Thanksgiving / French Picnic

I do realize that this post is long overdue so to make up for it I'll make it a long post. It's been a really busy time for us. We leased our house so we had to move the last remaining "stuff" and give it away or put it in storage. My office moved to a new location after being in the same office for 15 years - that was "fun"!!! Plus we had be get ready for one of TMCA's big events of the year - The French Picnic!

The French Picnic is held annually on the banks of Double Bayou. We sailed (or I should say motored) over on Thanksgiving Thursday and our plan was to fry turkeys on the bank of the bayou. We left our Thursday morning and were quickly enveloped on fog. What an eerie feeling. It's kinda scary to hear a fog horn and know that it is coming from a huge container ship in the Houston Ship Channel.

Patrick and Krista on s/v Esprit Libre

Krista and Patrick - Ready for Fun!

s/v Anchor Management - In The Fog

We enjoyed our motor sail over to Double Bayou with Patrick and Krista on s/v Esprit Libre and Steve and Colleen on s/v Anchor Management. There were a couple of boats already there and a couple of boats behind us to we had about 8 boats there for Thanksgiving and we fried 3 turkeys and had a great Thanksgiving meal and a nice fire to sit around while everyone told lies!

Frying Turkeys on the Bank of Double Bayou

We had several days of great weather and it was lots of fun to dinghy around and just relax in general. There was a fire every night and new stories were told (some of them were even true). I helped Colleen hide a Geocache while we were there. The name of the cache is "Pirates Booty" in case you want to look it up. - http://www.geocaching.com/ - that's the only clue you get!

Saturday was the day of the French Picnic. We had wine and cheese and a good time. The fire was bigger than ever. I don't know if that applies to the lies that go with the fire, but I suspect that it does! We had a really great time and Troy played his guitar and sang for everyone. It was lots of fun.


Boats Along the Bank Double Bayou - Ready for French Picnic


The Campfire Gets Abandoned - Food has been Served!

TMCA's Cruise Captain for 2009!

Storyville on Double Bayou

While the weekend was a blast and we were all thankful to get away from the real world and get away from the aftermath of Hurricane Ike that many are still dealing with, we were reminded that the wonderful people living in Oak Island and Double Bayou are still trying to cope with Ike's aftermath in a very real way. Some are still living in tents as they wait for FEMA trailers to arrive. Our friends Jimbo and Ernestine (owner's of Channel Marker 17) are working to rebuild the bar / restaurant that we love so much. We spent our last night tied up at what is left of the Channel Marker 17 dock. It's really sad to see so much devastation but it is wonderful to see a community pull together to get through it all.

What Remains of Channel Marker 17

Oak Island Baptist Church - free water, food, clothing and ice with hot meals served daily

In case I stay true to form and don't post for a while - Troy has a PET Scan scheduled for next Tuesday (December 9th). Please say a prayer for him. We are expecting good results and it will be a relief to hear the doctor say what we already know.

I love this picture of Patrick's dinghy in the fog

Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love, to work, to play, and to look up at the stars. ~ Henry Van Dyke