Re-insertion into America
May 4th, 2007 by: cheyenne
At 4am this morning, we maneuvered ourselves into the ship channel, rolling with the large swell and dodging speeding sport fishers, strange towering oil-related machine-barge things, and a shrimper who was actually shrimping right in the middle of the channel. Where the hell were we anyway?
Once inside, I navigated by flashlight along the intercoastal channel until it got light enough to actually see the marker barrels and burnt-out nav lights (so lame!) and Joshua made coffee and Spanish tortilla for breakfast. We got to Key Allegro in Rockport (where Joshua’s grandfather, Tucker, lives) at 7:30am. He had no way of knowing what time we would arrive or if we anchored inside someplace off the intercoastal before heading in and we tried to call him using the last single minute of time on our Sat-phone, but it wouldn’t connect. We decided we could just anchor outside Key Allegro and row the bote up to his house but then we noticed that he was right there standing on his porch, waving his arms at us!
So we motored up the canal and not only is Tucker waiting with camera in hand, but so is Bill (Joshua’s uncle) and a big closed-cell foam “Welkum” hanging from the deck. (Sniff sniff!)
The boat is just quietly tied up right in front of the house and we are both sort of dazed—even though it took painfully long to get across that damned gulf, our arrival feels very sudden and time-warpy. The boat is an absolute mess inside (outside too, but the inside mess is physically painful) with days-old dirty dishes clogging the sink, cookie crumbs and coffee splashes in the cockpit, salt water crusting everything from spray that *somehow* got inside, bilges and everything in them drenched from salt water, wet foul weather gear hanging from every hook, dirty laundry, things that fell off their shelves on the floor…
We’ll deal with that all tomorrow. After we get some sleep.
May 4th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
I cannot express how happy I am to see you safely home. Thank you Tucker for taking in the voyagers. Thank you TimeMachine for being such a good vessel. Sleep well—and we’ll talk soon. Love, Mom
May 4th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Woohoo! Congratulations!
May 4th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Hurray… I kept logging on today to see where and how you ended up. I hope you guys will still be around in early July. We look forward to seeing you.
Connellan
May 4th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Way to go guys! We are so happy that you are safe and “home”…..mess and all. We’ve loved following your adventures, but I must admit there is some comfort in knowing that you are “docked” with family. Love, Cindy and Earl
May 5th, 2007 at 4:31 am
You did it! Now you can decompress and finally finish that paint job :-)
Be sure to keep your adoring public posted even while you’re in port. It’s good to see all aspects of the sailing adventure, not just the transparent blue water and exotic foods.
Isten hozta,
Laszlo
May 5th, 2007 at 9:06 am
Ahh . . . safe, happy and home. you put on my morning smile. thanks Tucker for sensing their presence and welkuming them! can’t wait to hear from you.
love, mom cher
May 9th, 2007 at 5:05 am
yeehaa
great to hear that all went well on the gulf trip. The boat looks great in the photos though its a bit wierd to see her tied up to a dock with houses and all that stuff in the background yeehaa all part of the adventure.
Keep in touch
Yeehaa el loco Derek y zory