Back to Ingleside on the Bay (sadly)

In July, the prevailing weather is supposed to be settled with steady South to South-East winds. In July 2009, what wind we had for our crossing was out of the West to South-West. Mostly, though, we had NO wind for our trip back to Texas. We literally motored for 4 or the 5 days we were offshore and when the wind finally did come up on our last day, we had to beat into it. What the heck????

With no wind, we motored at about 5 knots, burning approximately 3/4 of a gallon of fuel per hour. No matter! The sky was clear, we were making good time, and the fish were biting. Patrick caught a couple of Wahoo and even had a Marlin up to the boat, but it made one last run under the boat and the line chaffed through on the keel.

It was HOT in the afternoons, so every day between 3 and 7 PM we started the generator so that we could run the Air Conditioners. With a cool cabin, meals were easier to prepare and it was easier to sleep.

One afternoon, Michelle was at the helm and noticed something floating off in the distance. She adjusted our course and headed in that direction. We couldn’t tell if it was a big object in the distance or a small object close by. It turned out to be a waterproof box, about 2X2X2. When we pulled it aboard, Michelle had visions of a box full of money and I was certain that it held a body. Neither of us was right — it was an empty box designed to hold some kind of survey equipment.

Our night watch schedule was 2 hours on watch and 6 hours off, which meant that we were all able to get a full night’s sleep each night. Since we were much further south this time, we didn’t have to deal with all the oil rigs, platforms, etc. In fact, after the first night, we didn’t see anything else until we got close to the Texas coast.

Finally on the last day the wind came up and we were able to shut the engines down. We had motored so much that I was convinced we were running on fumes and I really worried that we’d have enough fuel to enter the Port Aransas harbor where we could fill up. My worries were unfounded, however, as we not only made it to the dock, but after filling up, we discovered that we still had 20 gallons in the tanks!

After filling the tanks, we motored the remaining 10 miles to Ingleside and our waiting family. Another fantastic vacation complete!