Houma to Galveston

The trip from Houma to Galveston turned out much better than I'd expected. There wasn't much going on in Houma -- the only places within walking distance were the hospital and a couple gas stations -- and I didn't want to wait around, at $25/day, till the new documentation certificate arrived, so after verifying the USCG had my application, we left. (the certificate didn't arrived until four days after we made landfall)

We got a late start, so I decided to go directly out to the gulf from Houma instead of going through Morgan City to the much bigger channel. Bigger channels are normally easier, but the Houma Navigation Channel is heavily used, so I figured it would be fine if we could make it out into the gulf before it got dark. We stopped for fuel about halfway, which meant we didn't lose much time, and had plenty of fuel for the trip. We made it into deep water, after a bit of drama, right at dusk -- well, relatively deep water at 20+ feet.

While motoring down the navigation channel, I made a few calls to the USCG and a couple of friends who were helping me with the renewal application. Everything was going pretty well until shortly after I got fuel. After a few texts and a call from Paul, I noticed the navigation software had stopped updating. It turned out to be a problem with the GPS software on the phone, and cleared up in less than an hour, but it happened right before dark in a narrow channel as we met a bunch of service boats coming back in. At that point, I figured we were already committed, so I kept going, all the while trying everything I could think of to clear the phone.

Nothing I did worked, but I could still use the charts in the phone -- didn't have any paper charts for this area. It all worked out okay, but I could feel my stress level rise a bit. Luckily, it started working again as we approached deep water. I'm still not sure if the calls or texts had anything to do with it, but it's only happened one other time, so who knows. However, we left on a Friday, which is supposed to be bad luck, so maybe that was a gentle warning for next time.

As soon as I raised the sails and cut the engine, I looked around and all I could see were rigs everywhere, lit up like christmas trees. It got better the next day, but there were always multiple rigs in site the entire trip. We had good wind on the first night, but were becalmed most of the next day. The forecast called for relatively calm conditions for several days, but since I was ready to get the trip over with, and had no desire to just sit out there, we motored most of the second day.

The winds picked up again in the late afternoon, but died again for a few hours the next morning. We motored till noon, then made pretty good progress sailing the rest of the day. Luckily, we were on a reach almost the entire time, so even with lite winds, we did pretty well. The waves were 2-4 feet on the first day, then less than 2 feet the rest of the trip.

The only problem we had the whole time was from a service boat that crossed our bow within a couple hundred yards at 20 knots. The wake was over 6 feet. I should have slowed down, but I didn't realize it would be that bad, and we crashed through the wake at a relative speed of over 25 knots, which wasn't too bad for me because we were motoring and I was ready for it. However, it really upset Zoe. She got bounced around a bit down below. Anyway, I learned my lesson and didn't let it happen again. Mainly because I called every service boat I saw after that and asked them not to wake me. Most of them were pretty nice, but I also took pretty drastic evasive action to stay as far away from them as possible from then on.

We lost the wind again on Sunday morning, but it picked up again shortly after noon. We had to point a little lower to keep up boat speed, then lost the wind again in the late afternoon. By then, we were still too far out to make Galveston before dark, so I was content to slow down a bit. However, after loosing the wind completely, I decided to motor toward the anchorage south-east of Galveston.

The wind picked up again just before dark, so we started sailing again. We were so far north, we could easily pick up the weather forecasts for Cameron and Port Author, but had trouble picking up Galveston -- they kept getting covered by other broadcasts further east. I was pretty sure the current conditions would hold, but we were heading directly toward what looked like either fog or haze, which wasn't in the forecast. I don't have radar, so I avoid fog like the plague. Luckily, I was able to speak to one of the service boats -- the fast ones, 20+ knots, that look like el caminos -- and got a current report. He confirmed the good weather in Galveston would continue for another couple days.

With that out of the way, we continued to close with the coast overnight. I had a lot of trouble with all the lights from rigs, ships, and shore. A little after 0400, we got close enough to make out a bunch of big ships at anchor waiting for a pilot just south of Galveston. We came on in and hove to in the lee of the closest one, then I set my alarm and took a nap. Actually, I took several 30 minute naps.

At a little before dawn, we got underway again and followed a cruise liner into the inlet. I doused the sails once we got inside the jetties and motored the rest of the way in. We stopped at Harbor House Marina for a few days before continuing on to Baytown a few days later. We're currently staying at Bayland Marina on a month to month basis, but hope we can reevaluate our situation by the end of the month and either move or sign a longer lease. Hopefully, I'll have some good news to report later this week. I still need to send in my taxes and get a Texas driver's license, but other than that, all options are on the table.