Adventures

I have clear skies and open seas for my watch this morning.  Quite a bit of a difference from the slalom course of oil platforms last evening and night. Still no wind, it’s a good thing that we topped off the fuel yesterday.

Well… It’s been a trying day. Shortly after sunrise, I contacted a nearby tug boat who informed me that the marina at Grand Isle would be an easy access location to top off the fuel and water. On arriving, we find that the diesel dock was closed for repairs and that the only other fuel dock on the island that is deep enough for a sailboat is set up for work boats that are purchasing 4-5000 gallons at a time. They were kind enough to sell us 19 gallons to top off our tank so that we can safely make it to Galveston if the wind stays flakey like it has been.

Tons of dolphins playing in the bayou, but they were fairly camera shy.

We are back in the gulf now, about 2 miles offshore in 30′ of water motorsailing our way home. With both the motor and the light winds we are making an easy 7.5-8 kts. At this rate we should be in Galveston Friday morning!

Lots of oil rigs out here, there are at least 75 visible from our location. We’ll have to keep our eyes open tonight.

Gentle breeze out of the West tonight. Storms in the distance, and a few ominous clouds floated over us. With less that 100nm from shore, we decided that it was time to crack up the engine. I chatted with a tugboat shortly after sunrise and he confirmed that our destination of Grand Isle would have deep enough water for a sailboat. With a minor course alteration, we should be making landfall by mid afternoon.

Lots of oil rigs out here, and a hefty about of traffic coming in and out of the Mississippi.

With the light winds, we have had to make a difficult decision. We are still currently ~400nm away from our destination, and with the flaky to light winds, that could take us another week. As a result of that information, we have decided that the best course of action is to fire up the iron horse and in the near future and start putting some miles under the keel.

We’ll pop into port on Louisiana for refueling so that we’ll have enough fuel for the journey home.

Once again the overnight shift had some good wind.  I was able to get Sun Suite up to 7+kts for a bit. Alas, the good wind didn’t stick with us for long.

We’ve added a dog watch so that everyone will get a chance to cover all of the watches. That will happen every day from 16:00 to 18:00 and 18:00 to 20:00.

Wonderful day today, the wind has finally picked up and we are easily making 5.5-6kts with a steady 10-15kt breeze. If this keeps up, we should make it to Clear Lake Friday or Saturday at the latest.

The wind has picked up a little and we are back under sail again.  The forecast we are getting says that we should have perfect sailing weather for the next few days.  With any luck, we should be able to make the remaining 511nm in a little over 4 days.

Once again, I am seeing some lightning in the distance, it seems to be a nightly occurrence.

So far, I have been able to find Leo, Virgo, Scorpius, Libra and the Sextans in the sky tonight. The Milky Way is brilliant out here!

We’re currently in the deeper areas of the Gulf of Mexico, the water here is around 10,000 feet deep here.

Because of the extremely light wind, shortly after my last watch we started motoring. Coming on this watch we have now been motoring for the last 11.5 hours. I am concerned that we are burning through the fuel too quickly at the beginning of the journey and will run into issues nearing the end of the trip.

The night is starting out well, bioluminescence and meteors abound! Again there are some storms in the distance, I hope they bring us some wind.

05:00 and the navigation lights on the bow just went out.

After maintaining 7kts overnight, the wind has settled down and we are only making 3-4kts this afternoon.  Calm seas, slightly cloudy skies, and little to no wind. I don’t see a single whitecap in any direction.  We are hoping for more wind in the near future.

Today was laundry day, we washed some of our clothes by dragging them behind the boat for about 20-30 minutes.  We played a few games of cribbage to pass the time.  A container ship passed about 3 miles from us.  That was all of the excitement for this shift.

Our course today is 324° averaging about 3.5kts.

After another overnight sail, we arrived art Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas.  Wonderful place, I’d love to come back and spend a few days on the hook here.  We spent a couple of hours on the hook, then cast off across the Gulf of Mexico for Texas.

I’m on the 20:00-00:00 shift tonight, I see some thunderstorms off in the distance to the North and some bioluminescence in our wake.  Seas are currently calm and we are making a leisurely ~5kts this evening. Tons of stars out tonight, I’m working on picking out the constellations. I found Pisces, Capricorn, Sagittarius, and Scorpius tonight!