Sailing The Gulf

We are back!!! This blog has not worked as well as I had hoped. I thought I would have better internet connections along the coastal cities. Patrick and Laura made it to Pensacola on Saturday right on schedule. We departed Sunday 7/12/2009 at 7:30 Am and arrived at the Port Aransas Jetties on 7/16/2009 at 3:30PM. We traveled a total of 1600 miles on this journey. The winds have been less than cooperative and cut the engins for maybe a total of 12 hours the whole trip. The Gulf was a beautiful blue almost glassy at times. The winds where out of the West, due to a stalled pressure system. Guess which way we where sailing? WEST!! We just kept motoring. Tacking with the wind didn't help, because there wasn't enough to sail with. Winds were light at 5 to 7 mph. We were able to maintain a 5.5 knot average heading. Dodging shrimp boats and oil/gas platforms at night was our biggest challenge. This go around the shrimp boats in Louisiana where not as bad, but Galveston was a ZOOOOOO!!!! We traveled 150 to 200 miles off shore and those guys are thick at night. It is very difficult to see which direction they are going and this was the night the wind finally picked up in our favor. Dodging those clowns was stressful!!! It was a good thing we were able to cut the engins off for a few hours, as we were running low on fuel. Our tanks hold about 180 gallons of diesel and we entered the jetties with about 5 left. We were also running short of water as the watermaker part never arrived in Pensacola. The last hall was 5 days and 4 nights. I have decided I am only good for about 3 days and 2 nights!!!!
It was nice to spend time with Patrick. He has grown so much in the past year and a half. He was a huge help! He plotted our course on the charts several times a day and made sure we were on the right heading to come come. He held his 2 hour shifts at night and allowed others to get some shut eye. Trolling 2 fishing lines off the boat proved to be alot of fun. Each time the reel would spin, so would the calamity! We would all jump up, Patrick or Clark would run for the reel and start fighting the catch, the other would bring in the the other reel so we didn't back over the line and wrap it in the propellar. Laura or I would put the boat in neutral and turn up into the wind while the other manned the camera. We caught 3 Kingfish, 2 Bonita, a Jackfish, and a White Marlin, the one that got away. The marlin was so much fun to watch sail out of the water. He faught hard and as we got him close he swam under the boat and the propellar cut the line. We were sailing at about 5.5 knots in 500 feet of water for this show.
Having Patrick around was a nice reconnect for us all. When we get home we have to start getting him ready to move to Texas A&M College Station, I'm gonna miss him (just a little, LOL)!
Having Laura on board was great as well. She also held 2 hour shift at night and was a huge help in the galley. We all took turn with meals and clean up.
When we arrived at Ingelside By The Bay, we found the tides to be unusally low and we were unable to come up the channel to our dock. We turned around and spent the night in Ingelside Cove. We grilled steaks and watched movies, WOW so relaxing!! Friday morning we where able to get the boat to the dock around 7:00 AM. Now the cleanup begins.
What a journey!! Our next cruise will be the Veracruz, Mexico Sailboat Race in June 2010.

a travel blog by mhaleyrn

Day 14

Pensacola, United States

7/16/2009

Port Aransas, United States