0700 Said good by to Gordon and Bob. They were
leaving to go fishing. Ask again if I wanted
to go along.
0800 Got underway after topping off ice. Wind
blowing like crazy again. Today went slow
speed most of the day. Had to cross three large bays. The wind was just in the wrong direction. The first bay was San Antonio Bay. That was rough but not as bad as Matagorda. The next was Aransas Bay. It was worse yet. But the wind seemed to be calming. I chugged along and all was well. Then about 5 miles East of the Corpus Christi Ship Channel I let myself get into a bit of trouble. I got too close to the red side and ran aground in the mud. Most every other place I’ve boated you have some indication of water depth by the color of the water. Not here. At least for me. Sometimes there is some change but most of the time not. This was definitely not the side to go wrong on. The wind was blowing about 20kts off my port. This kept blowing me harder aground. I got out of the boat and tried pushing the bow around. This put the stern and motor in about 10 inches of water. Too make it worse I couldn’t really figure out the best direction to go to get in deeper water. Looking at the markers I should have been fine where I was.
As I was formulating a plan a local fisherman saw me and came to the rescue. The first thing he said was that he had been boating in the area for 30 years and does the same thing at least once a year. In bad weather a tug boat will hit a buoy and push it off station and into shallow water. We took my anchor line and tied to his cleat With no effort he pulled me off.
Next was crossing the ship channel and Corpus Christi Bay. The channel 1was no problem. The bay 1w1as something else. This is the roughest water that C-Lover has been into date. The farther I went the worse it got. Where is the 10 to 15 winds that NOAA was talking about. The seas were very, very close together. So close that the crest of one would be at bow and the crest of another would be at the stern. In between was a 4 foot hole. I could make about 7 mph without pounding. About once a minute a set of really big one would come. If I saw them soon enough I could come off the power to make no headway. Then I would just bobber over them like a cork. If I was making any headway the bow would drop into the trough behind the first wave and the next two would come over the bow. Almost two hours of this and I made it across to protected water just East of the JFK Causeway Bridge. At this point I heard two tug boat captains talking. One said that his meter was showing the wind at 30kts. Was I ever glad to get out of that. The best part was that my little C-Dory took it all in stride. She is a very capable boat and is well up to the task. She can take way more than I am up to.
I pulled into a small canal on the East side of the bridge and found a some abandoned shrimper docks. I tied up there to get out and check things out. I walked under the bridge to the “Marker 37 marina” where I will get gas tomorrow.
This also took me by Snoopy’s Restaurant. After getting beat up on the water today C-Lover is a disaster zone. Everything is on the floor. I have a milk create that sits on the floor under the table. It has made a nice place to keep the plastic pitcher that I’ve used for my Cheerios. That tumbled over lid came off and cereal is covering the floor. I also put what was left of the broken glass candle in there. That came out and sent more glass to the floor. The first aid box and suitcase I had in the V-berth also dumped onto the cabin floor. To add insult to injury when I was working on getting the boat off the mud bar, I went through the forward hatch. I didn’t come back that way and forgot to dog it down. The water coming over the bow dumped some into the V-berth. Just another fun day on the water.
Decided to treat myself to dinner at Snoopy’s. Am I glad I did. This is a 5 star place for me. A lot of value for the buck. Very nice clean place right on the ICW. 553 WHL. They have a dock where you can tie up while you eat. The tables sit right over the water. I was greeted as you come in by Larry. He is a friendly chap that takes your order. I ask if they had a specialty. He said “well, we’re known for our fish and chips. ($9.95). Sounds like a winner to me. He pointed me to the stand that has the cola’s and ice tea and told me to pick a seat. He’d call my name on the PA when my order was up. In about 15 min he called my name. This was a picture perfect plate of fish fried golden brown. It looked like a picture. Of course I did not have my camera. The taste was even better. I normally wouldn’t give a dime for someone else’s fired fish but this was first class and very tasty. I must have also been a bit dehydrated because I drank 5 full glasses of iced tea.
2200 returned to the boat an called it a night.
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