Our First Big Boat Trip

We had not had Bavarian Cream out for a while and decided with the beautiful weather that we had been having recently, it would be a good time to take her for a spin. Originally we thought about heading out for two days, but decided instead to spend one night on the boat in the boat slip and head out the next day for an overnight on the Madisonville wall. The overnight in the slip was uneventful and we enjoyed dinner on the boat, watched some TV, then had a restful night's sleep with cool temperatures and low humidity.

The next morning we got the boat ready to head out and our things on board (everything except the camera which is why this segment doesn't have any pictures). We left right after lunch for a leisurely 3-3 1/2 hour cruise to Madisonville. Since Jane needed to sharpen her piloting skills, she skippered the boat. We worked on positioning the boat in relation to the respective navaids, setting a waypoint on the GPS, and following a bearing to a waypoint. We encountered our first RR bridge in Pass Manchac which delayed us for almost 25 minutes. All was going pretty well until we got through Pass Manchac and set a bearing for the beacon marking the channel to the Tchenfuncte River. We inherited the charplotter with the boat and several waypoints on Lake Ponchartrain were already entered. One of the waypoints listed was TCHEFUNT which Larry assumed led to the Tchenfuncte River. Jane punched the waypoint up and we started heading across the lake to our destination. After about 20 minutes (it's a 9 mile leg to the river), Larry started to feel that we weren't approaching land and were in fact running parallel to it. We stopped the boat to collect our thoughts. We were on an 81 degree course, almost due east, and the course to the river was pretty much NE (around 45 degrees). When we got out the binoculars and looked ahead, we saw the causeway. Looking to the north we spotted the Tchenfuncte lighthouse and then realized that the stored waypoint was for the causeway. We turned north and headed for the lighthouse and found our beacon after a 15 minute ride. We followed the channel and headed up the river arriving at the wall and tying up with about 20 minutes of daylight remaining.

After walking Tarzan in the park along the waterfront, we headed over to Morton's seafood restaurant and had a delicious meal of crabmeat and mozzarella topped broiled tomatoes, house salad, fried catfish with shrimp stuffed baked potatoes, and topped off with bread pudding with rum sauce. We walked Tarzan again, then headed across the bridge to a bar for a nightcap. Our company at the bar was the bartender's extremely large cat which didn't move even after our drinks were served causing us to drink around the animal. We headed back to the boat and had a great night's sleep even though the noise of the cars crossing the Madisonville bridge could be heard.

The next morning Larry took Tarzan out then got coffee at a nearby gas station. Around 0900 we prepared to head back to Killian. Lake Ponchartrain was a lot choppier heading back as the winds shifted from the north to the east. We engaged in a lively discussion of the points of the compass and related degrees of bearing which Jane had to steer from either the compass or the chartplotter. After two or three go arounds we let it rest with the understanding that the compass is "kinda like a clock." We encountered the RR bridge again at Pass Manchac and Jane finally got us home around noon with the realization that her piloting skills are still pretty "blunt."