M/V ILLUSIONS                             EARLIER CRUISES            





INTRODUCTION TO EARLIER CRUISES
     We bought the 38' Carver in February 1992, and named it ILLUSIONS after the book by that name written by Richard Bach.  Prior to that we had a 32' Carver named COOL BREEZE; it was a Mariner model, the first boat I'd owned with a generator and a separate shower.  COOL BREEZE had twin engines with V-drives, and it had a lot of room inside but took the waves poorly.

     The 38' aft cabin model was a dream come true for me and for Angela, too, I think.  In many ways it was the perfect boat for us.  It had two staterooms and two heads, each with a separate shower.  It had double stainless steel sinks, a good-sized galley and pantry, adequate salon, upper and lower helm stations, and a nice aft deck.  The lines of the boat were great, it seemed to me.

     The downsides to the boat were the engines and the generator.  Up to that time I had never had a good generator, so that generator seemed the same as the one on COOL BREEZE - undependable.  The gasoline engines could not take long hours under load, and the fuel usage per mile traveled was high.  We had to buy fuel every day of a cruise; our fuel storage was 300 gallons.  We had no electronics and seemed none the worst for it.  We had a radio, compass, and depth finder; we seemed to need nothing else.

     This website was started in April, 2000, after we bought the Carver 440.  So, all the "current cruises" on the website were about the 440 boat.  In early-2002 I decided to include some "earlier cruises" to pass on our cruise adventures before we got the 440.  That's what this section is about.  Most of the cruising we did at that time was weekend and extended weekend cruising, which will give you an idea of what weekend trips could be made from a Houston homeport.  We made a few longer trips which, in retrospect, seemed to have been preparing us for the longer cruises we made from 1997 through 2001.

     We have not attempted to show all the cruises or weekend trips we made, for a variety of reasons.  For some we had no good photographs; for others the trip seemed like others which were written up.  Overnight trips to the Houston Yacht Club or the Galveston Yacht Club, and dinners at Shanghai Red's at the upper end of the Houston Ship Channel come to mind, as well as the trips exploring Dickinson Bayou, Moses Lake, and the upper end of Double Bayou in the jet boat.  More recently, overnight trips to Bayland Park Marina in Baytown and explorations of the San Jacinto River were also memorable. 

     I had had boating experiences in and around Galveston Bay since the late 1970s, but long distance cruising was not even a thought, much less a hope or a plan, until the early-1990s.  Several things came together to help me get the idea to travel much longer distances.  Moving up in the size of the boat helped, because a larger boat can carry fuel and supplies a longer distance.  We made a 9-day trip to New Orleans, LA in 1992.  We went from Houston to Corpus Christi, TX and back in May - June, 1993.  

     In April 1994 we joined the Texas Mariners Cruising Association (TMCA).  We went with TMCA to the San Bernard River (TX) on a 4-day cruise in July 1994 and to Port Arthur, TX for another 4-day cruise in September 1994.  We began to hear about and meet people, like Tom and Ann Caywood,  who had cruised up the Tenn-Tom Waterway to the Tennessee River, for example.  That sparked my imagination, because I was raised in East Tennessee and longed in my earlier days to see around the bends in that river.  

     In 1995 we made a three-trip cruise to Pensacola, FL, which cruise is written up in this section.  In 1996 we went again to the Rockport/Corpus Christi, TX area.  That cruise, to Port Aransas, is also written in this section.  Early in 1997 I read an article in the BOAT US newsletter about crossing New York state on the Erie Canal, which I did not know was possible.  That started me thinking about someday doing that, too.

     As I've said before, I hope you enjoy reading about some of our cruises and trips.  That's the only reason for this website, other than to give me an outlet for my creative instincts in this format.  We seemed to have done more in 1996 than in the other years, but I was still a traveling salesman; and often I had to miss a cruise or hurry home from a cruise and pack the bags for an out-of-town business trip.  An email from you about your experiences with boating or our website will always be appreciated.

David Magill

David@InlandCruising.com