cowlicks (Posts about cruising)

Turning Around

Blake Griffith — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 14:39:32 GMT

Candace and I woke up at sunrise ready to continue further down the Texas coast to Matagorda bay. The forecast was chance of showers and 2 to 3 foot seas, this sounded optimal.

Motoring through the Freeport jetties we accidentally cut off an enormous tanker under tow. A tug gave us 6 short horn blasts, basically saying "our movement is restricted, what are you doing".

The seas go big pretty fast, the waves were so large I was afraid to go to the bow of the boat (especially with no jacklines) to unfurl the foresail. We kept motoring further out hoping the seas would get better, but they didn't. Even if we could get the foresail up, the sailing in this would slow pounding endeavor. The boat was too small to cut through the 3 foot seas. The Matagorda bay entrance was 70 miles away. Which could easily take 12 + hours. Not wanting to enter an unfamiliar harbor at night, we decided head back into the jetties and take the ICW.

A few miles into the ICW the boat slowed from 6 knots to 2. With seemingly no explanation. No amount of fiddling with it on the water would make it work. This was bad. Not only could we not sail, we could not motor. I started calling places in Freeport asking about docking while we got the engine looked at by a mechanic. Repairs could take several days so squatting did not seem practical. We chose The Freeport municipal marina and it only cost us sixtyish bucks until the end of July. We limped over there. Recovering the ground we covered in the ICW took around 3 hours. Once we were in Freeport harbor I sailed up toward the marina. Navigating through the guillotine storm gate and around the industrial activity under full sail was awesome.

We berthed at the marina and met the local liveaboarders.

We were pretty stumped about what to do next. Some of the friendly folks at the marina gave us the number of an outboard mechanic. We got a ride to Houston, and scheduled an appointment with the mechanic. Two days later he got back to us and told us all it was, was a "spun prop". Basically there is a plastic bushing between the rotating axle and the prop itself. He didn't charge us because this was a pretty simple thing he could diagnose on inspection. We went back to Freeport the next day, removed the prop and had the bushing replaced for a grand total of $44. The next day we returned to the marina.

Candace took the initiative to install the prop. She dropped a vital component, a special washer that fits between the prop and the shaft, into the water. The water was around five feet deep and zero visibility. There was no way the boat would go anywhere without the washer. What followed was 30 minutes of feeling around in the mud, rocks, and sharp oyster shells. When I finally felt the washer, I was so excited I swam up quickly and hit my head on the bottom of the floating dock. After a panicky moment trying to feel which way I had to go to surface I came up and put the washer on the dock. My head and hands were bloody but I couldn't have been happier to find that stupid washer.

We were still unsure about heading out the next day. The forecast was again 2-3 foot seas. We could head down the ICW. Or we could turn around, put the boat up for sale in clear lake and take a bus to Mexico. We decided to sleep on it.

We woke up before sunrise and decided to shove off towards the ocean. Exiting the storm gate we heard warnings on the radio about a hydrochloric acid spill prohibiting exiting the harbor. We saw a coastguard patrol boat circling and we figured we could just try to leave and play dumb if they stopped us. Which they did immediately. We were told the harbor exit would be blocked for an indefinite amount of time. Of course this meant a late start towards Matagorda bay, which means we would be traveling at night.

It was nearing the end of July. I realize I had made several mistakes. I overestimated how our 24' boat would handle in the ocean. I overestimated our speed. Maybe we could wait for more favorable ocean conditions but that would slow us down even more. Considering this, and after looking at prices for bus tickets to México, we decided to head back to Clear Lake and re-sell the boat.

I was pretty disappointed. I was embarrassed. I would not be living out my daydreams about cruising to California on a shoestring. I would go back and see my friends to and hear a lot of "I told you so - blah blah blah". But I tried, and had a blast, and learned so much. I don't regret trying. And I'll try again. I owe a lot to the folks that helped us out, Tommy and Suzy Granger for food, supplies, and encouragement. And the late WD Granger who was an invaluable source of inspiration and advice.

I was procrastinating this post for a long time, then I read about Grimes' attempt to raft down the Mississippi. We both had nautical wonderlust and no cash. We both failed pretty hard after only a few days. Failure happens to everyone.

Day 3 - squatting at the surfside yacht club

Blake Griffith — Sun, 31 Aug 2014 21:24:54 GMT

July 19th we woke up in the choppy west bay. We hopped back into barge traffic in the ICW and headed to Freeport. The depthsounder seemed a lot more stable, the problem was probably some debris or seaweed stuck to it. It only took a couple of hours to get to Surfside where we slipped into the yacht club.

After trying a few spots we tie off on the end of a dock next to the boat "Blow me". The dock was caving in or something which is probably why the spot was available. There were not to many people around, which made it easy to not be suspicious.

There were more spots in the back next to some derelict boats, but the spot was fenced off from the rest of the yacht club.

We went on shore to get a feel for the place. I felt a lot more suspect here, but we ordered a burger at the little cafe and used the lavatories and got no trouble from the yuppies. We strung up a tarp over the boom for shade and took a nice nap in the shade with a nice breeze.

The fuel dock was out of gasoline so we had to hike to the nearest gas station over the surfside bridge. However we immediately got a ride when we got on the road. People usually know what's up when they see you on the side of the road with a gas can. We ate a $3 dinner at the Valero, 2 hotdogs and a fountain drink.

Back at the dock we discovered the water, electricity hook-ups. We took full advantage of the facilities to prepare for breaking out into the ocean the next day.

Day 2 of a Small Voyage, into the ICW

Blake Griffith — Thu, 28 Aug 2014 00:22:13 GMT

Galveston¶

Candace and I woke up to rain coming through the bow hatch before sunrise. The rain was bad enough to keep us from shoving off, so we put our foul weather gear on and went ashore looking for coffee and a place to dry all our clothes (we hung the up to dry the night before, bad idea).

We stayed on shore, until around noon. The weather was better but still gloomy. So we decided to take the Inter Coastal Waterway (ICW) instead of the ocean to our next destination, Freeport. There were only 7ish hours of sunlight remaining, which wasn't enough to get there. But West Galveston bay looked accessible from the ICW and should be free of traffic. So it would be safe to anchor there overnight.

Through the ICW¶

The ICW is basically a 50ish yard wide ditch dredged to around 16ft deep. Things were going well but I think we were going to slow. At around 6pm Candace was at the helm and I was below deck. The whole boat lurched. We ran aground. The sides of the ICW can get shallow quickly.

We were stuck pretty good. I put the motor in reverse and revved it as hard as I could without the prop surfacing. We didn't move. I tried forcing the prop deeper into the water to keep from surfacing. No luck. We tried rocking the boat side to side while I revved the motor. Nope. And then I tried turning the engine in its mount to it would pull at different angle. Slowy this moved us out of the mud. I guess this is one small advantage an outboard has over an inboard. An inboard motor can only push/pull straight. Although it would not of had the surfacing problems.

Turning the engine was not so obvious to me as it should have been since all the steering on the sail boat is done with keel.

After we were back underway we noticed the depth-sounder was acting very erratically. This was pretty scary since knowing the depth in the murky shallow waters of the ICW is pretty crucial. And soon it was dark so, navigating was even more difficult. Some sections of the ICW are open to the bay on both sides but dangerously shallow. So we had to stay in the channel by spotting the unlit bouys at night. With only a $5 LED flashlight. The bouys are probably about 1/3 of a mile apart. This was nerve-wrecking, but we did fine. Eventually we got to west bay and creeped out into the 5ft deep waters and prepared to set anchor.

Anchoring in West Bay¶

Things were calm, I set the anchor. For an anchor light we hoisted a lantern to the top of the mast with the Jib halyard. I set my Anchor watch app thing and went to sleep. Throughout the night the seas and wind and eventually rain came. I woke up to the anchor watch app alarm twice. I went on deck and everything seemed alright. The boat was probably just swinging in a different direction as the wind and currents picked up.

I had so many nightmares that night about the anchor rope breaking and us drifting into the path of a barge on the ICW. That didn't happen. But sleep was rough, especially once the seas picked up and we were bouncing up and down.

Shoving off (July 17th, 2014)

Blake Griffith — Mon, 11 Aug 2014 01:13:27 GMT

At sunrise Candace and I shoved off from League city. In our little C&C 24' boat. After motoring out of Clear Lake we put our sail up in dead air. The forecast was bad weather and it came up pretty quickly. It was a close reach up to the entrance into the Houston ship channel. The wind and rain were increasing so we dropped sails and motored as we entered ship channel. Movement there is pretty restricted, even for a small boat. Near redfish island, leaving the ship channel, the depth can go from 35ish feet to less than 5 feet in 20 yards.

The tankers and barges are huge, going really fast, and get really close to you.

We motored through the ship channel, making way for larger vessels as they came. I'm not sure what the seas were, maybe 2-3 feet. Some waves were washing over our bow. The pounding of the bow into oncoming waves was so loud, It sounded like the waves would just burst through the hull every time we rode up a wave and crashed into the next one. But the little boat held together fine.

The seas calmed down in the lee of galveston island. There is a lot of traffic here where the Inter Coastal Waterway (ICW), Texas City Channel, Houston Ship Channel, and Galveston Channel all come together. With Ferrys running back and forth from Bolivar peninsula to Galveston Island. Navigating through here went mostly okay except for when we accidentally played chicken with a ferry until he gave us one short blast (meaning he was altering his course to starboard). But he went to port instead.

In the Galveston channel we pulled into the yacht club where I ran the boat aground for the first time. We didn't hit the ground very hard. I was able to free the boat just by putting the engine in reverse, it only took a few seconds to get free.

We tied off at the end of a dock in the yacht club which seemed like it was for live aboards but was mostly empty. The dock was gated, but could be easily climbed around. We went onshore to the yacht club office, they said they had transient slips available. Slip E33 was open and it was $2 per foot per night. For some reason I was under the impression they would let us stay for free. So we said no thanks and went back to the boat.

Now we had to decide what to do. Pay for E33? Go to slip E33 and pretend like we paid for it? Stay where we are for the night? Find a new place? We stayed. I asked the guy in the next slip "is it alright if we tie off here for the night" he said "It looks like as good a place as any". So we squatted where we were. To finish the day we jumped in a closed over-chlorinated apartment pool for a shower.

Cruising

Blake Griffith — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 18:55:58 GMT

In 2012 I was in the San Fransisco Bay Area and went to visit a friend at Berkeley, and see the campus because I really wanted to go there for graduate school. While driving I really had to pee and the nearest plausible location was the marina. There I found a bush with a nice view of the boats. During the quiet reflection that only public urination can bring I pondered the aspects life on a boat.

Housing in Berkeley is expensive, my friend was living in a triple room and paying more than what I paid in Austin for a single. How much was a slip in a marina? Having experienced hurricane Ike in Houston in 2008, I learned how cheap little old sailboats actually were. \$2,000 for a boat you could live on wasn't unusual, so the one time cost of a boat would not be a blocker if a slips were cheap. 10 minutes of research sold me, slips for 30ft boats were \$350ish a month (link). And if I was going to live on a boat, why not sail it there!!!

Unfortunately I got rejected from Berkeley. BUT I got accepted to UCLA (about 3 months ago), and you could still sail there right? The nearest marina to UCLA would make it a commute to get to school, so living on the boat was out. But I was still sold on a sailing adventure. The plan is to go through the Panama canal, then up to Los Angeles. But school starts September 29th so I definitely won't make it in time. So I will dry dock the boat wherever I'm at (probably Costa Rica or Panama), then come back next Summer to finish the voyage.

I set sail next week with first mate on a C&C 24' yacht (1980). We'll be heading for the Panama canal. My sailing experience isn't nothing, but it is next to nothing. So I'll be blogging about the things I've learned. Hopefully this educate or entertain y'all. Most posts will cover the basics of cruising as I have learned them and how I've done it on a budget.

Here is my boat!