11/7- 11/9/2016 Seabrook, Tx to Lake Charles, LA

It’s been a long time coming, but we are actually doing it. We’re cruisers. We have no schedules, no gotta dos, no bosses other than the boat. Our last scheduled appointment was our departure from Seabrook Marina at 11am. I wanted to have a set time for leaving. I didn’t want to just slip out and not say goodbye. I wanted to be able to give a “see you later” hug to our friends who have listened to us jabber on about boat projects, boat dreams and anticipated boat adventures. I wanted to be sure they knew we are going to hold them to their promises to visit and cruise with us at some point.   While sad to know that I will not see my wine buddies for a while, I know I will have stories to tell when we do uncork the next bottle together.

Our first day out was a short run to Luke and Juliene’s place on Boliver. While we didn’t get the rain we anticipated, it was pretty rolly on Galveston Bay. Not ideal conditions for Maggie. She never got sick, but it was obvious that she wasn’t feeling great at all. I unzipped a section of the eisen glass to let her get some cool air and she settled in with her head on my shoulder .

We decided to crank up the new water maker as we ran through the bay.   We installed a Cruise RO Water Maker just a couple weeks ago and this would be it’s first real workout. We can make 30 gallons per hour of fresh water from sea water. It’s amazing how much better the water we make is than the water at the dock.

Our alarm was set for 4:30am on the 8th.  Do you know how dark it is at 4:30 am?  Well, yes, we knew it would be dark, but geez, it is really dark.  I mean, we couldn’t see anything.  We decided to give the sun a little more time and started untying around 5:45.  I put my head lamp on so I could see and still use both hands to get the lines and fenders stowed as Tim drove us out into the dark, really dark ICW.  Did I mention the fog???

If you’ve ever traveled the Texas end of the ICW, you know there’s not a whole lot of sight seeing.  Some might even call it boring.  Most of the waterway is straight and desolate with short pockets of high congestion barge and ship traffic.  It is by far our least favorite section of the ICW.  Add a very gray day to that and well…..  For me, the real show comes when the formations of pelicans swoop and soar by.  I do love watching them glide over the water.

We knew it would be a long day on the water.  We estimated that we’d be turning up the Calctsieu River around 6pm as dark approached.  That meant arriving in Lake Charles around 7.  Coming into Lake Charles in the dark can be spectacular in its own way with all the lights of the refineries and barges lit up.  But if you are driving a boat, all of those lights also can serve to confuse you.  Tim and I split up the jobs.  My job was to drive and to stay in the middle of the channel.  Tim’s job was to find the channel, use the red and green makers to verify our position, watch for traffic, and make sure I stayed in the middle of the channel.  What a team!  It wasn’t as bad as we thought it’d be.  It was 8 pm before we finally tied up at The L’Auberge Resort, hooked on the power cork and I opened a bottle of red.  A quick zap to reheat the wonderful lasagne our neighbor, Lisa, made for us, and we were zonked.