Cruising Down the Texas Coast
Cruising Down the Texas Coast
Thursday, June 9, 2011
We arrived in Pt. Aransas on Wednesday after a nice cruise down the Texas coast. This is the view from our cockpit as we sit at the Pt. Aransas Municipal Marina. What a great slip!
We left Kemah on Saturday, June 4 (couldn’t leave on Friday as it is purported to be bad luck to start a cruise on a Friday), motored down the Houston ship channel and spent Saturday night at Bridgeharbor Marina in Freeport. The people were friendly and it was easy to pick up fuel for the trip south, but the mosquitoes were fierce.
For this cruise, we will primarily be transiting the Intercoastal Waterway instead of sailing offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. The Intercoastal Waterway (ICW) is a 3000-mile long inland waterway that runs from Brownsville, Texas to Norfolk, Virginia. Construction was begun in 1919 to offer a less dangerous option for smaller shipping vessels, such as barges, than working offshore. The Gulf ICW, the piece of the ICW with which we are most familiar so far, consists of two non-contiguous lengths -- Brownsville, Texas to Carrabelle, Florida and Tarpon Springs, Florida to Ft. Myers Florida. The Atlantic ICW runs from Key West, Florida to Norfolk, Virginia. Distance in the ICW is measured in statute miles as opposed to nautical miles. These mile markers are noted on the ICW charts in five mile increments and also along the waterway by signs occasionally, also in five mile sections. For the Gulf Coast ICW, the Harvey Locks in New Orleans is mile zero and the mileage is measured from New Orleans to Brownsville, Texas. So for this trip, the Bolivar Roads intersection in Galveston is mm 345 and Bridgeharbor Marina is mm 394, so it was a 39 mile run that first day from Galveston to Freeport. (When we leave to go cruising in October, we will count down the miles from Galveston to New Orleans, then start counting up again as we head east from New Orleans towards Carrabelle, Florida.) When we are in the ICW, we can sometimes put up some sail, but mostly we are operating as a motor boat.
Early Sunday morning we left Freeport for Matagorda Harbor marina (mm 440). Before we reached Matagorda Harbor, we had to go through locks at the Brazos River. These locks are here primarily to keep debris out of the ICW during spring and fall floods of the Brazos River and since there has been so little rain this year in Texas, the locks were wide open. We had to coordinate our transit with the lock master and the tow boat that was waiting on the other side of the river to pass.
You often hear of the ICW being called the “ditch”. This is because during much of the ICW you have land on both sides of you. Some people think that “doing the ditch” is boring, but there is always something to see. We saw some very happy dogs playing in the water beside their home. You also see lots of barges in this section of the ICW due to the petroleum and chemical industries on the Texas Gulf coast. Most of these barges are run in a very professional manner and sometimes like to chat with a passing sailboat.
We spent one night at Matagorda Harbor Marina. This marina is fairly new and they are in the process of adding more transient docks (you can see the almost finished new pier behind La Vita in the picture below). There is not much to do in Matagorda Harbor and the mosquitoes were VERY hungry, but there is too much barge traffic to run the ICW after dark and Matagorda Harbor is in a good place to stop. As with many marinas on the Texas Gulf coast, there is also an adjacent RV park for snowbirds.
We had a short run the next day, from mm 440 to Pt. O’Connor at mm 474. Pt. O’Connor is primarily about small fishing boats, but we found a place to tie up at Clark’s for two nights. It gave us time to do some dinghy riding and walk to Josey’s Mexican restaurant for some really good cheese enchiladas. Unfortunately the tie up was right off the ICW so we had lots of boat wake, especially at 6 am and 3 pm when the big sport fishing boats went offshore for the day. The tie up at Clark’s shared an inlet with a canal home community that appears to be a victim of the housing market and recession. But it was a good place to walk Maya even if there were no homes being built. Out the starboard side, we had shrimp boats tied up next to us and out the port side was Caracol. But Maya loved it here as the dolphin would come into the canal in the late afternoon and swim right by the boat. It looked like they were herding fish onto the concrete canal wall and trapping them for dinner.
We had a lot of fun riding in the dinghy
while we were in Pt. O’Connor and Maya
got to bark at a 3-legged dog who worked
at the bait shop where the shrimpers
unloaded their catch in the afternoon.
After we were suitably rested (this retirement is hard work!), we moved on to Pt. Aransas (mm 535), which is where we are now. We had a slip reserved at the Pt. Aransas Municipal Marina, but when we arrived the wind was 15-20 knots (17-23 mph)j, which is kind of breezy for tying up in our slip due to the direction of the wind. So we docked on a long pier that faced a different direction until morning when the wind died down, and then moved to our slip.
We are on the new transient dock in slip 107 and it is a great slip! We have a bird’s-eye view of the small jetties at Pt. Aransas and a constant show of tour boats, fishing boats, large ships on their way to Corpus Christi, Texas Parks & Wildlife boats checking fish catches, Coast Guard boats checking life jackets, parasailing boats, see-doo’s, kayaks, sailboats, odd people -- well, you get the idea. The dolphin come into the harbor to play so Maya is happy to sit on deck and watch for them and the Back Yard Bar is directly across from us so last night we could sit in our cockpit and hear the band play. I guess life could get better, but I’m not sure how.
Oh that’s right, I know how it can be better. Five boat loads of friends from Pier 15 will be arriving in Pt. Aransas over the next couple of days -- SuseaQ, Marosa, Seabbatical, Solace and Mele-Kai -- for the sometimes annual Pier 15 cruise south. Laissez les bon temps rouler.