Sunday April 16, 2017 Easter Sunday Black Bayou to Pavell Island

Bayou Beouf lock – quick, how do you pronounce that? It comes out of local’s mouths like BOUBF. Honest. Impossible to understand these folks.

This lockmaster was friendly. Another one of those locks with open sides. You go up or down just a little but it takes a bit of time. We have to hold on tight even though there is nothing really happening.

Fuel is a big deal

We fueled up at Rio Fuel Docks at Berwick by Morgan City immediately past Lock 3 Bayou Beouf Lock. This was early in the morning for us on Easter morning. Lots of tow traffic all along here because this is a direct link to the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas drilling; see different kinds of barges, not many people.

The guy at the fuel dock, John, was very friendly, telling us all about the commercial work around here. John, like other folks around here, has traveled a bit. When he learned we were from Ohio he talked about his visit to Cedar Point. We hear that a lot. Many people have been to or are aware of Cedar Point. Isn’t that nice?

John doesn’t get many recreational boats. The fuel station is definitely built to fuel commercial barges. It has big metal walls and huge bollards to tie off to. Kermit had to jump off to go to the shack to sign the fuel bill.

This was Easter. We saw the same amount of tows but more people at the houses along the water. Makes sense. Occasionally we saw folks swimming in the shallows. Got us to wondering how they get along with alligators that supposedly hang out here. Seem to have no fear. I wouldn’t go in that water! Mucky and brown, you wouldn’t even realize that big gator was on you until he was. No way!

NWe run at speed except when it is marked or when we see traffic. The water is about 15 to 20 feet deep in the middle so this is not very deep water. There is not much differentiating the sides of the channel. Even our non-wake wake is enough to put water on their front lawns.

These folks shared some friendly hand signals as we
passed by

Everywhere you look is grassy with few trees. Some places it seems like you can see for miles. This part of the country is not that different from Georgia except the waterways are straight and there are tows here but not in GA.

this is considered a good
marina in these parts - we didn't stop

 As I said fuel is a big deal. We hadn’t gone 60 miles at 25mph (so about 2.5 hours after fueling up at Morgan City we came to Abbeville LA, another place to get fuel. Only this time we didn’t need fuel. We slowed down, talked about it and decided to move on without stopping.

Lock 4 is Leland Bowman, same as the last ones. This one took less time. No one was around so we breezed on through, hanging on to our lines as if it mattered.

It was a very long, bright sunny day. Along the way we passed the cut off for the Tabasco plant tour and a place called Jungle Gardens. This was a tempting side trip we will have to do by car. Kermit cajoled me by saying, “We will stop there by car on the way back to Florida”. I knew we wouldn’t and we didn't. 

This was one of the few places that had a sign along the ICW announcing this side trip. We saw very few signs so this caught our attention. I think we even got a picture of it! But we sped past.

Our target this evening was an oxbow at the Mermentau River, a long 150+ mile day. Remember that an oxbow is a place where the water moves around a little island set off from the main waterway. Especially in water like this without any places off the main canal, an oxbow can be a friendly place to anchor. We kept going, trading off to give each other some rest.

By the middle of the afternoon on Easter Sunday we realized that we would need fuel before we reached Galveston.

At the rate we were traveling (20 to 25 mph) we were burning around 1 mile per gallon. The diesels are built to run like that. We were running smooth as silk. The distance from Morgan City to Galveston by water is about 260 to 300 miles, depending on how you measure it. If we didn’t get fuel that day we would have to slow down considerably to our normal 7 to 9 mph to preserve fuel. We were ok with that but by this time we were getting antsy to get the boat to its new owners. It was a conundrum.

Around about 4pm or so we sped past a flashing red light around Gueydan LA. Generally this means fueling is taking place. We slowed down. What was that? We turned around. There was a sign. 

Remember, we don’t see many signs so we pulled out the binoculars to figure out what this was. We called the number while dancing in the water outside.

“Captain, can we get fuel?”

“What kind of vehicle?”

“We are a recreational craft.”

“Sorry, we don’t sell to pleasure craft, only commercial.”

Kermit, being the chatty fellow he is said, “Darn, we are running short on fuel. We are not sure we will make it to our destination.”

“Are you telling me that if you don’t get fuel you will be in peril?”

“Yes sir, failure to get fuel will put us in peril.” 

“You said the magic words. Pull in and tie up next to this barge and we will provide you with fuel to reach your destination.”

Isn’t that nice? We pulled around this barge completely filled with fuel. About five men manned the fuel barge. Normally they travel around to fuel tows and commercial vehicles on the spot. But they were tied up at this spot to refuel the barge at one of the many giant fuel storage tanks along the side of the waterway.

These guys were really nice but all business. They wore life jackets, hard hats and work boots. They ran us through a safety questionnaire about the size of our fuel tanks to set up a commercial account for us so we could pay. They wanted absolutely no chance that any drop of fuel would spill into the water so we only received 50 gallons of fuel in each tank. We could have probably taken 75 to 100 gallons per side but couldn’t guarantee that we would be dribble free. Fifty gallons per side would get us to Galveston so we were happy.

We practically danced away!

We finished up around 5pm or so and headed west. When we got to Mermentau River, we decided we would push on to shorten our final travel day tomorrow. That meant we had one more lock to travel through, Calcasieu Lock at Lake Charles. That is a mouthful. We finally decided we could say, “CALCASOW” and sort of be understood.

We made it through without event and kept going another 25 miles to Pavell Island near Orange LA on the Texas / Louisiana border. We traveled about 175 miles in one day. I would not recommend that kind of trip to anyone.

The instructions for this anchorage say, “You can anchor anywhere in this stretch. It is occasionally used for commercial traffic but the suggested anchoring place is right in the middle.” Really? So if we anchor in the middle we have the possibility of a tow coming around the corner slamming into our sleeping vessel? At this point we didn’t care one bit. We dropped anchor at about 8pm and immediately fell into bed. No drinks, no dinner, no nothing. Just blessed sleep.

Kermit says: “At this point “Missy” and I disagree, no way would I anchor in a channel where we could get into trouble but that is what the book said.”

Next, the final chapter - the hardest to write.