We Start Our Journey

We spent the last weekend before our departure visiting with our children and grandchildren and saying last minute farewells. It was good to see everyone one last time. We also celebrated Capt Larry's birthday with the little ones.

Capt Lar's Special Girls Give Him a Salute!

Fortunately, they didn't put ALL the candles on the ca

 So we are off and underway. We left our home port and made our way over to Madisonville, LA where we tied up on the wall for the night. We sure wish we had enough time for a shake down cruise as we had issues with the configuration of the radios, GPS, and autopilot while underway.

We did make it to Madisonville where Larry's 60th birthday and the start of our trip brought 12 friends and relatives to our boat for a happy hour that lasted longer than an hour and culminated in dinner at a local restaurant. Everyone seemed to have a good time and our phones rang all night long wishing us congratulations.

Showing the Burgee

Great to Have the Neighbors Drop By

The next day we left Madisonville and entered previously untraveled waters on Lake Ponchartrain and the Rigolets leading to the gulf. This was a new experience for us but everything seemed to be going 

Anchored in the West Pearl

Cruisin' Across Lake Ponchartrain

well. Underway we were able to sort out some of the issues with the boat. Instead of going into a marina at Slidell, we continued to a recommended anchorage in the west Pearl River off of the Rigolets. The weather was great and using the anchorage meant that the next day's run to Biloxi would be about two hours shorter and more leisurely. But we had problems going into the anchorage. We entered at low spring tides and the water depths were significantly less than what was charted. We wanted to anchor in 8-10 feet of water just past a 30 foot charted hole which only registered 22 feet on the sounder. It didn't take much headway beyond the hole before we almost ran aground. Capt Larry backed us out of there and we found some depth and put the hook down out for the night. We grilled some steaks and settled down for the evening. It turned out to be an excellent and peaceful anchorage.

Cooking Supper