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CHAPTER 1
Houston, Texas
CHAPTER 2
Kemah, Texas
CHAPTER 3
Kemah, Texas
CHAPTER 4
Galveston, Texas
CHAPTER 5
Seabrook, Texas
CHAPTER 6
Seabrook, Texas
CHAPTER 7
At Sea - Gulf of Mexico
CHAPTER 8
At Sea - Gulf of Mexico
CHAPTER 9
At Sea - Gulf of Mexico
CHAPTER 10
At Sea - Gulf of Mexico
CHAPTER 11
Port Fourchon, Louisiana
CHAPTER 12
Cut Off, Louisiana
CHAPTER 13
Cut Off, Louisiana
CHAPTER 14
Cut Off, Louisiana
CHAPTER 15
Houma, Louisiana
CHAPTER 16
Houma, Louisiana
CHAPTER 17
Houma, Louisiana
SPINDRIFT - CHAPTER 15
Houma, Louisiana
June 3, 2003
After two months in Cut Off it is time to leave. We leave and head down the bayou towards the Gulf. The night being spent in Port Fouchon, we head out bright and early. The first half of the day was smooth sailing with a fair enough wind. But then, all of a sudden the wind dies.
The forecast had predicted 10-15 knot winds all throughout the day and the next also. But, such is sailing.We all go swimming in this calm. But with each passing hour we start getting more impatient. We finally decide to take a navigation channel back to the Intra-Coastal Waterway and then continue from there. Twentyfour hours later (after spending the night at anchor in Cocodri) we reach the ICW and just then our steering goes out again!
So we found ourselves in Houma, Louisiana looking for a place to tie up and fix the boat. Between Houma's double twin span bridge is the Downtown Marina, built especially for transient sailboats just like ourselves! We spent the next 6 weeks there with running water and pump out facilities. An elderly couple, Bill and Velma run the place, and on many an evening we would come to enjoy their company, talk and good food. 
We are trying to decide what to do. We missed the window of opportunity to make it south and go throught the Panama Canal in time to start our S. Pacific transit before Cyclone season starts up again. And it is raining so much here, every day lately. It makes it hard to work on the boat.Through Boo, we met Gary, a flying fanatic and general aviation ace. We just hit it off from the second we met, Dad's first words upon meeting being: "Another mad man!" Wow, what a way to greet someone you don't know!
Gary very kindly invited us over after taking with Dad a while on the phone.
When we arrived, we found Gary in his garage with an absolutely gorgeous plane he is building right there. You could see his passion for flight, and for life itself, in his eyes! Hense Dad's unconventional greeting remark. This man has been building this, his second home-built plane for the last couple of years or so and is she beautiful!
Gary invited Dad up and later the next day they are flying all around Bayou LaFouche.
From the air you realize just how extremely vulnerable this area is. The area is so abundant in wildlife yet it is practically at sea level. Should there be a hurricane of any importance all of this land would be completely flooded. Only a levee (which seemed to us very low) would be their protection.
"There is nothing, abso- lutely nothing, half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."
Kenneth Grahame
(1859-1932)
(1859-1932)