We visited places which probably never would make it to the TripAdviser and other travel recommendations... But hey, this is our country and I am so glad I had an opportunity to explore more than I imagined. On Oct.10 we finally left Clear Lake Marina, near Kemah, where we stayed from July 2d 2013 up to October. It was hot, humid, no AC on the board, cockroaches, rats and dirty. Most of the people who stayed here, never take their boats further than sailing in Clear Lake and our talk about sailing to exotic places was laughed at loud. But one day, Saturday, we finally decided to get rid of both our cars at the Car Max, then got a free ride from their sails person back to the marina. Since living in Texas without a car is not possible, the next morning we sailed to Galveston and then our first big trip started. While living Galveston early morning to Lake Victoria I got sick, so don't remember much, but here are some notes I found from my diary - just 20 days of driving on ICW, but you can get a picture...
Day 9 - Sun, Oct.20 - Lake Charles, Texas
We parked at only marina (not sure about the name), at the fuel dock since there are not designated docks for sailboats in this area. We docked next to the Coast Guards, which was very convenient for us. Marina was clean, an owner was nice. The only inconvenience was the Section 8 housing right next to the marina and to walk to the buses and the main roads we would need to walk a "green mile" as we called it. The marina owners said it's not so dangerous as used to be, there are no murders and assaults with guns around here are not very common anymore. That was a bit relieve for us... During one night Marina heard a woman's screams in Section 8, was not sure if needed to call for help our neighboring Coast Guards (Lake Charles Coast Guard station is the next dock to our boat), or to load our gun. Screams stopped but Marina could not sleep all night. Night was very cold - 46F, uhh, Kevin finally asked for a blanket!! Next morning we found "lost" women's panties on our "green mile" walk. No questions asked... 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 exercise and can see more around than just driving.
Day 10 - Mon, Oct.21, Lake Charles, TX
This is a big day for us - we might get alternator fixed today. We walked caring in our backpacks both original and replacement alternator to Auto Electric and Magnito Shop and it was a miracle that an owner happened to have our missing part! We got lucky. He also checked our original alternator and verified that yes, it was broken. We rushed 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 diesel 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. Unfortunately, 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!
Day 11 - Tu, Oct.22,Lake Charles, TX
Another idle day spent in Lake Charles...Kevin might get a little job today working on network setup at apartment 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 beautiful houses on both sides of the river, but the water is very dirty with litter - we even saw a dead squirrel, 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 Thursday.
Day 12 - Wed, Oct.23, Lake Charles, TX
We rented a car today, yea, it's kind of cheating, but we really wanted to visit Tabasco 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 Tabasco 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 Tabasco sauce currently produced. We even tried tabasco ice cream at the Country Store - interesting taste... Then we drove/walked through Jungle Gardens created by the founder and owner of the Tabasco 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 alligator, what excitement 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 immediately 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 gentleman!). 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 "Alligators are dangerous" finally took us back to reality and scared we ran back to the car and closed doors - we decided not to take chances 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 stops, bridges, locks, etc. on the way. Shopped for groceries for the next week, ate dinner at Mexican restaurant, and went far beyond 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.
Day 13 - Thu, Oct.24, Lake Charles, TX
Well, it's time to say "goodbye" 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. Alright, we are back in business and leaving tomorrow!
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 anchor at Mermentaou River. We had some engine overheating problem, but Kevin added anti-freeze 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 anti-freeze (as we hope!) This anchorage is nice and very beautiful... And we are still trying to spot some alligators... no luck..
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 saying - too much slang and southern accent.
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.
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 stretching your mind way too far and you start loving your own life very much. This docking place was just $25/night and pretty safe.
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.
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