Biloxi, Mississippi

After leaving New Orleans on November 18, we headed for Biloxi...We had not planned on going straight into Biloxi but our anchoring out destination, Ship Island, turned out to be a little...lets just say...hazardous...according to our guide there was plenty of depth to drop anchor but we found out that it went from 12 to 0 in a flash...soooooo we decided to skedaddled on over to Biloxi. Of course it was night by now and I just hate going into a place after dark. It is so hard to know where your going, but that's why I have a Captain!

What can I say about Biloxi???? hmmmm, not much! There is still a lot of damage there from Katrina. The city marina, located behind the Isle of Capri Casino, had no electricity, dock and building damage. We needed to stay anyway so our new head motor could be sent overnight. Yes, a new head motor! to go along with our new batteries! You know what they say about boats "it's a hole in the water you throw money in".

Since there were casinos in the area it took the Captain no time to find a craps table. The Captain had some free nights at the Grande Biloxi so we decided to take advantage of them. While the Captain worked the craps table I went on a walk around the area. I love to explore and walking is the best way to get to know a place. Sad to say though, there was not much to see due to the hurricane damage. According to a few locals we chatted with many people took the money and left town instead of rebuilding. So now there are lots and lots of vacant areas. Also we noted these little pink, green, yellow cottages around. We were told that FEMA supplied these when people started to complain about the FEMA trailers. Cute places, glad to see our tax dollars at work.


I took this picture from our room at the hotel. As you can see there just was not much to this place.



Perhaps I am being a little hard on Biloxi, after all it was the next place after New Orleans. Someday we will come back and I will try to see it in a different light.

We left Biloxi on November 23. We made it a short day and anchored out at Dauphin Island. It was a peaceful and isolated area. I took these pictures of the spectacular sunset.




We made it into Bear Paw marina the next day in Orange Beach, Alabama. I did laundry while the Captain did Captain things around the boat. We ran into Tim and Sharon from Port A. We visited with them for a while on their boat. They have been working on getting their boat cruiser ready and have plans to head out in January, they hope! We all know how that works. We wish them well and fair winds.

This morning we left early and headed to Pensacola. I took some pictures of the houses along the way. Alabama Coast looks like a lovely place to live.




Yea!!! We made it to Florida! I was willing to swim to shore so the Captain could take my picture under the sign. But he was being Captain Bly today and said "NO."



We are now in Pensacola and I will blog about our adventure here, so stay tuned for updates.

Bye All

New Orleans

I took this shot as we were coming into New Orleans on Nov 9th.



This is a train bridge that we had to call to let us through. As you can see there was a train on it. We also had to wait for the next bridge, which is a left bridge to be fixed. There was some kind of problem and an electrician had to be called.

Once we made it through the bridges we pulled into Seabrook Marina. We have stayed here for about a week getting new batteries for Liberty Call. Sooooo we wasted no time in exploring New Orleans. I had never been here and I was looking forward to this adventure.

To celebrate the Marine Corps Birthday, Nov 10th, we went down to the French Quarter for dinner. Our first stop was Pat O'Brien's were we tried one of those famous Hurricane drinks.



The Captain took a picture of me sitting by the water and fire fountain at Pat O'Brien's



I took this picture as we were walking over to the Acme Oyster House for dinner. Acme Oyster House has been operating since 1910 and is considered the best place in town for oysters.....I was planning on having a hamburger!



When the waitress brought the Captain's grilled oysters to the table, he talked me into trying one! I put up a good fight about how icky they were until I gave in and tried one! Yummmmmmmm!!! After I ate about half of his dozen I decided they were not so bad. I liked them so much I talked the Captain into going there a second time for dinner (like that was hard to do?) and I had grilled oysters for dinner. I still draw the line at FISH! So now I have looked up on cooks.com for a recipe for grilled oysters so we can try making them ourselves. Oh, did I mention their world famous bread pudding? That was almost a good as the oysters!




I took this picture of the Captain across the street from the Cafe Du Monde. We got it on good advice from Captain Jr. that they had the best doughnuts in the world there. Of course the Cafe Du Monde is world famous for their beignets.



As you can see we had no problem in sampling them. They are pretty messy but everyone in the place had a fine layer of powdered sugar on their faces.



The Captain took a picture of me with the Mississippi River behind me.



After our breakfast we ventured through the local shops and I took some pictures of some famous land marks.

Along with our plan to make grilled oysters we bought a box of Beignet mix to make our own along with some Aunt Sally's creole pralines and praline covered pecans. Aunt Sally makes some good stuff.



This is a statue of Joan of Arc at the French Market.



This is the St. Louis Cathedral at Jackson Square.



STONE ANGELS AND OLD GRAVES

No trip to New Orleans would be complete without visiting one of the many old cemetaries found throughout the city. We took a tour and this is the cemetary we visited. I was fascinated with the stone angels and got a little carried away with taking pictures.

Carolyn's Dolphin Movie

Dolphins are usually camera shy but this group seemed to enjoy swimming in front of our boat and did not seem to mind me taking a movie of them. They lead us to the perfect spot to drop anchor for the night before we made our way into New Orleans the next day.

Just click on the word swimming and see my movie. I was so excited that they did not run off that I got a little herky jerky with the camera.

Catching Up

Trying to stay on top of our adventure can be hard to do with days offshore and no wireless available when anchoring out. Sooooo I will try to cover the last several days.

The day after we left Army Hole we went offshore, tried to make it into Freeport before night but since the time change darkness came fast. We were worried about going under a power cable after dark so we decided to anchor out and wait for morning. As luck would have it, the Coast Guard showed up and told us we were in a restricted area. There was no other place to go so our only option was to go back offshore and head for Galveston. Eight hours later at 4:30 AM we made it into Galveston dropped anchor and fell into bed. We stayed there the following day to recover from my trauma.....of an unexpected overnighter offshore.

November 4th we decided to head over to Harborwalk Marina in Galveston. Wanted to watch how the elections turned out. Not what we had hoped for! We stayed an extra day because of our never ending problem with the batteries.


Took off early morning on the 6th. Ran into a bit of a traffic errrr barge jam on our way out of Galveston Bay.





Loved these clouds...looked like a Spanish Armada...don't ya think?



Me catching a snooze...zzzzzzzzzz...

Depending on whose perspective you look at, the next 2.5 days was a scream!!!! or a blast! We stayed offshore during that time and weaved our way through the endless oil platforms and those crazy shrimpers. Both freak me out at night. Thank goodness the Captain lives for this stuff and was having a blast sailing through 22 to 28 knots of wind and rain storms. Me, on the other hand cowered in the bunk down below. Okay, okay I did a few turns at the helm also in between my cowering. I also took some great pictures of the sunset after the storm clouds passed by.


Oil Platform in storm clouds.

Shrimp boat and hungry seagulls.

Storm clouds.

Sunset after the storm. I took these during one of my times at the helm.

Leaving

On Saturday, Nov 1, 08, we cut the lines and headed out. We had planned for Nov 1 and actually made that date, despite all the chores and errands we had to do first.

Okay....we staged the departing pictures, but there was no one around to take them.

It was a beautiful sunrise as we made our way down Piper Channel out of Island Moorings.

We said our goodbye's to the Port Aransas Ferries...Port Aransas and the HEB Lighthouse as we sailed our way down the ICW.

I took a picture of a map out of Campbell's Guide to Cruising Texas that shows the first few days or our cruise . Port Aransas is not on the map (shock!), so our closes jump off point would be Aransas Pass. We stayed in the Intracoastal Waterway, ICW, our first day.

This is a cute little tug we passed....


Look close, that's a dolphin taking an afternoon swim. He did not seem to care that we were cruising by.


Semper Fi!!


The Captain working hard.


Playing with the flags.

Our first night out we anchored at Army Hole. Army Hole is located at Matagorda Island State Park in the Espiritu Santo Bay. The Army Air Corps dug a channel to the island when it was used as an air base. Today it is a park used by campers, fishermen and folks like us who want to anchor out for a night on their way east, or west.