The voyages of Annie Installment 1… Seabrook, Texas to Morgan City, Louisiana

Good morning from Morgan City, Louisiana, 300 plus miles from Seabrook.

We have been out of touch with the world for three days as we have had no cellular service and hence no internet . We got into Morgan City Louisiana last night and are docked at the City Docks and are finally in cell phone range.

So far the trip from Seabrook has been relatively uneventful with the exception that we lost the big generator. Seems to be some electronic control issue and I am working on it. I have done everything that I can do to try to bypass the electronic controls but there is only so much that I can do. I suspect the problem is in a molded electronic governor control but am not sure. I am going to call my generator people in Houston this morning and see what they say. Morgan City is a big port and there are lots of offshore crew boats and lots of shrimping vessels here so I am hoping there is a Westerbeke dealer here.

Meanwhile we have been getting by with the little generator. It will only run one air conditioner at a time so during the daytime we run the AC in the pilot house and at night time we run the AC in the sleeping cabins. We can only run one big item at a time so if we need to run the washer dryer or cook with the stove top or oven we have to shut down the AC.

The Intracoastal waterway is a long mostly manmade cut through coastal marshlands. There were virtually no pleasure boats that we saw between here and Seabrook aside from a few small fishing boats. . Most of the traffic is barge traffic.West bound we met on the average of two to three pushboats per hour pushing any number of barges. Eastbound we would overtake and pass a tow on the average of every two hours. We were making slightly better time than they were but in order to pass we started both engines and pushed up the speed till we were clear. .

Wildlife is abundant particularly mosquitoes. Lots of birds and saw two alligators. Suspect the gators will be much more common once we get out of the ICW into the swamps. First night we anchored up in a cut off the ICW near Port Arthur and the second night we spent up on the Mermantau River. Went further up the Mermantau River Sunday morning to a little town of Lake Arthur. Quaint little town with old houses and lots of history. They have incredible oak trees there…. some of the neatest trees I have every seen. I am in the process of building a tree house at Rancho Bebo and the trees at Lake Arthur tickle my imagination. . Third night we anchored in a little cut somewhere along the south bank of ICW. The barge traffic is 24/7 .’We don’t like running at night so we try to find a protected spot off the ICW out of the way of barge traffic and wakes from the barges as they pass.

On the average we are making about 7-8 knots which is about 9-10 mph. We have been running mostly on one engine. We found that with both engines we could do 8 knots and with one engine we could do 7 knots. We were willing to sacrifice the additional 1-2 mph to cut our fuel consumption in half.

And the latest news bulletin is in: the generator is going. I have been talking to technicians all over the country today and got a feeling for what goes on inside the “black boxes”. Decided to have one last go at it and checked a few strategic voltages on the control boards and checked a few connections and fired it up and bingo she sputtered a little and then took off. Loaded her up and she seems to be running fine carrying all on the air conditioning. Hallelujah!!!!

I am losing crew tomorrow. Carol is going back to Houston and Robert is heading home to Pineville to take care of business. He calls it “rat killing”. So when he gets his rat killin’ done he’ll come back to the boat and we can head on up the Atchafalaya River. So I am here for a week. Have a few boat projects to do….. routine maintenance and stuff and then there’s the never ending varnish to do. More later when we head up the Atchafalaya River.

The crew of Annie

Ron and Carol Beberniss and Robert Mayeaux