Marinas Diary cont

Since we are trapped in Lake Charles waiting for the engine parts, we continued

discovering this little town via walking with our backpacks. Ended up in Starbucks

for free wifi catching up with
our blog and other stuff. As strange it's sound we are really enjoying walking -

nice excersize and can see more around than just driving.

10. Day 10 - Mon, Oct.21
This is a big day for us - we might get alternator fixed today. We walked carring

in our backpacks both original and replacement alternator to Auto Electric and

Magnito Shop nd it was a miracle that an owner hapenned to have our missing part!

We got lucky. He also checked our original alternator and verified that yes, it

was brocken. We rashed back to the boat to try new alternator, Kevin put it all

together, we started our engine, and .. there is no exhaust water coming out!

Piece by piece we checked all the cooling system of engine, looked through manuals

and disel engine books trying to troubleshoot a problem, until we disconnected and

connected back the last unchecked hose - water finally ran from exhaust. We were

so happy! However, seems Monday is not our very lucky day... and Kevin yelled

"stop engine" - he noticed a crack in the exhaust housing filter. Well, now we

need to find a replacement for our cracked piece, or otherwise we cannot go

anywhere. Unfortunatelly, cannot get this piece earlier than Thursday.
At the evening we finally decided to use our dinghy to drive around and made it to

"Jag's Bistro" - it's only place in Lake Charles on the waterfront, no cleats on

the docks, but can tie your dinghy around poles. We got some seafood and couple

drinks, it's so nice to be back in civilization!


11. Day 11 - Tu, Oct.22
Another idle day spent in Lake Charles...Kevin might get a little job today

working on network setup at appartment complex. To get there we decided to ride

our dinghy instead of walking. The
water way to McNeese University from BowTie is very nice - a lot of huge beuatiful

houses on both sides of the river, but the water is very very dirty with litter -

we even saw a dead squirell, would not want to end up in this water. There was not

any "parking" suitable places for our dinghy, so we returned back. Later we took

dinghy to Casino De Lauberginue (????) and spent wonderful time there - however,

seems luck is not on our side lately, gambling did not go well and after losing

$10 we returned back home. At this point seems that we exhausted all the

attractions in Lake Charles! But we still have to be here until our engine part

will show up - hopefully on Thurday.

12. Day 12 - Wed, Oct.23
We rented a car today, yea, it's kind of cheating, but we really wanted to visit

Tobasco factory. It's a bit off the way from ICW and we planned to go there, but

because we are late on our original schedule to make it to New Orleans, we decided

to drive to Avery Island (where Tobasco factory is).
Drive was boring, about 2 hours from Lake Charles. Even driving a boat on ICW is

more exciting that this drive. Along I-10 HW we saw a lot of Casinos situated

right in the gas stations! And a lot of eateries with typical south Louisiana

food: boudins and cracklings.
The Avery Island looked like oasis: very green and well kept. Kevin was excited to

try all varieties of the Tobasco souce currently produced. We even tried tobasco

ice cream at the Country Store - interesting taste...
Then we drove/walked through Jungle Gardens created by the founder and owner of

the Tobasco factory. In our quest of finding alligators we perused every marked

"Marsh trail" on the map of this island. They should be somewhere! It's been 6th

day in Louisiana and we still did not find any alligators, we were determined to

find one!
While carefully walking marsh trails we finally spotted an aligator, what

excitment it was for us! The poor little creature (about 4 feet long) was scared

of us more than we were scared of him, and hid immediatelly under the tree. Then

we realized that this environment is not a zoo! and we might stamped on another

bigger one.. Very carefully we traced our steps back to the main road and Kevin

wanted me to walk ahead (my husband is such a gentelman!).
Further on the little lake we spotted more alligators, they were backing on the

sun and not separated from public by the fence! The nearby sing "Aligators are

dangerous" finally took us back to reality and scared we ran back to the car and

closed doors - we decided not to take chanches with nature.
After Avery Island trip we went straight to the laundromat - we had a lot of

laundry to do for past week, spent there $20 on the "state of the art" washing and

drying machines. Then we found wifi in Starbucks and plotted our further trip to

New Orleans, this time was well spent, we are finally learning to plan ahead for

possible stoppes, bridges, locks, etc on the way. Shopped for groceries for the

next week, ate dinner at Mexican restaurant, and went far beyound our budget

again...
On the way home we drove through our "green mile" (as we call our section 8

neighborhood)! It feels good driving vs. walking through there.

13. Day 13 - Thu, Oct.24
Well, it's time to say goodby to civilization - took our rented car back.
We are back to walking with heavy backpacks! Nice workout opportunity (we keep

saying that to ourselves to feel better). In BigK Kevin bought a toilet sit - he

wants to make "patio toilet"on our boat, so we would not need to use our compost

bucket. Will see how that will go...
In the afternoon we received engine part we awaited for since Tuesday. And, we are

back to work on our engine. While fixing first problem, we found another one, then

another one, and finally figured out why our heater is not working. To fix it

would take very long time and we decided that we can go on without a water heater,

at least until the next big stop. Allright, we are back in business and leaving

tomorrow!

14. Day 14 - Fri, Oct.25
Big day today! We finally leaving Lake Charles after 7 days we spent here. We are

already 6 days behind our original schedule, but that's ok, we actually enjoyed

time spent in this little town, walking we learned all the places tourist would go

in the little industrial oasis.
Thanks to our BowTie marina - they were very friendly to us and patient. Hey, it

was our home for 7 nights (the last night we got for free!).
On ICW we passed the first locks and even did not have to wait for our turn. It

was fast.
Drove about 7 hours and dropped an anchore at Mermentaou River. We had some engine

overheatting problem, but Kevin added antifriz and engine survived the last hour

of our trip. At least we know where the problem is and Kevin refitted connections,

so tomorrow we should not lose any antifriz (as we hope!)
This anchorage is nice and very serenic... beautiful...
And we are still trying to spot some aligators... no luck..

15. Day 15 - Sat, Oct. 26
We spent nice quite night at Mermentaou River anchorage, serenity, beautiful

scenery on the water in the morning.
On the way to Shell Morgan Landing passed another locks, uneventfully arrived to

the docks. We tried to contact Shell Morgan Landing by phone (no services) and by

VHF radio (no answer), but the owner saw us approaching and helped us with

docking.
Kudos to Kevin: he finally figured out communications on VHF with passing bargers

and tugs, switching to right channels in time and not afraid to talk with skippers

(ch.11, 13, 14 - all except of ch.16! mean communication with local traffic, locks

and bridges operators). However, Marina still doesn't feel comfortable talking on

VHF and, doesn't understands anything what they are saing - too much slang and

southern accent.

16. Day 16 - Sun, Oct. 27
The night at Shell Morgan Landing was very loud - it's just a stop in the

industrial wharf area with big weird looking boats. But, at least it was safe and

this place had restrooms and showers! Just for $20/night! It's was so nice to take

warm shower after couple days of not washing.
We started very early today just with sunrise (about 7:15 am), we still don't feel

comfortable to travel in the dark, even though we have reliable chart plotter.
The scenery of ICW is the same on the way to Morgan City - marshes and swamps with

trees coverd by spanish moss, and we were still looking for alligators.. did not

spot any on the busy ICW "streets".
We docked at the Morgan City Pleasure Docks - parked behind a row of fisherman

shrimp boats and immediatelly made friends with a drunk skipper of one of those

boats. There are no any amenities at this place, but at least we thought it's

safer than on anchor. The city docks are right in the middle of the old downtown,

which is only about 2 blocks (Kevin related this city with Georgetown). All the

businesses were closed on Sunday, so..no internet connection for us today

either... We found a convinient store in the very bad poor drug area of the city,

the guy at the store mentioned to us not to walk around after dark, so trip back

through this drug area of the city was a bit intence. On the way back to docks we

found Rita May restaurant with very authentic black south Louiana cooking. Even

the restaurant was closed, the old black lady - owner - let us in and gave us

"really quick whatever is left in the kitchen". We had shrimp stew and seafood

gumbo - that was very HOT, but delisious food! We made it back to the boat and

locked all the hatches and the entrance door, turned off the lights and I heard

Keving was loading AK just in case. The night was very loud - to much work was

going on in this industrial city at night, heard couple times the lift bridge

going down for the trains, a lot of horns going off, car traffic.

17. Day 17 - Mon, Oct.28
Started early today. We were ready to leave the docks but the railroad lift bridge

came down again. At about 7:30 we are back on ICW. The destination for today is

Huma - and we really really need to find internet connection there.
Closer to Huma we noticed more industrial traffic, locks, lift/open bridges and

Kevin handled it as a professional talking with people in charge on VHF. Well,

sometimes they don't answer... especially in the time you really need the answer

if the lift bridge will be still open when you will be under it, or should we wait

for another opening? Or, what is the hight of the fixed bridge ahead of us? is

that 70" or 40"? Unfortunately this information is not on our chart plotter and we

are guessing most of the time - first Kevin counts how many length of one car you

can place under the bridge (one car - about 10"), so, if that's 6 then we are ok

to go under the bridge! Harder is when there are only tracks with gasoline are

passing on the bridge, those could be only 2 lengths, yea... the things we have to

figure out from the memory of our kindergarten age.
We made it to Huma Municipal City Docks - they are located right in the middle of

the public park/picknic area, right off the ICW. Since Huma is seems very

industrial town we did not see any downtown. The center of the city is huge

Hospital - which restrooms we used extencivelly (nice to sit on the normal water

flashing toilet!) The Hospital was 4 min walk from our boat. Searching for the

wifi we found cafe Liberty, however, had to leave soon - closed at 3pm. Seems

everything in Huma is closed at 3pm. The grocery shopping did not get well either

- the South Louisiana Groseries store doesn't exist anymore even though it's still

in YP and on the map's info. In the closeby gas station we asked where we can buy

groceries - the answer was "do you want to buy chicken for what? to cook? we have

fried chicken here for sale, do you want salad, what salad?"
Anyways, our long walking trip with backpacks in 100F in sun was not very

productive, but we found "Wash and wear" laundromat right near our boat. So, at

least we washed our clothes and had amazing converstaion with the loisianians -

some of the conversations are stratching your mind way too far and you start

loving your own life very much.
This docking place was just $25/night and pretty safe.

18. Day 18 - Tu, Oct.29
Restroom trip to the Hospital, coffe, breakfast and we are off again.
We counted for a short day today (should be 5 hours),but it took us 9 hours to get

to the mile marker 15 IGWW. Turns out that the place we wanted to anchore is

taking currently by a business, so we had to look for a new place for overnight

ad-hoc - and found "Jo's Landing" docking. It's a bit off the ICW, about 5 mi

going in the side channel (LaFettite), but depth is about 14" and we did not have

problems to dock at Jo's.