Leave a comment about this day On Friday March 10th, we left Peggy’s before dawn. It was another glorious morning. We reached the ICW by sunrise and headed east. There was virtually no traffic except for an occasional fishing boat that passed. The ICW was pretty straight here, although there as a turn I had to make and I almost missed it. The landscape was mostly Louisiana grass bog, and the wildlife was spectacular. So far nothing scary like crocks or snakes. Mostly birds. I did take on a passenger for an hour. I nice little blackbird that hitched a ride.
I did have two concerning incidences today, but all turned out well. The first one was when I was approaching a 50 foot bridge. This was the lowest bridge I had encountered thus far. I put out a call to the barges that were going under the bridge about their understanding of the actual height. Two of them responded that they had radar and it registered as 52 feet. I am 42 feet, so I was glad to hear that. I cleared it easily.
The next major issue occurred when I lost my Garmin and thus my navigation map. That was not the problem because I have backups. The problem was that while I was so focused on fixing it, I was not paying attention to what was behind me. I was going about 6 kts, but what I did not know that there was a BFS (big f-ing shit) going 10 kts right behing me. He hailed me on the radio. OMG, he was as big as the biggest cruise ship I have every seen, and he was less that 100 yards bearing down on me. He politely ask me to get out of his way. I complied by moving toward the port bank, but as I made my move, my engine quit. I had lost track of my gas and my tank ran out. Trying not to panic, I went back and changed tanks, started the engine, and got the hell out of the way. I must keep better situational awareness.
The good news is we made it to a very nice place in Lake Charles called Bow Tie Marina. What nice people. I am the only one here because all the marinas are closed due to storm damage. This guy was nice enough to let me stay, took me to a local gas station to fill my tanks, and charged me $15. What a great guy.
I got my stove going. Gnarly and I had Ramen noodles and I will have hot coffee in the morning. Yea!!
