LA - MS - AL Trip May - June 09 PART I

Louisiana – Mississippi – Alabama Coastal Sailing
May 27 – June 8, 2009
Beautiful Sights and Valuable Lessons (Part I)


Thu. 5-28. After overnighting at Madisonville, LA, we left at a decent hour heading toward Eden Isles, in the Slidell area. There was hope and excitement in our newbie hearts. After all, we would be facing a new challenge -- new places and a longer trip aboard Talisman, our Pearson 365 ketch. Would we meet the physical challenges that Nature seems to throw at everyone with seeming glee? Would we be able to solve boat functionality problems along the way? Were we well provisioned? Etc. Etc.
We tied Talisman up at Phil’s dock in the late afternoon. This is our new friend that we had visited days before so we could meet the other sailing buddies. It would be a loose group of boats sailing east. We met Karen, Phil’s friend and sailing partner, and a lively discussion ensued about anything relevant to sailing and the upcoming trip. They would be gone longer; we had a definite schedule.

Fri. 5-29. We all left early with the objective of making it to Ship Island off the coast of Mississippi by sundown. This time we took a different route than the last trip Mike and I had taken. As we approached Cat Island after exiting the Rigolets and a portion of the Mississippi Sound, we came around its south side, rather than by the north. It seemed quicker and less crowded, and it provided a better wind direction for sailing purposes. We tried our spinnaker and new sock along the way and realized it lent some efficiency to raising, lowering and handling the spinnaker in light wind.
Finally we all made our destination just around sunset. We had planned on anchoring at the Northwest side of the Island near the pier, but the increasing seas and NW winds made us question the sanity of our objective. Nonetheless, Mike dropped our 35 lb. Delta anchor at about the same spot we had used before (see past trip). But the seas were increasing and we had to question whether the anchor might slip and we’d find ourselves in 2-4 ft. of water. The 24 ft. depth quickly changes to 2-4 ft. within a few hundred feet. So we weighed in the anchor and dropped it again in a spot that was slightly further from shore, though vulnerable to the NW winds and waves that picked up after sunset.
Our friends’ boat, Candida, also experienced problems. Phil and Karen rowed over to us with a bottle of wine, and I was busily preparing a pasta dinner as a good conclusion for a long day. But, alas, that was not in the cards. We happened to look toward Candida and noticed with horror that it was moving toward shore and the 2-4 ft. shallows! After that, there was no relief for Phil, Karen and Candida. And, so much for dinner and company. They weighed and dropped hook several times in the night. While Mike and I stayed put with our GPS tracking any dragging of the anchor, Phil and Karen finally took off for the Mississippi coast late in the night. However, we didn't know and wouldn't find out until much later the next day.

Sat. 5-30. Next day, I emerged from below with yoga mat in tow after an uncomfortable sleep (too much rocking of the boat). Where is Candida? We tried to radio them but no answer. Bad cell phone connection also made it difficult to track them down. In the meantime we heard a call for assistance from “a vessel in the Ship Island northwest corner.” Could it be Candida? But why couldn’t we see it? What we could see was a smaller sailboat dangerously near shore and next to the pier. As it turned out, that was not a good thing. We had seen the small boat being repositioned the evening before, as had occurred with the other boats in the vicinity. That story ended better than expected when the Coast Guard, one of the Mississippi services, and a private towing company came to its rescue, and the boat was “unstuck” within a few hours.
We took Talisman around to the south side after breakfast, awaiting word from Candida. It was beautiful, serene and the Gulf was calm. We could have kicked ourselves in the you-know-where that we hadn’t moved over there the night before.
Anyway, we lazed away for several hours before heading to Petit Bois (many pronounce it “Petibo”). We had called Phil and Karen, got the scoop on their midnight escape and discussed where we would meet up next. So, we decided to rendezvous about midway across on the north side of Petit Bois around sunset. Winds were light from the N/NE. We made our way following the coastline, a mile or so below Ship Island, passing Horn Island (which we would visit on the return trip) before reaching our destination. We planned to round up at Petit Bois Channel, which is an extension of the Pascagoula Channel, to meet our friends on the north side.
It was interesting and relaxing to view the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico and avoid the heavy commercial traffic of the ICW. Beaches, birds, dolphins, fishing boats, and a sailboat or two were the only sights.
The channels in between the barrier islands have to be adhered to simply because tides, winds and other natural phenomena tend to create sandbars right and left, and they don’t show up on the charts. By the time your depth sounder spots them, it’s probably too late. So, we kept well within the channel, though ships and barges out of Pascagoula were of the enormous type, and the channel was fairly narrow at this juncture. In fact, we kept still at the sidelines at one point to let a megaton ship plow its way through and waited some more for its significant following wave action to subside. Whew!
Yes, we made it to our rendezvous point on Petit Bois and dropped anchor. But again, the wind was blowing out of the N/NW and we were not confident the anchor would hold in this terrain and in this unprotected spot. So, we weighed anchor and proceeded to the northwestern corner of the Island. Sand Island, a small island just slightly Northwest of us, seemed to offer some protection were the winds to pick up. And we noticed another sailboat in the vicinity, though it seemed a little too snuggled up to the shore for our sense of caution. Better to be overly cautious than end up in the shallows like the boat from the night before, we said. That lesson stayed fresh in our minds.
In the meantime, no sign of our friends. Luckily, we had cell phone access (kind of iffy on the islands). They decided to stay put at their getaway on the coast. Could we meet there at Petit Bois the next day? Well, that depends. It depends on whether the wanderlust gets the best of us. After all, we had a limited window of time, and there were new places to explore!
Stay tuned. The best is yet to come.