Friday, November 16 –
17, 2012 - Venice Louisiana
From Ship Island we headed east across the upper Gulf through the Chandaleur Islands and Breaton Sound. We were ahead of schedule and were so excited to reach the Baptiste Collette Channel Marker entrance by 2:00. Woo Hoo!
Then disaster struck! The entrance to Baptiste Collette was impeded by a Dredge. We tried to go around the east side of the white ball, as is usual, but we veered too far over and grounded. Both boats! (NOTE TO SELF: NEVER AGAIN ENTER A CHANNEL WITHOUT TALKING TO THE DREDGE NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES FOR THEM THE ANSWER!)
Both boats tried and tried
to break free but to no avail. A crew
boat from the dredge and an air boat came by to try to get A Goode Ketch pulled
off. About 2 hours later they finally
had him pulled free. Then the crew boats and air boat came to
help us. Unfortunately we were further
out of the channel, so they had to use the airboat to bring us line and we had
to add our lines to it to make it long enough.
Long story short, line was so long and heavy and the distance so far
that the line kept breaking and it was getting dark so the air boat had to
leave. We called Boat U.S.
The decision was made to stay put till morning and they would send someone for us at
dawn. We put the anchor out and set the
anchor alarm. The boat kept bouncing
with the barges that passed and it would pound
down on the keel and rudder. The
pounding got worse and harder so we knew we were getting more water with the
higher tide. Finally, about 7:30 the
anchor alarm went off so we knew that we had floated some. It was dark, but Al said we had to leave. I hated having to
travel in familiar waters at night but I knew it was safer than staying here
and risk damaging our boat. Which surely
would have happened as the pounding was getting really badly.
So I drove and Al went out
and worked the anchor free. He came back
to the helm and plowed through until we reached the channel… We almost went all
the way through the channel and hit the dredge pipes!
He turned just in time. We (or rather... "I"...) were
so disoriented with the lights from the dredge and the channel markers. I was mis-reading the chart plotter as I was
looking back on the track we had made rather than looking ahead for channel
markers. Fortunately Al knew where we
were and we took off up the channel.
There was a very nice supply boat captain who went in front of us and
helped us negotiate the channel. We
played close attention to how the boat performed. We had no idea what damage, if any, had been done to the boat with the grounding. There was no problem with the steering, the engine sounded fine and the
instruments read ok. We kept checking
the bilge to make sure there was no water and we checked inside the engine
compartment to make sure there was not water coming from the rudder post or
packing gland. Everything seemed
ok. Thank the good Lord!
It was confusing entering the Mississippi at
night. It took us a few minutes to get
our bearings and we pulled out in front of a barge instead of waiting for him
to pass, Yikes! After crossing
to the other side we had to find a marked channel to the right and were blinded
by the lights on the bank . We then had
to find a tiny unmarked channel with both banks of rock marked the entrance to
the marina. There was no sign nor
lights… while we made our way through it all with the assistance of Ron guiding us through via
our AIS… he did not fare so well as he had hit the rocks coming in earlier. Then… as we entered the marina we had no idea
where to go… we drug the ground AGAIN… and finally noticed the guy waving us
with a flashlight to guide us to the bulkhead.
I don’t think I have ever been so happy to dock! Tomorrow we will assess the situation. Tonight we sleep.
Cypress Landing Marina was a pretty nice place.
The boat seemed ok, but before we headed back out we needed to make sure. Unable to get anyone locally to dive or pull the boat we called in someone from New Orleans to come out. Both boats checked out just fine! Yea!
Cypress Landing Marina was a pretty nice place.
The boat seemed ok, but before we headed back out we needed to make sure. Unable to get anyone locally to dive or pull the boat we called in someone from New Orleans to come out. Both boats checked out just fine! Yea!
