Bay Trip, June 22, 2018

We took our first "big" trip last weekend, cruising to Bay St. Louis on Friday morning and returning on Sunday morning.  It was literally the most fun ever, and I am proud to say my girl handles 1.5 ft seas with ease.  A little spray over the bow just made it that much more fun.  I got to see places I've never been before and got to practice some of my "rules of the waves".  Channels are important.  What's even better is that the updated GPS card worked perfectly and matched up to the paper charts so I know I can trust it.  And it's depths.  Because drafts happen.  We watched a tug turn up mud.

Before we left, I went to the store for provisions (sandwich meat, bread, cheese, rum and juice.  The necessities.)  This charm was on the door of the store:

Dragons are lucky.

Our friends Kris and Chuck joined us for both the trip out and back again.  Thank God for them, because, despite an incident I'll tell you about later, without them I think we would STILL be trying to back the boat into the slip and we would also no longer be on speaking terms.

Truth.

I loved seeing open water and nothing else.  I loved the tugs we passed, and the occasional oyster boat.  I love that the charts indicate "shipwreck" for any under-water-obstacles.  Here are some going-over pictures.

Nothing but water.

Spray

After we got to town, we spent that afternoon drinking and hanging out in the pool, then napped, had dinner, and basically crashed early.  A perfect day.

The next day, Saturday, we woke up early and went to town to get some coffee and breakfast.  Then we wandered around a little bit, just the two of us, exploring an area we don't go to often.  We found the community garden and also a piano on the street, and then a rummage sale at the local church.  After which it seemed like the right time for morning drinks, so we headed back to the marina to change clothes and mix it up.  We went back to the pool for a while and then came back to the boat for a sandwich and some relaxing.  That afternoon, our friends started to trickle down to the marina, and we ended up having an outstanding evening with a bunch of favorite people.  Some of them are pictured below.  This is the dream, y'all.  This is why we got the boat...  so we could dock up where our friends are when we want to get away for a weekend.  So we can have rum and juice cocktails and listen to Jimmy Buffett and laugh so damn much.  So we can relax and smell salt in the air and see a dolphin spinning its tail right on our bow.  

Amber and Kevin

Kris and Cathy

Montie and Captain Rick

Chuck and the guys with the boats next to us.

On Sunday, we kicked off dock at 9:18 and headed home.  Made it home with no incidents at 11:45ish.  Seas were even calmer than on our way out, and it was so clear, I could see both the Rigolets Bridge and the Bay St. Louis Bridge at the same time.  It's easy to forget how close everything actually is, when you are only maintaining 20mph.  Which, by the way, is comfortable and yet you get there.  We have some friends who did pretty much the same trip in reverse on Sunday, at 4-5 mph (or maybe knots) and it took them 18 hours.  Cheers to them.

I can't wait to make this trip again.  This time I want to spend more time.  Stay a little longer. Because I could spend all my days the way I spent last weekend.

On the flip side, upon arriving home, we discovered that our stbd engine had sprung a leak in the freshwater pump (crap) and our generator's pump was frozen (crap) and also, as we had noticed before, the power supply on our home slip isn't sufficient and we therefore crap out our front a/c pretty often.  So we are spending some money getting new pumps and we are calling our slip owner to get him to get an electrician out.  But...

Captain Sarah in a Muses Do-Rag

It's still so much worth it.