Haven't had internet since we left Morgan City. Seems this is not Verizon territory, but my ATT phone works fine. Therefore, I am doing the blog for 6/26 and 6/27 together.
In honor of our Cajun brethren, my friend Tom Pace sent me a funny joke:
Two Cajun hunters get a pilot to fly them to Canada to hunt moose. They bag six.
As Boudreaux and Thibodeaux start loading the plane for the return trip, the Pilot says 'The plane can only take four of those.'
The two Cajuns object strongly. 'Last year we shot six and the pilot let us put them all on board; he had the same plane as yours.'
Reluctantly, the pilot gives in and all six are loaded. However, even with full power, the little plane can't handle the load and down
it goes and crashes in the middle of nowhere.
A few moments later, climbing out of the wreckage, Boudreaux asks Thibodeaux , 'Any idea where we are?'
'I think we're pretty close to where we crashed last year.' Says Thibodeaux.
The night before leaving Morgan City we were hit with a terrible thunderstorm. Because the way we were tied up was flimsy at best, Tom and I ran out to double tie all lines and looked like drowned rats when we came in. The sky was lit up with lightning bolt after lightning bolt, but we weren't too concerned about getting hit since we were sitting directly under a steel highway bridge. The storm passed and all was well. We finally settled in for the night only to be awakened time and again as the passing boats slammed their wakes into us and caused us to rock violently. Bev and Tom slept through the whole thing in their downstairs bunk. Since my bunk is the little settee, I was holding on for dear life several times. In an effort to try to get some sleep, I also put my earplugs in so I wouldn't hear the thundering of the cars over the bridge and the two or three trains that passed by on the other bridge just on the other side! Needless to say, I was glad to see morning come so we could depart.
The ride to Intracoastal City was pretty much uneventful and we are resigned to the dozens of barges that we pass daily. We were pleasantly surprised that a number of them actually talked with us. The weather deteriorated by late morning and we went through a number of showers and gusts of wind, but it was not bad. Luckily, Naciente does well either helming inside or at the flybridge. We miss the autopilot and better GPS when we helm inside, but it's very doable. We passed under a 73' Bascule bridge and wondered why on earth it was there, until we saw the reason later. A huge drilling rig was being transported by a tug...
When we got to Intracoastal City, Kim and Corwin came over for dinner. While here, they inspected the boat per the Power Squadron Safety Inspection rules and I now have a nice sticker on my window to prove that Naciente passed inspection. Thanks, Corwin.
Shell Morgan Marina is a nice spot to stay in and even has a shower and restroom facilities. They were very friendly and even offered to take us to the grocery store if we needed anything.
Thanks to Corwin, we found a nice spot to come to this evening; an RV campground up the Mermentau River who let us tie up to their dock. While they are not set up for bigger boats, Tom had the foresight to buy a plug converter and we are plugged into a standard 110 outlet. While we can only run our A/C...who needs more? It's funny how you keep readjusting your basic needs and while we don't have water to wash the boat with or refill our tanks, and we don't have a way to charge our phones and computers, we are very happy not to be anchoring out with the heat and the bugs...we'll take this arrangement gladly...thus far, the cost for staying at these marinas in LA has been $20 per night...sure beats the $1.5 - 2.5 per foot we were paying in Florida! The campground is full of old oak and pecan trees making the place extremely scenic. There are many RV's and campers here; they are very friendly. Our trip here today included one more lock, the Leland Bowman Locks which were the easiest locks to date. Just like the one we did before this one, the Bayou Boeuf Lock, we did not tie up to anything and we actually had the locks to ourselves since the barge behind us displayed a red flag signifying that he was carrying hazardous material.
The path along the Mermantau River to Myers Landing was a bit tricky. We had eight bends to navigate. Tom and I were figuring it out together and our conversation went as follows:
"Do you see the green marker?...", "I think so...yup, there it is...where do we go from here?" "Not sure...do you see another marker?"..."Not yet, but do you think we're supposed to take the loop or just go around the corner?" "Not sure...we'll keep going and see what happens"..."I think we're supposed to go straight, not around the loop..." "Yup, I think so..." "Is this the third of fourth loop?" " Think it's the third...depends if you count this as a loop"..."Well, at least we have plenty of depth"..."Yup, so far so good".."Let's follow that little boat, maybe he can show us the way"..."Ok, but he may be going to another location" "Drat, you're right, there he goes!"..."Okay, I think I see a red marker...do you see it?" "Yup, been seeing it for quite some time now" "Well, then, why the heck do I have the binoculars if you already found it...you could have at least told me!" "Figured you'd get to it eventually...by the way, that dead alligator you saw back there? It only counts for one point...my live ones counted for two" "What? No way are you going to start inventing these new rules!" and so on and so on...
So here we sit tonight waiting for the pesky jetskiers to quit playing so our boat will stop rocking and rolling.
Tomorrow we head to Lake Charles and our final lock...more later.
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