A narrow section of the ICW going through the Florida panhandle-  sand and scrubby pines, sort of like the outer Cape.  Saturday we stopped in a quiet bay east of Panama City, and are still here puttering around.  There are 12-volt lights in the kitchen.  The motor on the dinghy works.  We're swimming, but have yet to step on any oysters.  The next town away is Apalachicola, where oysters have a big presence.  So we're just delaying the inevitable.

the Lorenzo version

Maiden voyage

---

Or leaving Louisiana in the broad daylight

After 18 months in New Iberia La. rebuilding this shrimp boat we finally pushed off. We tried a week earlier but dropped a valve and cracked a head so we did an engine rebuild. I must say that even while the Detroit Diesel was grinding up it's own guts and spitting out the pieces through the exhaust it ran just fine, lost some rpm and belched a lot of smoke but kept right on chugging.

Left Vermillion Bay the first day to go around the Mississippi River outlet on the outside toward the Florida panhandle an had a fuel spill an hour out, ran aground the second day, hit some nasty weather the third day with stuff flying around the cabin since nothing was secured, and snapped my anchor cable the fourth day trying to pull it up. The snubber line held so I managed to retrieve the anchor with a chain.

Running aground was a hoot as the depth sounder was telling us we were in 93 ft of water, so I assumed we snagged a net or something that was holding us firm. I put on my full Jacque Cousteau drag and jumped in the water to do battle and landed on the bottom with water up to my tits. Our boat draws 6.5 ft so I knew right off this was not good. I did ease it off with no problem.

Anyway we're heading to Key West should you want to give us wide berth.

Well, it's been a fun week so far.  Fed up with the ICW and those tiny passages through the bayous. we decided to head for the Gulf.  This was idyllic through Monday- not counting that one time we ran aground (the fishfinder said we were in 90 feet of water, so Lorenzo grabbed the compressor, put on his wetsuit- and stepped off the boat into knee-deep water.)  We were able to ease off the shoal- this was just east of the mouth of the Mississippi, for you Louisianans.


It became rather blustery Monday night, making obvious all the needed tweaks to our interior.  The kitchen was especially hazardous.  Not a thing happened in the work areas, but it was raining books and toiletries everywhere else.  After this noisy night, we couldn't wait to weigh anchor Tuesday morning, but while we were pulling it up, the cable snapped.  Lorenzo donned the wetsuit (best investment so far) administered one of his fixes, and we still have the anchor, but slightly bent.  


It brings to mind once again the Nannig family motto:  Boating is not about fun!  Boating is about survival!

Ida, where art thou?

Hurricane Ida had us holed up in a corner of Vermillion Bay with our anchor set ready to rock and roll, we were in only 7 ft of water and a mile from Weeks Island facing the wind so how far could we sink?  Woke up the next morning and da bitch was gone, run off to the Florida panhandle, which is where we were supposed to be except for this little problem with the engine belching clouds of white smoke.  So we chugged up the Bayou Petite Ance some 10 miles to Delcambre La. to have it worked on.  They think it's a fuel injector that's bad and no big deal.  It's projected to be nasty the next few days from the storm, but the sun is shining and the skies are clear.  John came over for dinner last night, he lives only 4 miles away, and we'll go shopping today for fresh veggies.
Spoke too soon, engine needs serious work. Broke a spring, dropped a valve, chewed up a piston, needs new heads, etc. 3 or 4 days. Oh well. Good guys working on it, nice little town, it's a boat, there's always something.

We're tucked into Week's Bay, with a view of the burning cane fields.  This should be a comfortable spot until the tropical storm passes tomorrow night.  Our engine's sputtering and complaining, so we should have it seen to.  So much for the vaunted reliability of Detroit Diesel- just kidding, engine gods!

Cast Off

We sold off the truck with 170,000 miles on it, it replaced a truck with 500,000, paid up the port for our dock space, cast off and left New Iberia! Came around the corner and ran into a whole bunch of barges and tugs going every which what way, lots of fun, and now we're back in Weeks Bay to try out the autopilot. In a few days we'll start moving towards New Orleans.

slobbering

It seems my engine is slobbering, that is to say spitting oil and fuel out the exhaust. Evidently it's what Detroit Diesels do. The cure, I'm told, is to put the bow up against some bulkhead, tie the boat up so it won't swing, put her in gear and run the piss out it for 6 hrs while you catch a few double features. In the meantime we're sitting here waiting to get our autopilot hooked up. We actually found a competent electronics guy and we are loath to leave till he gets this figured out. Still have not decided whether to go through the ICW to New Orleans or go around the outside to the west coast of Florida. The ICW is an ugly narrow ditch full of large barges and tug boats- and the outside is a minefield of oil rigs, pipes, unmarked shoals, and wrecks with some wild seas. Our friend Bill the tugboat captain thinks he's headed up to NO with a 70 ft wide barge soon so we may just slip in behind him and let him run interference. All the barge traffic runs from the Mississippi River to Houston- so once we're on the other side it should quiet down.