Thursday, May 30, 2013

Freeport to Galveston May 24




We “slept in” until 0700 (actually, for Kay, closer to 0800), then enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, rinsed the boat off, and removed a gear from the shaft of the leaking seawater pump which I removed yesterday from the small generator in the lazarette.  We enjoyed wandering around the Surfside Marina, taking a few pictures, and watching the many boat boys prepare dry-stacked outboards for their owners’ fishing excursions.  About noon, UPS arrived with my replacement water pump, which I then installed.  The test run was fine, so we cleaned up and set off shortly after 1400 for Galveston. 
There was more tow traffic today, and we met and/or passed several more tows than yesterday.  We passed Oyster Bay about 1545 from where we could see the San Luis Pass Bridge.  We entered West Bay at 1600, passed Flamingo Isles (now houses Harbor Place Marina) at 1745, and passed the Offatt’s Bayou entrance channel at 1815.  Along a 1-mile stretch of land in West Bay we counted 11 red nun buoys washed ashore.  Six were in a pile, and over the next mile or less we counted 5 others along the shore.  Green cans seem to have fared better; some of them were still on station.  After passing under the repaired Galveston Causeway Railroad Bridge, we passed through the Pelican Island Cut and anchored near Baffle Point behind Port Bolivar about 1930.  This area is very protected from the east and southeast, but it does “rock and roll” a bit about 5 minutes after a ship passes up the Houston ship channel.  The full moon is beautiful rising over the peninsula, and only sparse lights on the shore are present.  I used to patrol the Bolivar Peninsula, so it is interesting to see from the west side all of the landmarks which remain after Ike.  Tomorrow we will duck back into the ICW at Port Bolivar, and run up that peninsula toward true East Texas.

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