Gulf of Mexico

Before moving back to Holland we decided to take some time off and sail on the Gulf of Mexico.

The Tranquility at very low tide in Freeport.

We had met Lucy and John about a year ago when we admired their boat, the Morningstar, with the only wooden mast in Waterford marina. They were so nice to have us sail on one of their other boats, SV Tranquility, a 36 foot Catalina.

First Hans had to upgrade his boating skills a bit and get the "official" ASA cruising certificates. We then needed a few days to get the charts for the region that we had selected for our trip and get the provisions on board.

Instead of going to Florida as we had originally planned, we decided to explore the coast from Houston south towards Mexico. This way we would not have to cross the busy Mississippi traffic and also if we would use the Inter Coastal Waterway we would have a lot less locks and bridges to pass.

We first sailed from Kemah to Galveston.

The trip always takes a lot of concentration because for most part it means sailing through the Houston Ship Channel, one of the busiest channels in the world, and only about 125 meters wide.

In the Houston Ship Channel

Galveston has an illustrious history full as the home port of the French pirate and buccaneer Jean Lafitte. Until 1900 this was by far the largest city in Texas and a major port for the USA. However the 1900 Hurricane demolished most of the city and killed a large part of the population. (still the worse natural disaster in USA history).

Parts were rebuilt and, with Dutch technology!, most of the city was raised by a few meters. It still is a large harbor, with a cruise ship terminal and repair facilities for oil-platforms. However thanks to the Houston Ship Channel, most ships now directly go to Houston Harbor or Texas City.

When we reached Galveston we decided not to stay in the busy city marina, but to continue to Offats-bayou. Hans had anchored there overnight a week before and we planned to do the same or stay in the small marina next to the Texas Aircraft museum that we wanted to visit. After a long wait at the train-bridge and very careful motoring into the shallow bayou, we reached the small "Moorings" marina. It was very damaged by recent hurricanes we had to be very careful to find a pier that did not have hidden obstacles that could damage the boat. We stayed for a few days to see the Aircraft museum and to visit Moody gardens again.

Next leg was on to Freeport through the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). This is a 4,800 long channel along the Atlantic and Gulf coast of the USA.

The Texas part is mostly within the largest barrier islands in the world, with marshes full of birds and cacti on both sides.

Beam reach though the ICW... keeping a close eye on the depth sounder.

The ICW is shallow and poorly marked. A major storm can change the landscape of rivers and other cuts through the ICW , so it is important to keep a close eye on the depth sounder. We did run aground once on this leg but could easily motor off.

Almost like the highway... every 10 (land) miles there is a marker showing the distance from Louisiana

Most commercial traffic on the ICW consists of barges with strong tug-or towboats. We now have lot of respect for the captains of these boats steering often 4 or 6 barges strung together through strong winds and currents. Often the ICW is only barely wide enough for these barges, so it takes some coordination to safely pass or overtake them. After countless VHF conversations we did master deciphering the Southern accents and the necessary nautical terms.

Also, Guus, Stan and Daan did very well at getting most captains to blow their horns by waving their arms and pulling an imaginary horn on our boat.

"See y'all on two whistles"

Real Estate

We saw a lot of nice houses, sometimes needing some TLC :-)

It does show another part of Texas. The Houston area is very affluent, but further South that changes..

Hans' retirement plan.

Freeport

Freeport is a city and port built with the sole purpose of supporting a complex of huge chemical plants. We stayed a bit longer than planned to get our depth finder fixed. It did get us time to finally read the manuals for our new GPS, auto-inflatable PFDs, our EPIRB and other high-tech gadgets that make sea-sailing reasonably safe for landlubbers like ourselves. When the depth-sounder was fixed the weather got nasty and we stayed a few more days in Freeport.

Luckily we still had a Harry Potter to read and DVDs to watch. A trip to the Kroger supermarket ended up costing us more in taxi fees than in grocery bills...

We did find the local Baits shop, right under the bridge, where we walked some afternoons and had drinks or ice cream on their fishing-deck along the ICW.

Feeding the crew in Freeport.

The sights of Freeport

Bridge Bait, our favorite hang-out place in freeport

Off-Shore

When the weather got a little better we went outside on the Gulf. Our first trip really off-shore.

We left early and the first 8 hours was great. Sunny, light winds and lots of dolphins around the boat.

However early afternoon the weather started to change. A cold front brought in heavy wind blowing from the South, exactly where we wanted to go.

Around midnight we rolled-up the genoa completely and put on the motor to make some better way against the wind and the waves that were getting pretty large and were tricky to steer through in the dark.

We had to decide whether to seek shelter in Port O'Conner in Matagorda Bay or continue another 50 miles to Port Aransas. We had been told that Matagorda Bay was a tricky entrance in the dark so we decided it would be safer to stay out on sea than to try to enter a tricky port that we had not been before.

Except Hans and Stan everyone was seasick. It was a very long night in heavy sea. We kept constant lookout for oil-platforms, and oil-wells that are often not lit at all.

Seeing the sun come up the next morning was a relief and made the steering through the waves a lot easier. We were even more happy when we safely got into the Port Aransas jetties around 4 PM. After tying up the boat in the municipal marina Hans, who had done most of the steering of the last 36 hours, passed out below deck and got some well deserved sleep.

Eefke and the boys, who had emptied their stomachs overboard 20 hours earlier, suddenly felt very hungry and took the tram to "Moby Dick" for fish and chips.

Dolphins staying with us close to Freeport

I'm so cool..

Stan, Guus and Daan posing on the foredeck, as far away from their parents as they can get.

Only sea between us and Mexico.

B'fast in the cockpit

Sailing & playing

Fair weather crew.

Stan on the bow

Our junior helmsman

The beach at Port Aransas.

The major industry of Pt. Aransas.

No internet, no wifi, 6 weeks email-free. Daan must be playing a computer game.

The oil industry is never far away in Texas.

Guus in the aft cabin.

Guus taking care of urgent business.

We're getting close to home ! Bell-buoy at the entrance of the Galveston shipchannel.

Better keep an eye on those big guys, they move fast and have little patience with pleasure boats.

Galveston bay is shallow and the narrow ship channel sees some of the heaviest traffic of N-America. We're keeping close watch, have put away the mainsail and the motor on stand-by in case we need to rapidly move out of the way.