Tag: Houston Ship Channel

Keeping Her in the Ditch: Part Two

Leigh, Travel

The following is part two of our cruise from Rockport to Kemah, Texas via the ICW. If you missed part one you can catch up on that here.

Morning came with butterflies of excitement. We made some last-minute checks and cut our lines loose. The sunrise was beautiful and we pulled away from Rockport excited about the day ahead.

Just a few hours into the morning, we had company. A group of dolphins decided to go surfing in our wake, and I could not stop smiling at the sight.

We had other company as well. Huge barges passed us every so often, sometimes filled with products and sometimes looking lighter on a return run. We heard some of them on the radio and spoke to some, but it soon became clear they weren’t used to speaking to pleasure boats and we trailed off communication. They weren’t rude; it just seemed like they didn’t know why were were calling out to them.

Just an hour or two into the journey, we could tell something wasn’t right. Edgar was at the wheel and not getting the response out of the engine like we had been, and there was a smell in the air…

We rushed to get out of traffic, dropped anchor and flung open the floor panels to expose the engine room. As we did, a big white cloud filled the cabin. We’d blown a radiator hose. We gave it a couple minutes to cool down and then added several bottles of water. Edgar worked his magic and we got ready to get back on track. It was a delay in an already tight schedule, and we had a lot more (watery) ground to cover.

It was smooth sailing for a while, and then we hit San Antonio Bay. The wind was whipping so hard, it made it difficult to keep the bow pointed in the right direction, and we had to stand with our feet at least shoulders’ width distance apart to keep our balance. We knew we were slipping behind schedule, but we had no choice but to ease off the throttle as we bounced our way across the chop.

Just on the other side of San Antonio bay, the wind died down and we passed several peaceful neighborhoods, like this one in Calhoun. Happy to have the rough seas temporarily behind us, I celebrated my newfound skill of boat-steering with a break… and a pb&j.

Later that afternoon, it was time to go through our first locks. We’d looked ahead on the schedule and saw that they were running, so when we got close we started listening to the traffic and getting a better idea of how it went down. We called ahead to the lock master and let him know we were coming, and he gave us the instructions to wait a few minutes until he could get another vessel through. When it was our turn he asked us to come through and then go to the right to wait another minute before going to the other side. We did, and found ourselves in the shallows. The Bow Out drafts four feet, so we needed five feet of water to cruise through. We made that right turn and ended up in four feet or less… and stuck. Edgar wasn’t too worried, since he knew he could twist his way off, and that the ship coming by would also give us a wake and help us move, but it didn’t erase our concern about what we were doing to our fresh paint job below.

When it was our turn to move we told the lock master it would take a second. “Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you it’s shallow over there.” Yeah, we see that. We wiggled off without too much trouble and continued on our way.

About 7pm we found ourselves in Matagorda, which was not quite the halfway point, but we knew there was a marina with facilities, and they turned out to be very nice. The guy running the place even let us borrow a power adapter so we could plug in for the night, and get a charge on our iPad, which we were using for the navigation app. It felt good to have a shower and a meal on land, and a little funny to be walking around on solid earth.

We settled in for the night, knowing we’d have a long day in store. Our hope was to make Kemah by dusk, and we’d need to be up and moving early to do it.

On day three we watch our fuel tank drop to an uncomfortable level, and make a risky run through one of the busiest ship channels in the country.

Keeping Her in the Ditch

Leigh, Travel

So there we were, in the middle of the Houston ship channel, coming on dark and with only running lights on our vessel. Huge barges, ships and tugs surged by on our starboard side, and all I could think about was… Do they see us?

Fresh off our adventure down to Sayulita, we had another one in the works. Edgar has always wanted to live on a boat, and he’d been walking by this particular one for months. It was docked at a marina not far from where he was living, so he often passed it and commented, “That’s a really nice boat.” The idea took hold and even though there was no for sale sign on the Bow Out, he decided to do some investigating. The harbor master at the marina said he knew the owner, and that the man did want to sell it. Edgar got his information, arranged a meeting, took a tour, and a fair price was found. The Bow Out sold, as she was and where she was, and a new adventure began to take shape.

Edgar’s job was moving to another city, and the idea was that the boat would move with it. We’d spend some time fixing her up in Rockport, Texas, and then spend a long weekend cruising to Kemah, just outside of Houston.

For several weekends we cleaned and took stock…spent time in the engine room and cleaned some more. The prior owner had lived on the boat for eight years, and left a lot of stuff behind, so it seemed every time we opened a cabinet or drawer, we were met with a new stash of boat parts. I was holding up a lot of mysterious items and saying, “Does this look important?” or “Do we need an extra one of these?”

Our first attempt to move her ran into snag when we put her in reverse. There was a strange noise and then…nothing. She wouldn’t go. We eased her back into the slip and Edgar dove down for a better look.

It was the propeller key, which had slipped out and allowed the wheel to turn freely on the shaft. One of our new neighbors at the marina was a retired machinist and was able to give us a piece of stock, which had to be shaped, and then Edgar made another dive to put the propeller back on, and the key in its slot.

When a local shipyard could take her, we motored two hours to get her pulled out of the water and get a good look at the bottom. The barnacles needed to be scraped off, the blisters repaired, the propeller addressed, through holes replaced, new zincs installed, and a fresh coat of paint applied. We stood back with our hands on our hips and declared her ready. It was time to head into the Intercostal Waterway… known locally as, “The Ditch”.

The ICW runs for 3,000 miles and includes wide open sections in broad bays and other areas where you need to mind your depth finder or you will find yourself run aground. We got maps and downloaded a chart-plotting app to help us find our way. We estimated we’d average about 8 knots per hour, and that it would take the entire weekend to get there, especially since we didn’t have spotlights on the boat, and weren’t planning to travel at night. We spotted some marinas along the way, and planned to stay in Matagorda the first night. There were a lot of unknowns. This was our maiden voyage on the Bow Out, other than the short trip to move it from the marina where we bought it, to the shipyard. We’d done a bunch of checking in the engine room, but weren’t sure if other problems would emerge on a longer journey. We filled up on fuel and snacks and picked up Kate at the airport… she flew in especially to be a part of the adventure. We got a good night’s rest so we could leave at first light.

On the first big day of our adventure, we were greeted by some surprise visitors, and faced our first locks of the journey. Check back in tomorrow for the next installment.