WHITECAP's

SAILING

EXCURSION

New Orleans, Louisiana to Port Isabel, Texas 

1. Feb 18, 2000 - WHITECAP spent last night in Morgan, Louisiana and is now heading for Houston, Texas.
2. Feb 22, 2000 - Here we are at Lake Charles, La.  We are at the Bowtie Marina, kind of a neat place; the owner, Doug, stores all the owners boats (some a little differently) in 2 buildings, 55 boats in each one. When you want your boat, you just call the office, they launch, fuel, put the beer or whatever on ice on board; the owner arrives, jumps on and goes...   When the boat comes back, the owner gets in his car and leaves, the staff clean the boat, refuel, and put her back in storage!  All this for a monthly fee, you can do this every day if you wish!!!  Since New Orleans, we did  the Harvey Canal, stayed at the Fleming Canal General store for one night, then Houma, where we met our cousin Sharon Aucoin, then Morgan City which was a step back into the 1930's; then Avery Island, the home of Tabasco, where we also met Karen and
   Bill Reardon who were in Summerside on their trawler yacht last summer and Karen is a niece of Wanda (Chappell) Bernard. Then Myers Landing at Lake Arthur, and now we are at Bowtie Marina at Bayou Contraband just off Lake Charles.  Yesterday Monday, Feb 21,  Bob Pinkham and Marlene Cooke called on the cell, asking where we were; turns out they were only 30 miles away down the Calcascieu (Cal-cass-shoe) River, so we have been doing our thing. Last night, we pigged out on 4 lbs shrimp and cajun rice;  tonight, we are going out with a couple, Martin and Susan, who live on their boat here to a local steak house.  We have a machinist "Cue" turning a new water pump pulley, the old original was all chewed; "Cue" wondered how we got the last 100 miles??? we just kept tightening the set screw.  Cue came back this AM and had to take the part back to the shop for more work, so we will be here for at least another day.
3. Feb 28, 2000 - WHITECAP has made her way to  Freeport Texas, just South and West of Galveston where the ABBY is located, still with some island crew onboard. Bob and Marlene have departed in the Motor home and may rejoin us in Corpus Christie. All is going well...will update the log as soon as a land link can be established.
4. Mar 2, 2000 - We are leaving Palacios, this AM heading for Aransas Pass near Corpus Christi. about 40 miles from here.  I am trying to find someone to put a new shaft in the spare Velvet Drive so I will have a spare. This facility, Serendipity Resort marina and RV park  has all the amenities, and a plug in with small desk for e-mails... so I did not mind staying the extra day. Yesterday the winds were 30 35 and the bay is only 10 deep, so we just stayed put.
5. Mar 7, 2000 - Cows, the only live thing we have seen along this section of the waterway... Gene Osborn, helped us set stern anchor, and gave us 3.5 lb trout for supper, still wiggling!!! Keith, from Minnesota, comes down to Palacios, for 2 weeks every month, knows our "Pirate" from Dauphin Island. A working Shrimper in Palacios Channel, we get out of the way. Big ones - $4.00 lb cleaned and beheaded.  Laughing gull (actually their name) at the next table in Port Aransas.  Towboat US, "Chris" a diver, came and unwound the rope from the propeller at mile 492, just before San Antonio Bay. The spare trans is out for rebuild, so we are stuck in the Corpus Christi, Aransas area until it is ready, he said Thurs or Friday,  A TV crew is coming tomorrow the 8th, to do an interview and story, will try to get a copy.  We are kind of a novelty around here, they sure look at the Canadian Flag... Port Aransas is a real neat place, $15 per night, nice facilities, but we are at the last dock near the breakwater.  Today we found a free bus, which comes around every 45 min, and you just raise your hand... and he goes all over town, and ....he passes right by the boat..  Many people walk by and say hi and stop to talk.  The Beneteau just 2 doors away just came in on a delivery, the skipper is from Montreal. There are 7 ferries (free) crossing to the mainland, 1/4 mile away, across the Corpus Christi Channel.  We think we found the alternator problem, it is slipping!!! Yesterday she put out 13.25 for 3 hours strait, that is a first. Also, since it  is out of a car, it  should spin at 5500 and not 1900 like we are doing!!! 
6. Mar 9, 2000 - WHITECAP is now in Engleside on the Bay, at the Bahai Marina, here they call it the Bahai Triangle, once you come you do not leave!!!  They keep the key to the office /  store on a ledge outside, and everyone who wants a beer, just goes in and marks it down on their tab!!!  We just came here after 3 nights in Port Aransas, because we were waiting for our spare transmission to be rebuilt, just in case.  The shop delivered it here tonight, Thursday, from Aransas Pass.  Tomorrow we will continue on our way to Port Isobel and Brownsville..  Corpus Christi is just across the bay from here, we drove up there by auto yesterday and toured around.  Port "A" is interesting, there is a public free trolley, which comes around every 45 minutes, and we could get on and off as it went by, anywhere in town.  Only problem, it shut down at 5:30 PM, so we had to walk home  if we went out to dinner.  A local TV crew came down to interview us, they were doing a story on tourists and how they get here, we took them for a spin, and we got 4 minutes on the 5PM news show Wednesday evening.  All the people walking by on their exercise walks, today, came by to say hello to "the boat from Canada". We found another Morgan 34 here, and the owner came aboard Whitecap in awe, he immediately called the local "Guru"` of Morgan 34's and Charlie Orr was here in 30 minutes.  He could not believe the work we had done, and the shape Whitecap was in!!! I would have liked to talk to him longer but he had to go to work, and we will be gone in the morning.  He has kept in touch with Charlie Morgan, and says he will give him our www address. 
7. Mar 12, 2000 - WHITECAP IS  in Corpus Christi, we had to come over here to get our Mexican paperwork completed,  here we can walk to the consulate; in Brownsville, we would have to rent a car. Here are the following JPG's 

   1 crew at work at Bahai Marina
   2 Discoverer Spirit at Port Ingleside and 2 large cranes
   3 Lydia Ann Lighthouse Port "A" , constructed in 1853
   4 Mary being interviewed by the Ch 3 news Crew in Port Aransas
   
   We are not progressing along very fast!!! By now I figured we would be in Cancun at least, but only 103 more miles to Port Isabel, and the Mex. border.  We have been told to wait there for a few more boats and go in a group along the Mex. coast.  We know of 2 more boats which were behind us going the same way, but they may have passed by. We got the original Velvet Drive rebuilt in Aransas Pass $636US so we now have a spare, but we had to mess around here for 5 days, and we are still waiting for the GPS to be sent to us. (bought a new one in Galveston), hopefully in Port Isabel. A real good "norther" came through here Friday night, winds were 50+kts. we had to triple the stern lines and double the stern spring during the night.  every wave slapped the stern overhang creating a bloody racket all night so we could not sleep.  It would have been much  better if we had backed into the dock...  There is a lot to see and do here. We met 2 Morgan 34 owners at Bahai Marina, they were impressed!!

8. Mar 20, 2000 - Here are some more pictures from the Corpus area
   1. a fish camp on the GIWW, note green buoy for edge of channel. These camps are all along this section.
   2. Monument to Selena a young Mexican American singer, murdered by her maid.  This has become a gathering place, there are always 25 or more people here.
   We are still in Port Isabel, waiting for 2 boats somewhere behind us. The weather is OK but the winds are the pits, has been blowing 30+ every day, but I am getting things done.  Moving is really slower than I expected, can only travel in daylight, and there is just no water out of the channel;  I should already be in Isla Mujeres by now!!!
   

9. Mar 22, 2000 - 12 of us in 2 king cabs went over to Neuvo Progresso, Mexico yesterday, on the border west of Brownsville, about 60 miles each way, they have a big Winter Texan Appreciation day on Mar 21 every year, close off the streets and all that stuff.  Every second storefront is a pharmacy??  or Dentist??? so we took some pictures.  The people are very poor and some of the "houses" are not much bigger than a smelt shack!!! with dirt floors.... but they like to have fun.  There was free Margarita and $1 local cervasa (beer). Also a picture of the stern of one of the local boats, they only draw 6", because they only have 3 - 4 ft in all of Laguna Madre.  We are still waiting on the 2 boats behind us, and also thinking about an alternate route,  maybe perhaps trucking her to Baja California, Sea of Cortez,  and launching there, and then doing the Pacific coast to Panama,  Only a thought, but the winds here are 30+  and a 2-3kt current on the nose all the way to Veracruz, with only a few primitive stops in between. We will have to get a better window than we have right now to be comfortable on the open roadstead anchorage's.  The other alternative is non stop 675 miles to Isla Mujeres.  There is only one small island (a mountain top) where you can stop all the way across...

10. Mar 30, 2000 - Here are more pictures  up to today,  We had the count wrong for the spring breakers there were 200,000 of them during Texas week alone!!!
           1  Mary and Shirley having  morning coffee
           2  Barb  made mosquito screens for the hatches
           3  Capt. Mark proud captain of the Mishegas with the days' catch
           4  The guys return from their day of deep sea fishing.
    The weather here is hot, yesterday the temperature was 85F all day, impossible to sit in the cockpit, even with the new bimini, so from noon on we sat and read in the breezeway under the guest house sipping 0.5's. Today it is cloudy, and around 80F so I can get some work done.  I have to go up top to put the wind speed back on and rewire the deck / steaming light, and I have to find a new fitting for the dink fuel tank somewhere.  The local canvas shop is making us a zippered sunbrella  "sock" to cover the furled jib, this way no matter which jib is up, we can cover it as opposed to having a strip sewn on each sail. The Irwin we have been waiting for is back in the water with a new rudder, but they are 400 miles back. we have to wait for the VHF license and a new gypsy for the windlass  to suit our 5/16 BBB chain. Gerry and Bunny Arsenault left for home on Wednesday this week, short stay.. 

11. Apr 6, 2000 - We have decided to leave Whitecap in Port Isabel until mid  September, and go home for the summer.  Mary has arranged tickets for the 26th of Apr, and this is about the only place where we can safely leave the boat for that amount of time.  The weather has been typical winter here, sunny and hot, but winds are south on the nose up to 40 knots and at night to 50. The fall promises better treatment.... 
    We are arranging  dock space, or better yet a crane to lift her into Blind John's fenced in compound from the canal, I am working on it. In Sept. we will come back,  redo the waterline and paint the bottom. We already have an inch of stuff where there is no bottom paint, by fall it will probably be 24". Ug Ug ...  The longer days in Sept. and better weather will make it easier to do this Mexican shore. Yesterday we talked to 2 yachters who do it all the time, they say it is great,  Others say go back to Florida....  We will never see it unless we do it...  Today Monday,  US customs came and extended our US Cruising permit until Oct. 25, and the Port Captain said when we are ready for Mexico he will issue us a special clearance papers, which will mean easier entry in Mexican ports. 

12. Apr 13, 2000 - Well we are on the road again,  we packed up everything that was "take-able", including  dinghy, 4.2 and the steering wheel, put it all in a 5" x 10' x 10' storage shed across the basin ($35US/mo), moved Whitecap to a dock where we could tie up between 2 rows of piles, installed a temporary bilge pump switch in the cockpit, closed her up, hosed her down and by 1400 on Tuesday the 11th, we said goodbye bye to everyone left at Anchor Marina, and headed out for Big Bend Park.  By 8 PM  we were in Loredo, Tx. and roamed the streets (Streets of Loredo) looking for a place to stay, finally found an ex- Howard Johnson's overlooking the Rio Grande which is the Mexican border. They were hosting a convention of "Texas Homeless People" but they honored the $45US coupon we had. 
    On Wednesday night we were in Alpine, Tx. on highway 83 just above the park.  There are Border Patrol vehicles, all Explorers, everywhere. at one place we saw 1 parked in the ditch along the road, and off in the desert, we could see 2 officers leading about 10 Mexicans back to the hwy, and they were already about 80 miles into the US.  At another place, they had a train stopped and were flushing illegals out from underneath with dogs.... they filled a large school bus.  They just process them, and take them back across the border, only to try somewhere else!!!
    Thursday morning we headed out early, headed for Marfa, Tx. and turned down to Presidio on the Mexican border, where we were about 60 miles  west of the Big Bend Park.  The towns in this section of the country are real western, this is it, just like the dusters on TV...   The road along the Rio Grande from Presidio was narrow, hilly and full of twists and dips.  The speed limit was 45mph, the scenery was beautiful if you are into river, desert, rocks and mountains. Around here you do not have a choice!!!  The Rio Grande itself, was fairly well dried up, and you could walk across almost everywhere, the river rafting people were shut down for the season, but they were renting canoes. We drove all the park roads, had a roadside lunch soaking in the view, and  before dark we got all the way north to Fort Stockton.   Tomorrow Friday, after we tour the old fort, we will connect to the I-10 for San Antonio 280 miles east, so we should get to the  Canyon Lake condo by  mid afternoon. 

13. Apr 15, 2000 - Update: arrived safely at 4 PM  Friday.

14. June 9, 2000 - WHITECAP is sitting in Texas by herself as Dick and Mary have returned to Summerside for the summer.  Thanks to all those that have followed our excursion during the past year; check in with us again in September when Dick will rejoin WHITECAP and continue the saga.