Day 1: Breaking in our Sea Legs

- September 28

Lakeshore Marina in Ponchartrain Lake-Biloxi, Mississippi 

                                             

We rose early to take advantage of the calm morning water .  I brewed a cup of ha

lf- caff coffee, Jacob walked Jeeno, and Joie got her camera ready.  Today is the first real day of boating, yatching, motoring, whatever you wanna call it.  We set out to cross Ponchartrain Lake.  The first bridge we came to was a swing bridge with workers were doing maintenance on it.  When we called the harbor master he wasn’t sure how long we were going to have to wait for the bridge to open.  Luckily, we only waited 10 minutes.  We crossed one more bridge and then entered the gulf.  The water were calm giving us a nice and smooth ride; a pleasant way to start our boating adventure.   

About half way through our trek the kids were hungry since they hadn’t eaten breakfast yet.  We tried to start our generator so they could
use the microwave for oatmeal, but it wouldn’t turn over.  They had granola bars for breakfast instead.

It took us about 4.5 hours to make it to Point Cadet Marina in Biloxi, Mississippi.  This Marina had a different style dock than we were used to.  It was a concrete dock with wood pilings.  We pulled the boat straight in at first and nearly took out our bow by almost crashing into the tall concrete dock.  So scary!  I’m starting to think docking the boat is scarier than motoring over open ocean.  We gassed up and were pleasantly surprised to find our fuel consumption was half what we projected.  It still cost almost $500 to fill, Wowzers!  $2.35 a gallon adds up when you have a 460 gallon tank!  We also pumped out our bathroom holding tank.  It has been full so we haven’t been able to use it.  YAY, now we can go poop on board!  

We had to dock a second time; this time backing up so we could connect to shore power.  We had a heck of a time trying to back into our slip.  The current was so strong it kept pushing our stern into the opposite direction. After about seven or eight attempts we finally got her in.

After we were all tied up we had to address our generator problem.  A mechanic stopped by to look at it.  He gave us some pretty bad news, salt water was leaking into an area it shouldn’t and needed a new hose.  He nor anyone else could confidently work on it in Biloxi and the shops in Ocean Beach, where we were heading next didn’t have the appropriate parts in stock.  Meaning we would be stuck in Mississippi/ Alabama til at least Monday.

We were able to get a hold of our mechanic, Tom, from Louisiana.  He recently worked on our generator and engines.  Thankfully, he said it was normal especially if you try to start it at sea. From now on, we start it from the beginning or not at all.

We finished off the night with dinner at Bubba Gump and a hot tub session inside the neighboring Golden Nugget.  Aside from a few hiccups it was a great day!