6 hours now. The waves have picked up to 1 to 2 footers so if we go to port any off rhumbline the boat rides hard into the waves, we tried going off the wind enough to sail by turning right, it worked but steadily got us 10 degrees off course and didn’t negate the bad current.  Winds have been about 5 points off true West, our travel direction is 10 degrees the other way off true West.  Forecasts showed SW winds so we will be glad when the South component joins us.  Right now and for quite a while we are slogging along at 4.4 knots.  Being its my shift… I  took the main down to reduce drag and flogging. Unfortunately we have a full 10 knots of wind from the only direction we DON’T want.  Hopefully the wind and currents will change in a while.

11:30 Sunday  We still have a full knot of opposing current but our speed has picked up.  We are holding 6.3 waterspeed and 5.3 groundspeed.  I have been tacking and it’s breaking the spell of droning at 4.4 toward the target.  We picked up a 3 foot swell lately, the wind has changed so many times the seas don’t know what to do.  I belive we have a full 10 knots of wind now but we have to drive 15 degrees off course (and almost directly into the waves) to use it.  What this does for us though is to position us more offshore.  Predictions are for SW winds later so this will give us the best angle for progress.

WOW  1:30 Sunday evening  Progress has gone from slow to painfully slow.  I’ve tried tacking both directions several times. On starboard tack I can beat the heavy current but we are heading 30 degrees off target and not even that fast, on top of that on the return tack (toward land) we get 2 knots of opposing current…..   so I just rolled up the jib and decided to bang directly into the 2 to 3 footers at 4 knots made good toward the target…..  uuuugggh.  When your best option is to motor directly into waves,,, your almost out of options.

My shift just ended and we woke Jono.  I may take a quick shower and lay down a bit.  Russ and I refilled the main tanks, running 22 hours it took almost exactly 20 galons.  There was a one hour period Jono sailed without motors last night but today we have throttled the motors pretty heavily.  Now I’m at 7/8 throttle at 5.7 knots of water speed and 4 knots over ground… sweet huh?

Jono made us a hot lunch earlier… chili dogs!  We all have been catching a sandwich or whatever so far. The hot meal was nice.

5:30 Sunday evening:  Still fighting a strong current but we just went thru a weed line that likely marks a tidal rip.  The GPS is now sowing an arrival time of before 3PM Monday.  I expect that to improve, but maybe not.  Soon we will be out of the deep water that supports the CW current.  We have 97 miles to go to enter the cut for Venice.  We are at 4.7 knots groundspeed.. better but still sucky.  The good part is we expect the current to subside… the bad part is there are probably 100 drilling rigs and small platforms to dodge between here and Venice Louisiana tonight.

4:30PM Sunday:  I am pleased to report that the waves have subsided… we are only going headlong into 1 to 2 footers… nice.  Jono is taking a nap, Russ is on now and I come on at 7PM.  I took an hour nap after my shower when I got off duty at 1PM so I’m ready for the evening tour.  I’ll steer from 7 to 10PM, then sleep 6 hours and come back on at 4AM for 3 hours. It’s 5:36 and all the sails are down, we are motoring directly into about 10 knots of wind and 1.5 knots of current.. life is good.  I’m glad I bought and filled 4 extra cans of gas and didn’t make lunch reservations tomorrow in Venice….. lol..  The best thing is about this part of the trip is  that the ice maker is working and we have plenty whiskey.

You know I counted on having some slow time.. some adverse conditons etc… but not 24 hours of adverse current.  We will still get there in the daylight Monday…. but whodathoughtit being around 3 in the evening.

7:50 Sunday evening:  The boys are in their bunks and I’m still facing the currents.  I’m down to 1 knot against me but I’m having to head onshore to get it.  The deeper water offshore is where the circular current lives… I’m heading for shallow water and millions of drilling rigs. Once I get North enough to head due West I should be in shallower water with less current. If I’m ever travelling East thru here… I know were to go!  We have been in 1 to 2 knots of Easterly current for 12 hours.

Again, sorry for the sketchiness…. will clean it up later.  SYL

Russ arrived to help us sail to New Orleans. 

Leaving Clearwater at 7:30 PM Friday evening we set the engines to push us at 5.5 knots, that’s a little over half throttle to optimize fuel burn.  Friday night winds were almost non-existent.  Fortunately we had a good current making 3 to 4 tenths a knot on top of our water speed.  Saturday morning we started out on a port tack, mid morning the wind changed and for a couple hours we had 7 knots over the starboard rail.  After the starboard tack played out the tide reversed and we were seeing neutral to negative 2/10ths speed loss and back on the expected port tack.

Saturday Morning about noon we could see100 yards to the right there was wind… the water was not slick but had a bit of a wind ripple on it so we turned and went over there.  We got our 2/10ths of current back and have been on port tack for the last 3 hours doing 6.5 to 6.9 knots…. a full knot over motoring speed.  I’m certainly satisfied with that.

We are approaching the 20 hours mark in the passage.  At 3:30PM we will refill the main tanks and see how much fuel we have burned the first third of the trip.

Last night about 1AM I saw 3 dolphin on the bow, Russ and I just saw two different groups of three.  He got a short video of the second pod we encountered as they played in our bow wakes.  We have seen quite a bit of trash… bottles and everything imaginable on the smooth water.

The 3 hour shifts we intend to take have been a little loosely regulated.  I would do 4 hours, then Jono did 4 or 5 today, Russ is on right now.

We just finished filling the main tanks after 20 hours of travel, we burned 18 gallons… less than 1 gallon an hour for both motors.  That means with the fuel we have on board we can arrive with enough to completely refill the main tanks when we get there.  So at 5.5 knots I can easily count on 1 gallon an hour fuel burn and be OK.  I don’t really want to speed up because we don’t want to arrive before daylight Monday morning and the motors are quite happy at their present RPM.

We also expect to be able to sail on one or no engines a bit tomorrow night and Monday… so we have plenty fuel!  That’s very comforting.

Jono is down sleeping to be ready for his night duty.  I took a nap earlier and will take another after my next shift which starts now, 4PM Saturday. 

5:20PM Saturday:  The boys are laying down, I’m seeing some nice wind in the 10 knot range 35 and 40 degrees off the bow!  Motor sailing that’s just fine….  SYL is holding 7 knots, if she reaches 7.5 I’ll take one motor off.  If that stays at 7 knots I’ll become a sailboat again making around 6 knots with both motors up.  My shift is from 4 to 7 PM right now so I’ll get Jono out of my bed about dark.  I’ll be back on duty 6 hours later at 1AM in the morning.  I knew we would have some sailing wind eventually but I didn’t expect it this soon so that’s a bonus.  I’m still motor sailing but at a very nice clip.  During the middle 1/3 of our passage, I don’t mind making some speed, if it turns out that we have to slow down to keep from arriving at the Venice cut before daylight Monday… we will have time to sail at 5 knots for a while if need be.  That would be nice to eliminate the drone of the Yamahas for a while.  They sure are sweet little motors…. at ¾ throttle they burn about ½ a gallon an hour each…. but after listening to them for 22 hours it would be nice to have silence.

Other than about 4 hours of the trip we have had a favorable current up to 4/10ths of a knot.  Hope that holds!

Sorry about the randomness… I’ll go back and clean this up later but wanted to post progress home so far.  SYL  Rusty

We ordered Chinese food delivery and Jono just left to go get it from the dock office.  Russ is on the airplane and we are fully provisioned.  I found gas cans in town (6 miles away) 3 of it was accessible by dingy, I walked the other 3 to the Car Quest auto parts store.  The store took pitty on me and brought me back to my dinghy in the parts runner truck so I have 4 extra 5 gallon cans.  That gives me 55 gallons of fuel in cans… lol.  I probably wont need it but if its sweltering hot… we will need some for the generator and AC…. tough crossing huh?  Making sure we have enough gas to run the AC…. lol.  Yeah.. that’s how we roll.

In 3 hours we will strike out for the Venice Inlet on the Mississippi Delta.  I guess I better do some research to see where fuel docks are there because that’s what we will be stopping for.  I can see Jono with the food so Hasta LA vista!

Rusty

I have conformation from Chris Parker that my weather estimation is correct and that nothing will threaten the Gulf between here and New Orleans, it should be a placid run all the way across.  He said we might get to sail some Monday but probably not before then.

So I need to find some gas cans and make a final grocery run, then fill up the tanks on my way out of the harbor this evening.  I’m looking forward to this longer passage quite a bit.  How good it really was will determine how big our next leg toward Texas will be.  If we are tired of hearing the Yamahas 24/7 we may do some ICW work after New Orleans but there’s really not much place to go into the ICW after You leave the Mississippi Delta.  Getting into the ICW means committing to travel 40 or 50 miles North (almost a days run) just to get in the ditch.  Lake Charles is probably the easiest entry but its not a short run either.

The Vermillion Bay entry is probably the most feasible.  All the rivers of course flow South into the Gulf so entering a river is up current.  Vermillion is wide and only 40 miles off the direct line to Texas.  Shell Island (where you come into the ditch) is also a good stop for fuel, Shell Morgan is always on my ICW must stop list.  OK… well I guess I better go find some gas cans.  If I have time I’ll post again before we leave.  Rusty

Jono and I walked the touristy Clearwater pier area this evening.. just got back.  We looked and looked for dancing girls but only found acrobats, fire eaters and jugglers… no dancers so we were out of luck there…….

Russ is flying in to Tampa tomorrow to help us bring the boat home.  With 3 of us piloting SYL the crossing will be a breeze, especially with the light winds and flat seas… we will just burn gas and keep it on 290 degrees true for 3 days.  Looking at passageweather.com we may get a bit of help from the wind but very little.  Most of the time it may be only enough to knock the sweat off your brow.  Wave direction also looks amenable to travel in our direction.  There may be times we are faced with 10 inch waves, but mostly not.  You never know for sure.. but a high pressure area is dominating the gulf so it should be dog days of summer even offshore.

Jono just left for the local Walgreens for a first run at provisioning.  He won’t get it all.. .but probably all he can comfortably carry at one time.  We’ll go back tomorrow for a final run.  We need another loaf of bread, snacks, drinks and some gas cans.  The dock master told me Walgreens has a marine section (being so close to the water) so they may have fuel jugs.

We have not added water to the boat since we left Nassau and we have over 1/2 a tank left.  Men are naturally more frugal than women on everything.  We like our stuff to count at least twice for everything we do…. efficiency first.  For instance when we take a shower we wash clothes and clean the bathroom at the same time.  When we wash one dish to use it, the suds go in the next dirty one to soak and the rinse water is added to it.  Anyway… enough about masculine efficiency…. women definitely have their advantages and us guys couldn’t (or wouldn’t) live without our wonderful counterparts.  The water is free here so I’ll leave full and thoroughly expect to have plenty water when we arrive in Kemah without making more with 3 men onboard except for maybe a bit more drinking water.

So our passage crew is set, Me, Russ and Jono… the three Sitton men will brave the wide open ocean and attempt to come out alive…. lol (in ten inch seas)….  regardless of sea monsters, trolls and pirates we will make it to our final destination hopefully without loss of skin or much of our sun bleached hair.  My only regret is that Russ and I had a contest going to see who got the darkest when he was on the boat and I won in the two weeks he had to catch me.  That boy tans quicker than anybody I know.  I beat him with the 5 month head start… but I fear he may catch up in the next week or two.

If all goes well we will be in Venice (below New Orleans) Monday.  Our only hold up might be fuel consumption.  We might have to run slower than full speed to make the passage if we don’t get any wind.  However the Monday mid day arrival is calculated at 5 knots, so if we don’t get serious headwinds or waves we can motor that speed easily.  On flat water I can travel in the high 6’s, so maintaining 5 is certainly doable given the expected conditions.

Its getting late and I need to eat a small bite before going to bed.  If I get a chance I’ll blog a bit in the morning but probably not.  I’ll be resting and prepping so we will Sea Yawl when I get internet again!

Rusty

1:45 PM

Jono worked on a rip in the Bimini and I accomplished my boat chores as well.  I changed oil in the main engines and overhauled the blinky carb on the starboard engine.  She starts and idles like a champ now.  Its amazing how much corn by-products came out of that carb.  The problem started after I used a can of gas I’d bought in the states.  I keep extra gas in 5 gallon cans for emergencies and I hadn’t rotated the ethanol added can out of the locker yet.  No problem tho…. after two fuel filters and 3 carb cleanouts I think I’m finally rid of the wonderful ethanol additive.  So far in the states I have been able to buy ethanol free gas, but its hard to find in Texas (where we make the gas).  The thing that makes me cringe is….. gas is delivered to the distributors ethanol free and they add the carb glue (ethanol) to the gas when its delivered to the gas station… great idea Mr. US government, making my life miserable having to clean my carbs all the time certainly endears me more and more to my flawless federal and state rule makers.

The AC is doing a good job in here… the boat is cool.  I have the sun fly up covering the salon roof so that makes about 10 degrees difference {thanks Mark and Julie}

Jono is on walkabout, looking for a grocery store and somewhere to buy gas cans.  I want to add a few more to the boat stock for the crossing.  Hopefully he will come across a McDonalds too, its almost 2 and we haven’t eaten yet.  If nothing changes I’m planning on leaving tomorrow evening about 4:00.  That would put us in the Venice cut below New Orleans mid morning on Monday.  Its pretty hot during the day so spanning 3 nights with a daytime arrival sounds right to me.  I’m calculating a little over 60 hours to make the 340 mile crossing.  If for some reason we get close on gas and have to slow sail, maybe more, but I don’t expect that to happen.  Right now a direct path to Venice looks like max winds of 10, and sometimes zero wind.  Luckily any wind we find will be on our nose.  That normally sounds goofy, but in the hot summer time if your travelling the same direction as low winds you keep the boat in a dead calm the whole way, with very light headwinds at least we won’t be stifling hot.

Jono just called from a burger joint, he’s bringing me a mushroom swiss burger.  I’m pleased with how our provisioning and prep is for the passage is going.  I still need some gas cans, I think I’ll go talk to the dockmaster about that after we eat.

Clearwater is in full tourist swing right now.  Jono said everybody was on the beach yesterday evening taking slefies with the sunset….. lol.  I haven’t ventured off the boat yet much but I’ll go on walkabout with Jono this evening for a while.  This morning I slept as late as I could and did a fine job of it!  I got out of bed at 10.  If we are doing the night crossing thing, I may stay up a bit later tonight and sleep in tomorrow too in and effort to tune my bio clock for better night work during the passage.  I really like Clearwater and the area.  It seems homey and touristy all at the same time.

Jono is due back any moment with food so I better put some ice in the glasses and make a place to eat.  SYL

A quick revision to yesterdays blog, Jono told me our top speed was 11.9 not 11.5 coming from the Bahamas.

I’ve been looking at the map, and still have some deciding to do, but Clearwater to New Orleans is looking like a good route to me.  Instead of 241 miles from here to Destin its another 100 miles but it saves a bunch of miles not having to go up to the panhandle.   Currently the weather looks benign as the Gulf of Mexico is sitting under a large high pressure system, we will study weather more tomorrow before making any decision.  I need to do some math and see how much fuel we need if we motor all the way and make sure its onboard before we strike out.

Today we both slept late, our projects include changing oil in the engines and getting ready for the next leg.  The long 340 mile route will include at least 2 nights at sea.  I don’t normally enjoy that long a trip, but the smooth seas make for great sightseeing on the still waters.  There will no doubt be endless dolphin encounters, flying fish and new sights galore.  The extra 100 miles will save us 2 or 3 days total on our semi race to get home before August 23rd.  Linda wants me home for my 60th birthday and I need to meet with people at work as soon as possible.  I’m considering a change of duty and need more information on the position before I decide.

The math tells me I need 4 more gas cans to have enough to motor all the way to Louisiana.  I thoroughly expect to have some sailing days, but its smart to have enough fuel to motor the offshore distance without wind power.  Jono wanted to go to Destin and we still might, but I’m liking the idea of a smooth water crossing to New Orleans quite a bit.  There are several factors that would quickly change my mind… the biggest being weather, but I’m off to do some research on currents and weather.

SYL  Rusty