Maiden voyage
Or leaving Louisiana in the broad daylight
After 18 months in New Iberia La. rebuilding this shrimp boat we finally pushed off. We tried a week earlier but dropped a valve and cracked a head so we did an engine rebuild. I must say that even while the Detroit Diesel was grinding up it's own guts and spitting out the pieces through the exhaust it ran just fine, lost some rpm and belched a lot of smoke but kept right on chugging.
Left Vermillion Bay the first day to go around the Mississippi River outlet on the outside toward the Florida panhandle an had a fuel spill an hour out, ran aground the second day, hit some nasty weather the third day with stuff flying around the cabin since nothing was secured, and snapped my anchor cable the fourth day trying to pull it up. The snubber line held so I managed to retrieve the anchor with a chain.
Running aground was a hoot as the depth sounder was telling us we were in 93 ft of water, so I assumed we snagged a net or something that was holding us firm. I put on my full Jacque Cousteau drag and jumped in the water to do battle and landed on the bottom with water up to my tits. Our boat draws 6.5 ft so I knew right off this was not good. I did ease it off with no problem.
Anyway we're heading to Key West should you want to give us wide berth.
After 18 months in New Iberia La. rebuilding this shrimp boat we finally pushed off. We tried a week earlier but dropped a valve and cracked a head so we did an engine rebuild. I must say that even while the Detroit Diesel was grinding up it's own guts and spitting out the pieces through the exhaust it ran just fine, lost some rpm and belched a lot of smoke but kept right on chugging.
Left Vermillion Bay the first day to go around the Mississippi River outlet on the outside toward the Florida panhandle an had a fuel spill an hour out, ran aground the second day, hit some nasty weather the third day with stuff flying around the cabin since nothing was secured, and snapped my anchor cable the fourth day trying to pull it up. The snubber line held so I managed to retrieve the anchor with a chain.
Running aground was a hoot as the depth sounder was telling us we were in 93 ft of water, so I assumed we snagged a net or something that was holding us firm. I put on my full Jacque Cousteau drag and jumped in the water to do battle and landed on the bottom with water up to my tits. Our boat draws 6.5 ft so I knew right off this was not good. I did ease it off with no problem.
Anyway we're heading to Key West should you want to give us wide berth.
After reading this the only thing one can think is, "Can we take out some life insurance on ya'll?" Beginning to sound like a pretty good bet!
ReplyDeleteAlso, Dec. 19th is Jim Roth's memorial if you can get through the canal and up the west coast by then.
Great adventure! Good luck to ya!
ReplyDeleteThe information here is great. I will invite my friends here.
ReplyDeleteThanks