We headed out about noon on Friday out to Double Bayou and Channel Marker 17.  It was pretty windy and not terribly sunny, but still a great day for a sail.  Some other TMCA friends of ours (S/v Cambria) caught up to us and we both pretty much stayed together for the whole trip over.

We put the head sail up and motor sailed until the ship channel and then we had to navigate around a dredging barge and pipe that was set up at the North boaters cut, but it wasn’t too bad…just had to scoot around it. We like to motor sail when we are in a hurry to get somewhere and we never use our main sail because it is a horrible set up and really hard to use, but that will change once I finish making our Stack Pack, I hope.

Once through the ship channel we put the head sail back up and continued motor sailing. Once you got closer to Double Bayou channel there were a bunch of crab pots and little boat type buoys everywhere. We later found out that they are surveying out there, for what, I don’t know. We made it through the channel without a problem and docked up to Channel Marker 17 (the bar/restaurant) and Cambria rafted up next to us.

Once we were settled we came out on our boat and chat with Al and Kay (s/v Cambria) and watched the other TMCA’ers come in and down to dock at Beason Park Marina(The marina just down from Channel Marker 17). Several boats ran a ground coming in the channel which is almost expected coming in Double Bayou since the channel constantly changes, is not marked well and is tricky to navigate. There were plenty of  fishing boats around to help everyone get off.

Later,  another person we knew from Portofino marina, Doug R., came in and Cory had to help tow him with the dinghy since his batteries had died.  He was grateful for the help and offered us drinks at the bar and dinner. We had to declined since we had bought some awesome filets at the meat market just to have for dinner that night and Cory was determined to have them. We cooked the filets on the grill and sat and ate on the back deck of the bar with Doug. We sat and hung out with Doug and another TMCA’er Tom. Then I wondered off and was talking with some locals in the bar, when I came out everyone was gone to their boats and Cory was in ours watching TV. I obviously had lost track of how long I had been in the bar chatting. We relaxed in the boat and went to bed at a somewhat decent time.

Saturday morning we woke up and all the TMCA’ers were at the bar decorating and setting things up for the fish fry. We hung out and chat with people on the deck and then a bunch said they wanted to go for a dinghy ride. We all gathered together and then ventured down the bayou in our dinghies.

We ate at about 3pm(I ate something else, don’t eat fish) and things continued on in the same way, everyone sitting around picnic tables having various weird and inappropriate conversations and drinking more and more. This went on for several hours till it started to thin out and a good amount of the group had gone back to their boats. We were hungry for dinner since we had lunch at such a weird time, so we went into the restaurant to have some dinner with some of our friends. The bar/restaurant was more crowded than they are used to so it took a while to get our food. We had our dinner and everyone kind of split up and went to their respective boats.

We were a little disappointed, since this was the first fish fry we had been able to go to and had been told it was a super kick ass party. It seemed very low key to us, but some of our friends that really like to party were not able to come this year. Don’t get me wrong we still had a fun time.

We left for home early in the morning and had an easy ride back, although it was quite windy and not very sunny.

All and all it was a fun and relaxing weekend and the first trip of the season! 🙂