We pulled anchor at about 6am. Jack found a little hitchhiker, a tiny green frog that appeared magically on the seat next to Jack. One minute the frog was not there and the next minute he was sitting there looking as comfortable as possible. Naturally Jack did not notice.
We were finally in Texas! It
seemed impossible that we left Sarasota only five days earlier on Tuesday,
April 12. Three days from New Orleans to Galveston / Houston. Unbelievable. So
much had happened.
We didn’t worry about fuel, we just traveled as fast as we
could to get to Galveston Bay. The sun seemed brighter. The water seemed
cleared and the marshes less marshy, maybe even a little cleaner.
We still did
not pass any recreational vessels until we got immediately east of Galveston
Bay. That reminded us we had not seen more than 3 or 4 recreational vessels
since arriving in New Orleans. That is so odd to us Great Lakes boaters where
boats are everywhere. At any time I can look out my window near Lake Erie and
see a boat. I can see 2 right now. But not down there.
We reached Galveston Bay around 11am after traveling about
75 miles at about 20 mph. It was an easy trip.
If anything the ICW got shallower. It was common to have
less than 10 feet of water in some spots. In Galveston Bay the water can be 15
feet in the channel and 2 or 3 feet immediately outside the channel. Remember
there are no yellow lines and very few signs to tell you when you are on the
“road” and not on the “road” so you better watch those depth gauges.
We could see vacation homes, pleasure boats, even some
sailboats. Looking to our left we could see the Gulf of Mexico in the distance.
The water was pretty calm, the sun sparkling. All was right with the world!
Now to find the marina. We headed northwest directly into
the bay. Our target was Red marker 66 in this pretty narrow channel. At Red 66
we turned a hard left to go directly west towards Kemeh.
This is not a channel. Our charts showed plenty of wrecks,
submerged platforms and poles sticking out of the water. Our view of the water
showed a few of those things but not nearly what we saw on the chart. That
means danger lurks below the water! Yikes!! And people boat here for pleasure?
It was not a pleasure. It was terrifying!
When we say “Platform” we mean a platform that sits on top
of poles stuck in the water designed to extract oil or gas. Platforms are
EVERYWHERE you look. Very attractive.
The first thing you see when approaching Kemeh is a big
roller coaster. This is an amusement park with a boardwalk and tons of touristy
things to do!! We had no idea! This is where everyone in Houston (evidently)
keeps a boat. There are wall to wall marinas. The channel is shallow and out of
the channel is even shallower. I don’t know how they do it. I think they just
don’t move their boats much because there is nowhere to go. I can only imagine
what Jim and Joy would have done with their deeper drafted boats.
By the way, the first fuel since Abbeville LA is located in
Kemeh. That is another terrifying thought. I am not sure how to make this
journey in reverse when the new owners, Curtis and Michealene make the journey
east. It is almost 300 miles between Kemeh and Abbeville so be prepared.
It took us almost as long to get from Galveston Bay to the
marina as it did to get from our anchorage to Galveston Bay. Crazy, huh? We
kept turning corners around beautiful big houses and boats until we got to the
absolute last marina in the area, South Shore Marina. Our slip was in the very
far back corner. As we turned the final corner into the marina we realized the
fairway was blocked by a work barge slamming big pillars into the dock area.
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! All day long. Great.
We pulled around the other side of the assigned space to
find some other place to tie up. These floating slips are so narrow that we
needed grease to get Good Karma into the slip! Really! There was no need for
fenders. The fenders I had down just laid on top of the docks on either side of
the boat. We looked ridiculous.
No one was there to help us. Thankfully as long as Kermit
was directionally accurate, we didn’t need help. I lassoed the cleat on one
side then another. As we sterned into the dock, a couple of fellows from
another boat moseyed over slowly. I thought they were going to help so I said,
“Thanks we can always use help. Can I toss you the line?” as I tossed him a
line. He didn’t grab the line. It flopped on the dock. He said, “You can’t stay
here.” What? Really? We just traveled almost 1000 miles in a week and this is
the stuff we get?
He said, “You can’t stay here. You have to go to another
slip somewhere else.” So we pulled up lines and moved around to another slip.
No one answered at the office so we had no help there. We couldn’t get into our
assigned slip and we couldn’t stay in the one we picked so we picked
another.
God help the person who tried to make us move again. We were DONE.
It was about noon or so. We had a bite to eat and a
celebratory drink to acknowledge this big accomplishment. But we were not done
for the day.
We needed to get a rental car, find a hotel, get the cat off
the boat and start packing up our stuff.
Are you tired yet reading this? Because I am exhausted
reliving it.
Several wonderful things happened that day to make our lives
easier. And we sure needed it.
1) The computer. I pulled out the computer to deal with a
client before heading off to get the rental car. MY COMPUTER DIED! Seriously?
Really? Yes, really.
I pulled out the phone to find a computer repair service
nearby. What did we do without smart phones?
The first guy I talked to said it was probably the battery.
It would cost about $175 to find out. I called another guy just to double
check. He said nope, not the battery. Probably the mother board. In February,
the guy at Fort Pierce said that might happen soon. I needed a new computer. He
could get me a refurbished commercial grade replacement for about $400 in just
a few hours. DONE!
2) The rental car. The plan was to pick up a tiny car at the
local Enterprise, head to the Houston International Airport to pick up a
mini-van that we would drop off at Orlando on our way back to Ohio. This was to
be cheaper than renting that mini-van in Kemeh. Why is everything so
complicated?
Evidently it doesn’t have to be. The taxi dropped me at the
local Enterprise place where the nice young man said he could give me a
mini-van for the same price as that mess I just described. I almost kissed
him!!!
On the way back to the boat with my prize minivan, I stopped
at the computer guy’s house. He had my shiny (almost) new replacement computer.
He transferred my titanium hard drive and within 30 minutes I was on my way
with a minivan and a new computer. Wow!
Back at the boat, fresh from his nap (not really), Kermit
and I loaded Jack the cat, his supplies and our personal luggage and headed out
to find the hotel.
We had one more adventure scheduled for the day. I arranged
for us to visit old friends, Joy and Rick Preble, friends from my college days
at Northwestern University. The skies looked menacing. I drove so Kermit could sleep. He
was exhausted.
Rick and Joy live in Woodland Hills, about 60 miles on the
other side of Houston from Kemeh. It was an easy trip with the GPS. As we
pulled into the driveway the skies opened up into a deluge. We had a wonderful
dinner and great catching up while it rained buckets. I thought we should see
Noah floating passed at some point. It kept raining all night and all the next
day. Seven inches of rain in a 6 hour period of time.
Which brings me to a bunch of wonderful coincidences that
helped us.
- If we would not have hurried across Mobile Bay we would have been stuck on the other side when that wind picked up creating water too bad for travel.
- If we would not have pushed through Louisiana the way we did we would have been stuck during that torrential rain.
- If we would not have encountered that fuel barge we would have been stuck going slow through torrential rain with no place to get fuel and no place to stop safely.
So many reasons to be thankful for a good trip. GOOD KARMA!
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