We Went Sailing!

Finally, at long last. It was the first time we have had a chance to get Storyville out of her slip this year. We've had a really cold winter and between Troy working on the house and working his real job, there hasn't been much time for any fun.

This weekend was a little different. I don't recall any work, just lots of fun, and it was high time for some sailing and some fun. We led a TMCA cruise to our favorite cruising destination, Double Bayou. There were 12 boats on our cruise and because of the strong north wind, there wasn't much water in the bay. Double Bayou can be a little tricky getting into with a sailboat, especially when there are really low tides.

If you sail you know the saying - if you ain't been aground then you ain't been around. Trust me, this weekend, we got AROUND. Us and the other four sailboats that were with us! Nothing serious, just had to feel our way up the Double Bayou channel.

We had a decent motor sail over on Saturday, got all the boats situated, put our dinghy in the water and opened our first beer of the weekend. Ahhh, sunny weather, a cold beer, a dinghy and a bayou. Life doesn't get much better than that. We had a wonderful time that night with our TMCA friends and our friends at Channel Marker. It was Ernestine's birthday and there was a DJ at the bar and lots of dancing and having fun.

TMCA Cruisers and Cruise Leaders!

Sunday dawned bright and clear and we shared a great breakfast aboard s/v Waltzing Matilda. About the time we headed out for home a nice east to southeast breeze was blowing. After feeling our way out of the channel again, we set sail and headed back to Kemah. It was a beautiful day and the wind cooperated to create a perfect sail all the way home and into the Kemah channel and past the boardwalk, all under sail. Just wonderful!!!

Troy had great news from his doctor last week. The PET Scan was all good and he received the coveted NED (No Evidence of Disease). His doctors seem to feel like the three year mark is a milestone for him and we are very glad to hear that. He will be back for another PET Scan in June.

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. ~Charles Dickens

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

Vacation!

I'm such a bad blogger! We spent the last week on Storyville (of course, we live there!). The difference was that we were away from the marina all week. I did intend to keep the blog updated but due to slow Internet connections and due to the fact that we were having too much fun to worry about it - the blog has suffered from neglect.

I don't even know where to start. We spent the first part of the week at Channel Marker 17 on Double Bayou. We lead a cruise of about 23 boats over. Since there is only room for about 10 boats, it was quite a feat to get everyone rafted up safe and secure. Fortunately everyone did an excellent job of boat handling. Most of the boats left on Sunday and the remaining boats left on Monday, with the exception of us (Storyville) and our friend John on Buddha. John had his friend Pam with him and the four of us stayed on at Channel Marker 17 to battle winds of up to 45 MPH!

We left Channel Marker 17 on Thursday and headed back to Kemah to wash clothes and take care of some business. Then - on to Moody Gardens in Offats Bayou, Galveston. We had never been to this destination on our boat so we were excited to get there and check it all out. It was so much fun, we can't wait to get back there for a longer visit. On Friday night Troy and our friend, Bob DeGroot entertained us by playing guitar and singing. What a blast!

What a fantastic week. As a bonus, we found out that we are gonna be grandparents! Jessica and David are expecting their first.

I just realized that I started this blog almost a year ago. What a year it's been. I'm just so thankful that Troy is doing so well.

Vacation Begins!

Channel Marker Raft Up

Dancing the night away at Channel Marker 17

John and Pam on Double Bayou

Here we are exploring Double Bayou - what a fun day!

This is Troy loving life!!!

Moody Gardens from Offats Bayou, Galveston, Texas

Deana and Karen Chappell

Sunset over Galveston Bay

Who can feel poor when the sails are full and the spirit is full? -- Herb Payson

Happy Easter! Christ is risen!

Double Bayou

The first time we went to Double Bayou we sailed our boat over - I think it was October of 2005. It was the boat that we had before Different Drummer, a 27' sailboat named Storyville. We knew we wanted to sail to Double Bayou because we had heard that it was a great destination, so we set out with a hand held GPS and our Campbells Cruising Guide. We were so excited to be out on the water. We were pulling both of our kayaks behind us and were ready for adventure.

We had never even crossed the Houston Ship Channel before, so we were a little anxious too. We had a wonderful crossing, boy were those big tankers scary looking!

Dolphins followed us for part of the trip (how cool is that?).

We were on top of the world. We had never sailed so far away from our slip and we were thrilled that we actually found what we were looking for.

Thanks to the Campbells Cruising Guide we made it safely into the bayou. We were amazed at the peace and quiet. We made our way up the east fork of the bayou and tied our boat up to a tree!

The serenity and peace and quiet were indescribable. I can't remember the last time that I could relax and listen to the sounds of nature without hearing one man made noise. We watched a beautiful sunset and then the most amazing moon rise that I have ever seen. It was a big, giant full moon rising over the bayou - incredible.

It was Troy's birthday and I gave him an MP3 player with some of his favorite music already loaded. Troy still says: "It was my best day ever, and I've had a lot of good days". We sat in the cockpit enjoying the moon rise until the mosquitoes drove us inside.

The next day we took our boat as far up the bayou as we could go. We were amazed at how far that turned out to be. We saw an alligator and lots of birds. We saw a kingfisher. I thought that was cool, I surprised myself by knowing what it was!

On our way home we were worried that we might need additional fuel so we decided to stop at a small bait/shrimp place that we had seen on our way in. We figured that they might be able to drive us to a gas station for some fuel. We were right. It is called Pirates Landing and we later discovered that is it owned by Ernestine's sister Diane. The young man that was working that day drove Troy to the local store for fuel and then told us that we should tie up at Channel Marker 17 if we were hungry - they have great burgers.

We decided to give it a try - who can resist a great burger? We secured the boat and walked into the bar/restaurant. I forgot to mention that this was a Tuesday - mid morning and it turned out that we were walking into a local bar where the regulars were having lunch and/or a few beers. It was kinda dark in there and everyone turned to look at us as we walked in. I thought to myself - self - this is really scary, but I had Troy by my side so we endured the stares and took a seat at the bar. I was feeling really awkward right up until we placed our order - two Miller Lights and two burger baskets. That's all it took. Everyone turned out to be really friendly and, of course, the burgers are legendary (not to mention all the great seafood). Channel Marker 17 is a really cool place and everyone is friendly. If you ever make it over to Oak Island, you gotta visit!

We were sitting there enjoying our pre-lunch beers when a woman came running downstairs (turns out Jimbo - and now Ernestine - live upstairs) yelling "Jimbo asked me to marry him!!!!" She was so excited. That's how we met Ernestine. Over the next two years we have been sailing over there whenever we get a chance. We have made many many great friends and have many stories to tell. Who knows, maybe some of them will make the blog!

Here's Jimbo - - -

And Ernestine - - -

And Channel Marker 17 - - -

Here's a test to find out if your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't. - Richard Bach