1st Day of the Memorial Day 2006 Sail to the Gulf
First is a pic of the leg out from Kemah to Galveston--about a 27 nautical mile sail...the photo is our friend's boat bearing down on us. His plan was to bombard the Hoo with water balloons launched from a big slingshot. But Steve is a lousy gunnery officer. Hit his own boat.
After that, we split up, taking different courses to our destination, the Galveston Yacht Basin. Yours truly prefers a well-defined approach with timed runs along plotted courses. Magellan is of the let's-sail-this-way-for-awhile-and-see-what-happens variety. I'll leave spontaneous sailing him. It's charts, a stop watch and a steady speed and heading aboard Houdini. Precision. Precision. Precision. Annette's favorite sound is my "15 seconds to turn"...lets her know to belay that sunbathing on the lazerette--time to work.
Got to keep an eye peeled for these guys. There are 3 of these ferries running back and forth across the Ship Channel from Galveston to Bolivar Penninsula.
Never been on that trip. Time, I think, to make a land cruise on the Harley (The Great White Whale), a particularly cool 2005 Fat Boy.
This is what a 38-foot Sea-Ray looks like after the fuel tank leaks into the bilge and then you go hit the starter. Lights up like a Mexican grill right away. This happened while we were about 3 miles out of the Galveston Yacht Basin, but we saw the smoke from it immediately--big black mushroom cloud. We tied-off about an hour later just a few yards from the accident. Poor folks in that boat were taken to UTMB in critical condition.
Safely in Galveston Yacht Basin. The XO got a work out on the way in. She practiced her navigation skills in East Bay. We had never sailed East Bay before. Some interesting obstacles to anticipate and clear in our tacking under timed-runs and approach planning, but The Nearly Perfect Wife performed well---even if she did get a little tensed-up and crabby in some of the tighter spots.
2nd day--Memorial Day 2006 sail--into The Gulf of Mexico...
What?
Wilson?
Wilson where are you?
Oh no.
Oh no. No. No!
Wilson!
Wilson!
Wilson, hang on! Hang on! Wilson, come back!
Wilson!
Ohhhhhhh noooooooooo........Willlllllsonnnnnnnnn!
Our little Gulf trip stretched out only 5 nautical miles--just far enough that we were beyond sight of land. (Have to take this off-shore stuff in stages: the XO, aka The Nearly Perfect Wife, gets jumpy when terra firma is gone from view.) The weather began to get dicey, so we turned and made for the jetties. Seas were up to 6 feet, but Houdini rode them like a pelican.
On the return leg into the Galveston Jetties, we met two big cruise ships headed out under the lowering weather and building seas. The rails on these sea-going casino hotels were lined with every kind of lubber-romantic. You knew them right away: they were the ones making-out behind the lifeboats. The Captain asked the hanging question: how many of those distracted lovers would be hanging over the bulwark instead of each other in a few hours?
Just had to put this guy in here. He was tame as any house cat. Sat up there watching us and the folks in the slip next to us like a line judge in a tennis match.
This is Raymond. He was out sailing with his parents and an introverted Canadian who concieved an instantaneous and obvious dislike for The Captain. Poor bastard. That's the surest way to get The Captain to haul-in your main sheet.
But everybody loved Raymond. Raymond thought Houdini was shiny, and told his mom and dad (in the background) that he preferred sitting on the Mighty Hoo. Raymond also explained to us how he was planning to use a net as big as the world to catch a shark and a crab. When I suggested that was a lot of net for so young a fisherman, he explained he would have a giant pull it for him.
After our visit with the marina natives, and the interview with Raymond, we settled down for snacks and the obligatory vodka and tonic. Vodka, says the XO, is the essential elixir for any important shore-foraging strategy meeting. Our plan: strike ashore for dinner among the impossibly pretty locals at Landry's and work our unique sea-mojo on them. Shown here are Tracie, Magellan and The Nearly Perfect Wife (foreground) aboard Houdini.
LAST DAY OF THE 2006 MEMORIAL DAY SAIL.....
After Thumper and Magellan and The Nearly Perfect Wife and I ate a breakfast of pancakes and at least one engine-mount impersonating a biscuit, we walked out of the joint and saw this...Magellan, of course, said, "If we leave now we can get back before dark."
My friend, Magellan, is an intrepid sailor. He likes the rail down and water washing along the side decks like the log ride at Six Flags. But his enthusiasm occasionally suffers blind spots where it bleeds off into something normal folks call a death wish. I replied,"Look here: anything coming from that quarter, with that amount of purple in it, is going to have some big wind in it, too. I say we wait for that to pass." Thumper and The Nearly Perfect Wife agreed. Magellan suffered the mutiny in silent dignity.
Fifteen minutes later, with all of us on our respective vessels, the wind came down like a Rider of the Apocalypse. The VHF radio was a constant crackle of wild calls from boaters caught in 50-60 knot winds. The Coast Guard replies had the resigned tone of men who knew they must choose between the merely panicked and those in real danger. Houdini and The Nearly Perfect Wife and I rode it out at dockside--though even tied-off we had a good 10-degree heel and a pelting rain.
Once the weather ran off to the southeast, we set out from the Galveston Yacht Basin. And so did everything else with a keel or propeller or screw or rudder. At the intersection of the Intercoastal Canal, the Houston Ship Channel and the cut above Pelican Island, things got downright crowded: tugs, barges, tankers, cargo ships, shrimpers, recreational fishermen, power boaters, cruise ships and an unbroken parade of sailboats coagulated, some headed north, some headed into an agitated Gulf.
One lesson learned in all this traffic: stand off from that barge-pushing tug, mister. The revolutions on those screws pull an awesome amount of water past his rudder, to a depth of at least four feet. Too close, and the suction will pull your keel to him, too. Had we been in anything less than the 20-knot east winds powering us along, we likely would have had some intimate moments between the Mighty Houdini and our truculent tug just to port.
As for the more peaceful stretch north. I captained for awhile-- and when the fleet thinned, turned the helm over to a more pulchritudinous watch.
