11/14-11/19/2016 Houma, LA to Orange Beach, AL

As I write this, we are cruising through Mobile Bay in amazingly calm waters. This is a good thing because the forcast is for wind in the 20s tomorrow night. Watching and talking weather has become an intrigal part of our morning and evening discussions. As Dauphin Island lines our starboard side and invites us to come anchor and enjoy its pristine white sand beaches, Mother Nature says she is going to whammy us on Saturday. So choices have to be made. We are most likely going to be stuck in one location for about 3 days. Where would we most likely want to get stuck? Gulfport? Biloxi?, Pascaguola- no way. Orange Beach was our choice. So…..I figure year 4 we will be back and we’ll come back when the weather is more cooperative and then…..

My last post had us leaving Houma for the Industrial Locks.

Some of you readers are new to this whole cruising down the ICW thing, so a little background info may help. Normally when heading east on the ICW New Orleans would be a great, fun, party stop. There are a few nice marinas to stay at and we would certainly have been up for a couple nights in NOLA. To get to Partytown, a vessel would go through the Harvey Locks onto the Mississippi River and then lock out of the Mississippi by going through the Industrial Locks and up the Industrial Canal toward Lake Ponchatreain, where the marinas are. The ICW continues on from the Industrial Canal.   Unfortunately that hasn’t worked lately. Sometime this summer, Tim thinks maybe in June, the Industrial Locks were closed for repair. So while we can cruise by New Orleans, we can’t get to the marinas. Beside the Industrial Lock is a concrete pier. When the lock was working, small boats could stage there while waiting for their turn to lock in. Now, with the lock closed, many cruisers have used the pier to tie up for the night. That’s what we did. The hands at the Harvey Lock warned us that the Industrial Lock was in a pretty tough neighborhood and recommended that we not leave the boat at night. No a problem. The chain link fence that surrounds the area was locked up, so the only way we could have touched shore was to swim or use a small boat. My cousin, Dan lives in the Bywater area of NOLA and we were hoping to see him on the trip. We were beginning to think that that wasn’t going to happen. But Dan had it all figured out. He has an inflatable kayak and he just blew it up and paddled over to us. We loved it! Not only did Dan join us for dinner, he brought the beer.

 

Since we can’t continue on the ICW at the lock, we had to continue down the Mississippi River to the mouth of the mountains th of the river.  We decided to spend the night in Venice and then head through Baptiste Collette toward Biloxi.

We arrived in Venice in time to get tied up, potty Maggie and close up the boat before the mosquitoes descended upon us.  Venice is certainly not an area we’d want to spend much time in.  There’s not a lot there except offshore fishing boats and casinos.  The Baptiste Collette was a beautiful, pristine waterway.  Lots of birds and dolphin inhabit this marshy area.

The weather gods have been with us.  The trip across the Mississippi Sound and Mobile Bay was wonderful.  At times I wish we had water skis with us.  Of course, we go too slow to ski behind, but it was a cool thought.  Some of you have been concerned about Maggie.  Is she OK?  What does she do while we cruise.  So I hope this give you some solace as you get a view of my Mag’s day.

As we came past the channel to Pascagoula we saw this old drilling rig being towed out.  The Coast Guard was radioing cautions to other vessels and said the rig was being taken offshore to be sunk.

 

 I started this post a couple days ago.  Well things happened and it didn’t get finished.  My #1 job today is to complete this and post.  Our first night in Orange Beach was spent at Homeport Marina.  Some of you know who Jimmy Buffett is.  If you don’t, google him.  Anyway, his sister’s name is Lulu and she has a restaurant on the ICW named after her.  Homeport must be part of her complex. It was OK, nice floating docks, Tim was not at all impressed with the bathroom facilities, but I won’t get into that further.  We stayed there one night and then moved about 5 miles down the ICW to The Wharf.  Now this is a nice marina.  Wowzer!  Several dock hands to help tie up, nice boats, great restaurants and bars nearby, and all for only $1/foot.  That’s a deal we won’t refuse.  We will be here at least through Tuesday morning.  We’ve had some issues with our Raymarine electronics and Tim has a guy coming out on Monday to help trouble shoot them.  We’ve met several “loopers” and will probably watch some football and drink a few beers with them this afternoon.