January 2003
FL, AL, MS, & LA
The sale of the HoopDeCar was the last thing mentioned in
the previous eletter, I would start this eletter with recognition of the truism
that “things always turn out as they should”. Had we sold the HoopDeCar in the
beginning of November, we would have left AL immediately. It did not sell, and
we were a bit perplexed, as it was worth much more than our asking price.
As it turned out, we still needed the HoopDeCar for one
last very important trip. My Dad had been
living quite a normal life with a cancer diagnosis for more than ten years, but
about a year ago, started to go in for more aggressive treatments. He & my
Mom still did their traveling thing, spending the summer in ID. But this fall,
the disease mounted its final assault. My Mom had her hands full trying to keep
Dad comfortable at home, where he emphatically wanted to stay.
Karin & I drove the HoopDeCar to AZ just before
Thanksgiving and assisted Mom & Dad in his
last few days so he could pass away in his own home quietly with his dignity
intact. God blessed his life and all the multitudes of people he interacted
with. He left everyone in every place he visited a little better than before he
touched their lives.
A large contingency
of the Hughes clan gathered from all
over the country to celebrate Mert’s life. His legacy
has flourished and will obviously carry on.
While in AZ, we took the totally unexpected opportunity to
spend a few days with our very good friends originally from WI, Cliff & Dorothy Philpott. They
live the retired life in the fast lane in Sun City West. Between constantly improving their beautiful home, Cliff restoring English automobiles,
playing competitive table tennis, cycling,
woodworking projects and Dorothy’s
activity groups they are busier than any other 4 people I know!
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We did manage to fit Windigo in the trunk of the HoopDeCar [I told you it was LARGE], and
sailed a bit on the oceans
of the AZ desert. This was a bit of a homecoming for me, as I cycled
thousands of miles in these same deserts in the 70’s, and had one last
1000-mile cycling trip in 1996 here.
Upon returning to Mobile, we completed a couple extra boat projects, sold the
HoopDeCar, and sailed from our very nice home at the Sundowner. With all of the
shortcomings we have experienced in the south, finding and staying at the
Sundowner Marina, and our employment at Spring
Hill College, Silver Ships, and Kathy White Learning Systems were
certainly great gifts.
So now we are presently traveling along the Gulf Coast, as
the last eletter listed speculative port-of-calls, and now I may report on
those places from first-hand experience.
Our current expedition began with a four-day voyage to Ft. Walton Beach,
FL and time during the holidays with an old family friend, Don Day.
Although Donny works LONG hours at the Post
Office, he wrangled a day for sailing out
on Choctawhatchee Bay between Ft. Walton
Beach and Destin. We ate mounds of food for the holidays, and I assisted him in
setting up a brand new computer system to replace his ancient machine that he
struggled with daily. He would click on the “send & receive” email button
on the new system just to watch how fast his new 2GHz processor and cable modem
could check and download stuff.
Before leaving Ft. Walton Beach we constructed a new fenderboard to replace the 2”x12”
twelve-foot board we used ‘til now. (The old one snapped in two while docking
in downtown Mobile for the Tricentennial parade. A swift side-current moved us
firmly into the dock and revealed a weak spot in the board!) The new
fenderboard is a superstructure of pressure-treated 2”x4” lumber, assembled to
form a 12’x18” frame to contain the medium or large round fenders we use. It is
stronger, stiffer, wider and lighter than the old one and it is easier to
attach lines to in different ways. It is assembled with 3½” stainless screws,
so it may be disassembled and tied to the shrouds for our offshore passages.
Another milestone was reached when we left Donny’s, Windigo headed out into the Gulf of Mexico for the very first time.
The shipping lanes are fairly easy to identify, huge fishing vessels are a bit
more problematic; as they travel any route they choose. One must also be sure
to sail AROUND the 4000 oilrigs in the Gulf. Not
doing so could ruin the entire evening.
Two days sailing round the clock against the wind brought
us just south of Dauphin Island, AL and a rough night. The inattentive and
tired Captain parked the boat in a tidal-current-across-the-building-waves
situation [NEVER AGAIN!] that got sooooo bad we had to weigh anchor at 4a.m.
our insides were shaken & stirred very nicely, thank you. (When anchored in
a current, a vessel generally hangs out from the anchor in the direction of
that current. When the wind blows at a 90° angle to that current for a while,
and has enough distance of water surface between the vessel and the direction
the wind is from, the resulting waves approach the vessel from the side. This
causes the vessel to roll as it rides up and down the face of the wave. The
bigger the waves are, the more severe the roll of the vessel. When the waves
are close together, the vessel rolls rapidly from side to side.)
We spent the next very nice sailing day with upset tummies
and huge headaches. Couldn’t get to Gulfport,
MS fast enough. We arrived in the Gulfport Yacht Basin and tied to the GYC
dock [at no charge]. There we waited until the stormy weather passed. Using
their [free] hot showers daily was a luxury in the foul weather.
It just so happened that the Grand Casino was
within walking distance from the dock. So to celebrate my birthday on New
Year’s Eve, I took Karin to a big party at the casino with a very happening New
Orleans band, Dino Casino, playing
dance music all night. Check out their website – a very cosmopolitan group: two
shaved bald guitarists, an ol’ jazzman that plays two saxophones simultaneously
(and at the same time), a voodoo queen vocalist, a 300+ pound vocalist named Phat
2sDAY (Fat Tuesday), and the leader is a ringer for Bono. Not quite the Eddie Butts Band, but they were very
talented and professional! Because all this was free, free, free, I bought
Karin a $6 drink so she wouldn't think I am a total cheapskate. (Too late.)
So after a visit to the Oceanarium gift shop, (I was too
cheap to actually pay admission the see the dolphins and turtles), we made an
early morning departure to get a jump on the weather to make our next port in
daylight.
Funny thing about sailing: with all the float plans,
computer programs, chart reviews, specialized equipment, safety gear, training,
USCG ratings, and autopilots that steer according to waypoint, wind or heading
– it almost always becomes obvious who is really in charge.
The one whom it is not nice to fool – Mother Nature.
So we
left Gulfport, and were only one hour from the mouth of the East Pearl River
(our destination), the wind took a nasty shift, an a front pushed the winds up
to a steady 28 knots. The block and cleat for the mainsheet was snapped off
like a Happy Meal toy. Of course, the wind shifted to EXACTLY the direction we
wanted to go [biker's luck], so it was a three-hour battle through 2m seas to
the river.
As we
reduced sail, Karin noticed that the upper shrouds needed to be much tighter. I
have learned not to discount her power of observation even in the most adverse
conditions. Another experience that didn’t kill us [the saying goes, “it’ll
make you stronger”.] We still got anchored in a little tributary just inside
the tidal marsh of the river before dark.
After
moving Windigo 10 miles up the East Pearl
River, Karin whipped up split pea soup (leftover ham bone from the holiday
meal) - WOW, we needed that! A nice HOT shower in the cockpit and we were all
fixed up. We choose an anchorage a
swampy 500 feet from I-10 in the East Pearl
River so we could walk to the Welcome
Center on the MS/LA border.
We walked
2½ miles to the Welcome
Center along the freeway each day. There, the government runs a [free] tour
bus back & forth to the Stennis Space
Center, the huge NASA rocket engine
testing facility. The bus tours the grounds where Werhner
Von Braun and gang gave the final approval to all the Saturn rocket engines
that went to the moon. Today, they test all the shuttle engines here and have
30 other government agencies on the grounds doing research and providing valuable services to the public.
They have
a huge museum [free also] that took us two days to get through. All the tour
and museum people knew who we were by the time we
were done! A very interesting place
for this boy of the space age. (We later found out Werhner Von Braun actually
brought his WHOLE family up the East Pearl River on a houseboat in 1965 to show
them HIS rocket engine test facility. They had a picture of it in the museum.)
From
there, we sailed into Lake Ponchartrain and found a VERY nice dock / city
across the Lake from New Orleans. It’s right at the end of the causeway across
the middle of the Lake. Mandeville, LA is an upscale old suburb of the metro
area to the south. Free docking. Free power. Free hot showers at the LPYC right
across the street from our berth. Totally protected from nasty seas.
We
immediately noticed a large number of pedestrian traffic along the shore – more
so than one would expect on a chilly January day in LA (these people believe
45°F. is very cold, and 30° is a deep freeze). Turns out we arrived just in
time to see the Mandeville spectacle of the year: An entrepreneur had purchased
a large old residence in New Iberia, LA and
had it transported by barge the 200 miles to Mandeville. Plans will transform
it into a luxury reception hall for lease. It had just arrived on the shore in
Mandeville the day preceding our appearance.
The show had just begun;
it took a full week to contend with low tides to get the house ashore,
across the street and onto its new lot. Hundreds of
spectators would gather each afternoon as the crews attempted their daily
moving show. It was believed that the owners exaggerated the process to garner
all the free publicity. It worked.
There is
a 33-mile rails-to-trails bike trail
through the area that we checked out. Our cycling took us to Madisonville, home
of the largest wooden boat show in the south. The boat show is sponsored by the
Lake Ponchartrain Basin Maritime
Museum and Research Center. It is housed in a brand
new building, and is expanding at a fast pace. Wooden boat building classes
are offered a couple days each week; and additional lighthouse lenses,
submarines, and other antiquities are being
incorporated every month. The exact scale models are impressive, and it has a
few state-of-the-art multimedia presentations that are professionally
presented.
Fine
weather had us finishing a couple more projects: I changed worn cogs on the
cassettes on our bikes. I had 5 completely shot gears (missing teeth) - they
wanted $10 to $15/cog. Ouch!, I’m used to gettin' bike stuff free (when I was
sponsored), so I researched on the net, and found complete 9-speed cassettes
for $19! I bought a couple each of two different sizes, and stocked up on a
complete array for less than $3 each.
Karin
worked on finishing installation of closed-cell foam insulation on the hull
surfaces to prevent condensation and keep it cool inside. Then, we completed
the attachments for the helm roof. [After finishing
a joining cloth in Morgan City, that covers the cockpit, we now are able to sail the great indoors.]
New Orleans was originally on our agenda, and had tentative
plans to meet up with Mark, Brian & Eric Genisee there for New Year's Eve.
But the extended stay in Ft. Walton Beach with Donny and in the East Pearl
River visiting the Stennis Space Center caused us to be a little to late to
meet them. We have made several visits to New Orleans over the past few years,
the last being Halloween, so we made a choice to stay on the north shore of
Lake Ponchartrain instead.
New Orleans is built on the isthmus of the Mississippi
River, which extends a considerable distance to the southwest into the Gulf of
Mexico. The large body of water that makes up the bay to the north of New
Orleans is Lake Ponchartrain. Several rivers and bayous feed it, and the north
shore county is called St. Tammary Parish. It is the wealthiest county in
Louisiana and is presently a "suburb" of New Orleans.
But the area has way more history than simply being a bedroom
community for a metropolitan area. The main cities we visited here, Mandeville
(home of the Fourth of July weekend Seafood Festival), Albita Springs,
Covington and Madisonville have been named so since the Louisiana Purchase in
the early 1800's. They became popular in the mid 1800's for their fresh
artesian water and clean pine-forest air; the area was known as the "Ozone Belt".
Vacationers flocked from New Orleans and other larger municipalities around the
area.
But this place has a similar history to the East Pearl
River area in that it was governed by several entities prior to being part of
the United States. Native American Indians of several tribes lived and moved
through the area for centuries. The French and Spaniards each flew their flag
over this soil at one time. It was part of the West Florida Republic, and of
course, the doomed Confederacy. History from so long ago, flowing from so many
paths.
We finally peeled ourselves from the luxury accommodations
in Mandeville, and headed south across Lake Ponchartrain to the IntraCostal
Waterway (ICW) through New Orleans. Good thing we left in the wee hours, as
attempting making good time through the bridges and locks of New Orleans was a lost cause.
Timing lock transits and bridge openings during our Inland
Waterway voyage in 2001 was easy as the lock masters and bridge tenders worked
with us at nearly every point. Even with the confusion of 9/11 looming over
that trip, everyone was helpful and efficient.
Not so in the Deep South.
There was interesting
scenery along the river, including the famous Delta
Queen, American Queen, and Mississippi
Queen river paddleboats. I also encountered my diesel counterpart there on the
Mississippi.
We stopped for the night in Crown Point, LA at the defunct Dolphin Fuel dock. A bit
different than the luxury of the Mandeville City Dock, but it prepared us for
the next night in Houma, LA. Now Houma has a brand-new city dock known for
miles around as THE place for pleasure craft passing through on the ICW to
spend the night. But alas, Windigo’s 6½’ draft prevented us from entering the
slough that leads to the Houma City Dock. So we spent the night tied to a rusty old barge. No problem with the fenderboard! In the morning, I made a
couple bike trips to the store for milk and diesel. The traffic on this portion of ICW is heavy and varied, ranging from small and
large tugs, huge barge tows, bass boats,
yachts, and on this particular morning almost a dozen aircraft. Frequently all at the same
time!
Heading out of Houma, we traveled long, straight sections
of canal where it was rather pleasant to sail for long stretches. And hour before sunset,
we arrived at the Bayou Boeuf Lock in Morgan City. With several tugs in line
for the lock, we spent another night on another unimproved structure, a crappy old wooden seawall behind a
boatyard. But it was out-of-the-way of barge traffic and, most important, free.
Again, this dock was made hospitable through the use of the fenderboard.
After breakfast we proceeded through the Bayou Boeuf Lock. A most unusual
design in that the lock walls are timbers
that allow water to flow through. The water level in the whole lock basin
adjusts for the opening of the gates. Just around the corner were the Morgan City Dock [free] and we
found an open slip. With [free] power & water. With easy access to a brand
new library and a bridge to the Wal-Mart across the Atchafalaya River!
Morgan city is home to dozens of petroleum industry
construction businesses, building and repairing everything from oil rigs, jackboats,
aircraft, pumps, engines and anything associated with offshore oil production.
It also has a reputation as the “Jumbo Shrimp Capitol of the World”. This
inevitably led to the Labor Day event at the Louisiana Shrimp & Petroleum
Festival [my FAVORITE snack!]
So we are here at our luxury
slip until the weather warms a bit [they had the coldest night of the year
last weekend – it got down to 35°F.!] with our little heater and free power.
Our permanent and EXACT address:
Capt. KL & Karin Hughes
S/V WindigoIII • PMB 365
88005 Overseas Hwy. #9
Islamorada, FL
36033-3087
Text only Email addresses aboard Windigo, checked daily:
Email addresses checked when at a computer
And of course, the Windigo Travelogue Catalogue:
