M/V ILLUSIONS                             EARLIER CRUISES            

1996 CRUISE LOGS Houston to Port Aransas, TX and Return May, 24 - June 1, 1996       The cruise was organized by TMCA (the Texas Mariners Cruising Association), and was one of their many cruises for the year.  Angela and I planed to do the entire cruise with my son, Chuck; and Darby and Carrie were to meet us for a portion of the cruise.  We left the Clear Lake area about 5:30pm, after taking the afternoon off to get everything we needed onto the boat.  We ran about 35 miles to Offatts Bayou in Galveston, where we planed to spend the night.      After passing under the causeway bridge at I-45, we turned into the channel for Offatts Bayou and promptly went aground.  There is a red and green marker that is supposed to mark the center of the side channel: you can travel to either side of it, right?  Well, that marker was in the middle of a very shallow spot; and we stopped abruptly.  When we did, the television set in the aft stateroom hit the floor, never to light up again.  The microwave in the galley also crashed but worked again.  A few others reminded us of that moment in time, which delayed our arriving until about 8pm.  We saw our friends, Jim and Gerda Witt, at The Landings Marina, where we both had slips for the night.  We visited with them, had some shrimp for dinner, and charged the battery in our dinghy (jet boat).  That was Friday, May 24, 1996, Angela's birthday.      On Saturday, May 25, we left The Landings Marina and headed west on the ICW.  We arrived at Bridge Harbor Marina in Freeport, TX about 1pm.  We filled up with gasoline there and continued west to Matagorda Harbor.  We spent the night there; our slip fees were $15 in Matagorda and $20 at The Landings.  Our run time for the day was 7 hours.  It was very windy; we said we were "nailed to the bulkhead" at the marina.  Our berth was an alongside spot on the wall made of pilings; fender boards would have been appropriate if we had had them then.  What we did was turn the fenders sideways to keep them from disappearing between the pilings.  The shore power circuit breaker kept tripping, so the marina electrician replaced it, solving that problem.      We dropped the dinghy into the water and took a ride up the Colorado River and back to the boat.  We planed to cook on board, and we noticed the air conditioning was not cooling the boat.  The air conditioner in the aft stateroom was running but not doing much in the way of cooling.  We started the charcoal at 7pm, but we needed something from the store.  So, we walked to the nearest store and back.  At 9pm we cooked chicken and ate.  Jim and Gerda had told us on the phone they planed to wait for less wind and come on down later.  I think we ran out of film then, because our next photographs were dated May 29.      I was up at 6:30am, and the temperature in the back of the boat was only slightly warmer than the front.  It had been windy all night.  We ate breakfast and pulled out at 8:30am.  By 11:30 or so we were in Port O'Conner, TX taking on more fuel.  We usually filled up daily if we were cruising.  Gasoline was $1.399 in Port O'Conner; $1.659 in Freeport; and $1.498 at Lakewood Yacht Club on Clear Lake.  We proceeded west to Key Allegro near Rockport, TX, arriving at 4pm.  After checking in we drove the dinghy around the neighborhood.  Key Allegro was a residential subdivision with canals in front of all the houses.  While Chuck was operating the boat, he got a ticket for going too fast in a slow zone, which we didn't realize was a slow zone.  He was steamed up about it for a while.      The aft air conditioner was kicking off occasionally.  We prepared charcoal for grilling our dinner.  Darby and Carrie arrived.  We cooked and ate dinner, and we all slept on the boat overnight.      On Monday, May 27 (Memorial Day), we went onto Rockport in our van that Darby had driven.  Rockport was a few miles from Key Allegro, too far to walk for sure.  We bought groceries and took them back to the boat.  The younger folks used the jet boat to look around.  We moved the damaged tv from the boat to the van, and we brought the 12-volt tv from the van onto the boat.  The youngsters left to drive the van back to Houston about 2pm.  We moved over to the fuel dock and filled up and returned to our slip.  We visited with some more TMCAers as they arrived and prepared to go to the group dinner.      About 6pm David Surbrook came to collect us, in a truck, I believe.  (Most people in Texas drive trucks, but not all.)  We were invited as a group to the Rockport Yacht Club for a barbeque dinner.  We ate and visited and saw their clubhouse.  Then we were taken back to our boat by David.  We visited with friends, looked at charts for the next day, and watched our little television set before retiring for the night.      This cruise was to Port Aransas, and I think we briefly visited there and then went back to Key Allegro.  We had been to Rockport and Key Allegro in 1993, and we really enjoyed that area.  On that trip we had visited Corpus Christi and Aransas Pass, as well as Port O'Conner and Freeport on the way down and back.  Also, I had spent a week on a 26' Sea Ray going to and from Corpus Christi in 1983; the water there was truly green and pretty compared to the upper Texas coast.      Tuesday, May 28 we departed Key Allegro about 10am headed east for Army Hole.  That was a spot on the inland side of Matagorda Island in Espirtu Santo Bay.  There was a lot of history about more extensive use of the area during WW II.  Now there were small ferry runs to the area for people to walk and picnic and fish and sunbath on the beach on the other side.  We followed some sailboats into the general area of a harbor, where we saw them move in and tie up to the walls of the little harbor.  We found the area to be extremely shallow, and we went aground several times.  After getting in and tying up to the wall there, we found the starboard engine would not start again.  It seemed to not get enough fuel; and I pulled up the salon floor and got in there with the engine to diagnose the problem.  After talking with Emmett, our mechanic in Houston, we decided it was the fuel pump.  He would get one and bring it to Port O'Conner the next day.      We could not maneuver the larger boat with just one engine, and we wanted to get away from that harbor and anchor in deeper water.  We dropped the dinghy and tried pulling the larger boat with the dinghy and broke the chrome handle off the back of the dinghy.  Angela was in the little boat, and I was running one engine in the larger boat.  We did get the boat off the bar it was on, but the damage to the props was noticeable.  We anchored for the night, visited George and Liz on S/V CAVU and Jim and Roni on S/V RENAISSANCE via dinghy, and had dinner on board.             The next day, Wednesday, May 29, we tried our hand at fishing from our dinghy.  It was a nice clear day, and we followed a little creek up into the marsh to fish.  We had no luck at all.  About 1pm we upped the anchor and began to leave the area.  I was worried about the one engine thing, but we had room to turn slowly and made it back to the ICW with no problems.  We called ahead, and the marina people helped us get alongside at our berth for the night.  Emmett arrived about 4:30 and left at 6pm, after successfully exchanging the fuel pump.      There was a local restaurant called Clark's, and they advertised they would pick up boaters for dinner.  So we called them and told them there were 10 of us who wanted to come and eat.  They sent their regular vehicle, plus they sent a limo!  The driver had brought a couple from Victoria, TX; and they were eating dinner.  Mr. Clark knew the driver, so he asked him to help out with transportation.  He did, and we had a memorable ride to the restaurant, which is right on the ICW.  We had a nice meal and returned to the boat for the night.  Slip rental was $25.             On Thursday, May 30, we again tried fishing from the dinghy, with no luck.  We left the area about 1:30pm, and we motored 35 miles back to Matagorda Harbor.  We could not plane off, probably due to a bent wheel on the starboard side.  So we went slowly all the way back to Houston.  Another problem to add to our growing list was the generator kept shutting itself off.  At Matagorda Harbor we enjoyed Happy Hour aboard S/V SUNK FUNDS with Roy and Carol and others from TMCA.  We had dinner with Jim and Gerda aboard M/V SEA STAR.  Our slip fee was $15.      On Friday, May 31, we motored slowly to Freeport, about 47 miles, where we had a slip for the evening.  We left about 8:30 and arrived about 1:30pm.  After fueling at Bridge Harbor we had a swim in their pool.  We helped a couple of the sailboats tie up, and then we took Jim and Ronica Hall on a dinghy ride.  We went up the old river channel, under the vertical floodgate into Freeport itself.  We had never been up into the city, and we learned some interesting facts about the Brazos River.      The channel that runs through the town used to be the main river channel, but now there is an upper limit to the waterway.  Above that point, which is like a dam, the river runs to the Gulf through a new, man-made channel to the west of the City.  The Brazos River is one of the longest in Texas; its beginnings are north and west of Fort Worth, Texas.  When the Brazos floods, the floodwaters are kept out of the ICW by floodgates on either side of the river on the ICW.  If water were to get high in the ICW from any cause, including a surge from the Gulf, the vertical floodgate we traveled under would then be lowered to protect the town.  All of the shrimp fleet came up into the town to unload their catch and spend the night in that protected area.      After our excursion into town, we showered and dinghied over to the Gulf side of the ICW.  We tied up the little boat and walked to a restaurant named Red Snapper.  We had a wait and a good meal.  When we returned we lifted the dinghy and rinsed it off.  Our slip fee there was $1 per foot.      The last day in the cruise was Saturday, June 1.  We left Bridge Harbor Marina at 8:45am.  At 1:30 we arrived at the Houston Ship Channel, and we were in our slip at South Shore Harbour at 4pm.  We loaded up and arrived home about 6pm.  It was good to be out on the water, but we certainly had a lot of maintenance on our hands.  I had to fly out of town the next day, so we needed to get our things off the boat so I could pack a different suitcase after we got home.  Mileage was about 500.