Monday, March 16, 2015

3/16/15 - Berwick City Dock

Got up early this morning and walked over to the Hospital for Breakfast.  We first stopped along the way to pick up a Geocache that was in a tree in the park along the way.  We had to decide whether to go on to Houma today or wait out a possible storm on Wednesday.  We certainly did not want to be at anchor in a thunder storm is we did not have to.  Figuring what an absolutely beautiful day it was going to be, we decided to head on down the canal.

We left about 8:20 and went right through the Bayou Dularge Bridge with no problem.  We had to wait just a bit but no problem.

Barge traffic was terrible.  Because of the heavy fog this past week all of them were stacked up.  We had to wait about and hour and then we were waived through... Well not exactly.

We were told to enter the lock behind two light boats (These are tugs that do not have a load) Their propellers make a terrible backwash and can capsize you very quickly if they hit you on the beam at full throttle.  We know this... remember Lake Charles 2014?

Anyway, we dreaded going in behind them and stayed back as far as we could  it took us several tries and much effort to tie off to the side walls which were just huge ties about 14 x 14.  We did not line up with a bollard. We finally did get settled fighting the tows' back-washes. But we were finally settled and hanging on the the wall.

 Unfortunately, they pulled a 4-pack in behind us. (That is a tow pushing 4 barges 2 x 2)  Needless to say we had to move up and it put us right into their backwash.  We were being tossed around like a rag doll.  Al almost had the boat spin around on him.  We struggled to un-loop the ties and walk the boat forward against the backwash.  Diane was working like a dog trying to hold the stern in, walk the boat and loop a bollard.  Fortunately it was a success.  Al had lost all thruster power with any bow thruster and to keep from spinning around he had to gun the engine forward... almost plowing into the wall.  Luckily Al was able to stop the boat before any damage was done.  Poor Curtis was at the bow trying the fend off the wall to keep it away from the anchor.  He did a great job.  Anyway,  the nice tow operator told us to move ahead of them so we gladly pulled the boat along the wall totally out of harms way... That was until the open the gate and the current rushed in... But Al managed to navigate the swift current and we shot out of there like a horse leaving a shoot.

Yay!  Did it.  Then it was smooth sailing.  The Berwick railroad bridge was up and we easily docked alongside the pier.

We settled in.  Al took a nap... he is not feeling well, and Diane and Curtis headed out for walk.  I then wrote this blog. :-)

Exciting day.  I'll rest now.  We will plan the next leg of the trip later.


Sunday, March 15, 2015

3/15/15 Houma City Dock

We found a great weather window and headed to Houma.  We were not sure if we would be able to make it all the way, but we did it with plenty of time to spare... even waiting on the locks.

Our first challenge was The Industrial Lock.  They are not known for their hospitality... It was funny, when I called the Harvey Lock to get instructions the mentioned how "unfriendly" the might be... Their reputation proceeded them.

All of the traffic was backed up because of the recent fog.  We were told to move to port (our left side) to tie up to some pilings.  We were almost totally unable to communicate with them and since the right side seemed far more inviting than the left we could not understand why they were sending us there.  Finally a barge operator told us that they lock had told us to move over and tie up.  So we headed over... as we made our way across we could finally see that there was indeed pilings in which to tie up to.  So we did.  Then we had to wait about 30 minutes for barges to pass.   We proceeded through with the not so nice lock operator.

The River was up 10 ft.  And we had a 4 kt. current... pushing 2000 RPM's we made a wopping 4.5 kts.

Making our way into the Mississippi we had to hold up for 2 ships.  Our instructions from the nice Harvey Lock guy was to cross to the other side of the river to stage on the right descending bank off of Algiers Point.  Say What????  Algiers was on our left, not right... We looked up where Algiers Point was and figured out that it was indeed on the right descending bank.when talking about the "descending current" in the Mississippi.  We staged there until called and they tossed up lines to the nice man.  Smooth sailing!

We




Saturday, March 7, 2015

3/7/15 - 3/13/15 - New Orleans, LA - Pontchartrain Landing Marina

After  several weeks at Bay St. Louis we finally got a weather window to make it over to New Orleans.  We were concerned about the water depths since the north winds had blown so hard the last couple of days.  However, as we left the marina we never saw less than 7' and once we got under the railroad bridge and into the Sound we say 9' and 10' most of the way to the ICWW.  The following 2' seas were unpleasant, but not terrible.  We had to keep adjusting the heading for the smoothest ride.  But the short 1-1/2 to the ICWW Riggles was all we had to go through it.  The rest of the trip was beautiful.  Bright sun, calm water and little wind... maybe 5 kts.

We arrived at Pontchartrain Landing about 2:40 and got settled into our slip.  We both agree... this is one of our favorite places.