Tuesday, July 15, 2014

The Boat is Ready. Me, Not Just Yet

The boat is ready. I am not. For once she’s ahead of me and I’ve got to play catch up.

The only big thing lacking right now is the wind vane mount and that’s in progress at the fabricator’s shop. The other project I want completed is the leak in the lens of the forward hatch over the V berth. I have the materials at hand and some time to pull the old cracked and crazed plastic lens out and trim up a new one to install.

The inaugural trip offshore into the Gulf of Mexico was a roaring success. The boat performed perfectly and all of that money spent wasn’t wasted. My mentor and captain friend, Eudell Jiles, went along for the ride and coached me on the correct way to manage traffic in the ship channel, talk to the ships’ pilots and in general how not to be a pain in the ass to the professionals that work the Houston Ship Channel (HSC) for a living.  
The weather was picture perfect for a newbie. The HSC was flat, the wind and the tide was in our favor. Traffic was light. The Gulf was reasonably calm with winds about 12kts and seas 2-3 feet. Nothing broke, the engine purred contentedly down below and kept her temperature steady. We turned south out of the jetties about eight miles offshore and set sail for Freeport, TX 40 miles south down the coast.

While the motion of the boat was extreme for me, he was in his element. I could tell this was his payment for all of the times he helped me on this project. This guy lives for this stuff; tiller in hand, wind in his face shouting encouragement as I hung over the back rail and fed the fish.

Yep. That sucked. Of all the details to leave unattended, I forgot to get the motion sickness pills. In my defense, I didn’t know if I’d be affected by it. Oh, well. Now I know.
After a brief discussion about this going on another nine hours, we turned around and headed to the Galveston Yacht Basin for the night. We dropped anchor just after sunset and discussed the events of the day and what I had learned.

Now my appetite is whetted. I'm looking at the calendar trying to figure out when I'll be able to get out there for more practice. I've got only 20 weeks or so before the planned departure so I need to make the time to get offshore again.  

Not Everyone Was Working That Day