Partial update from New Orleans

The sale of Marty's house should go through in January. Having stayed dry and intact through the storms, it sold for about 18% more than they had expected pre-Katrina, with the new owners no doubt still feeling they got an excellent bargain. The place is really fresh and pretty after all the hard work put in by Garry, Judy, Chris, and, to a lesser extent, Frank and Marjie.

Judy and Garry have phone service at their place in Slidell again. It only took four months!

Cori came home from North Carolina for Christmas, to visit with our family and hers.

And Jerry is in Iraq. :-( Please keep a good thought for his safety and for a better set of orders for his unit.

Merry Christmas!

Top: Megan (10), Chloe (11), Marjie (13), Chelsea (13)
Middle: Emma Lou (6), Madison (7)
Bottom: Ella Bella (2)

Marjie and Frank

Finally! A listing!

It has taken SO long to get the Zombie Princess' listing on the Internet! Wilma has things marine and electronic in a tailspin down there, I guess, although it was amazing how fast the listing appeared once I'd discovered that our broker's parent company hadn't paid their YachtWorld bill. Anyway, it is up now, and it has several pictures of our boat, for those who are curious about our living space these past months. They left off the galley photo for some reason; I'm working on getting that added.

To view the listing, click here, and then click the Full Specs button.

KQR

Ratty holidays to you

Road notes and some belated photos

Florida
We chose the Lake Okeechobee route from Miami to Orlando. A lot of it was scenic/interesting, with the occasional gator and wings-hung-out-to-dry cormorant sighting, but our view of the lake itself was obscured by a levee. And then traffic through the greater Orlando metropolitan area was awful. All in all, we might have preferred the turnpike. ;-)

We spent Night 2 in Gainesville, where the temperatures dropped down into the @*#(! range. We actually had to run the heater and put on coats!

About the time we hit I-10, the van's engine malfunction light came on. The ol' tighten-the-gas-cap trick didn't help, so we drove into the Honda dealership in Ft. Walton Beach. They diagnosed some clogging in the emissions system, strangely reminiscent of our exhaust-elbow problem on the boat back in September. $200 and a few hours later, we were able to backtrack to Destin.

Many of you will recall that the four of us lived in Destin the winter of '96/'97 and have been back there for a couple of vacations since. The Florida panhandle has the best beaches Frank and I have ever visited, and that includes the Caribbean and Hawaii. I called the sand there sugar sand, as people are wont to do, but the texture is really closer to flour. It is very soft, very fine, and very white. Gorgeous. The girls and I spent a lovely couple of hours beachcombing (yes, some hurricane debris and damage here), digging, and scribbling movie quotes in the sand. The temperatures in Destin were a bit milder, too, although we did have the mother of all rainstorms our second morning there. (Seduced by the microwave and refrigerator in our hotel room, we just had to stay two nights!)

Alabama and Mississippi
Zoom zoom zoom.

Louisiana
Louisiana is still a very sad place. The scene in Florida is one of recovery; in Louisiana, destruction. East New Orleans made me cry, because it's a very battered ghost town still, more than three months after Katrina. Despite the claims of certain radio 'personalities' I could mention, things in Louisiana are NOT getting back to normal. Well, they are, but the pace of the return is beyond slow, and there are whole cities there that may never recover.

We drove over the Twin Spans. They have all traffic moved onto one side of the freeway there, to get past the section of I-10 that fell into Lake Pontchartrain. We were impressed at the amount of repair. Interstate commerce is a powerful motivator.

Farther west, where Chris and Marty live, the situation is somewhat better. Not normal, but livable. About a third of businesses are open, with limited, variable hours. Most houses still have heaps of debris in their front yards; Frank has taken to calling it "house puke." Make no mistake, residents here are aware every minute of every day that they are in a disaster area. Nevertheless, Christmas decorations are up, and life goes on.

We had a nice visit with Marty at his retirement villa. The staff there is working hard to reestablish their pre-Katrina routines, and Marty was looking forward to watching the Seahawks during that night's Monday Night Football party in the common room. He says not all of the staff and residents have returned, but he is obviously happy to be home, and he looked good.

We missed Chris but were able to visit briefly with her son, Paul, and his frisky dog, Sancho. Paul is working for a clean-up company. He is able to work at home mostly, working up bid and invoice spreadsheets. Having been in on some large-scale cleanup operations, he is more optimistic than I am about the amount of recovery that can happen. I hope he's right!

Monday night, we had dinner with Bob and Anita. Finding an open restaurant was a bit challenging, and we were on Veterans Blvd., one of the main drags in Metairie. Chevy's came through, though, and we had a nice visit. After we said our good-byes, we made our shivering way to the van and resumed our trek west, listening to our Seahawks kick butt on the radio. About half-time, we pulled into a motel in Lafayette, where we were able to watch the less exciting but still triumphant second half. Our first Seahawks game all year!!!

Lest we forget
Western Louisiana and eastern Texas were hit very hard by Rita. The damage there is being overlooked by the media (mostly), probably because no major metropolitan or tourist areas are involved, but it is as bad as anything we saw in New Orleans and Florida. Along one short stretch of Texas freeway, we saw three separate churches whose north faces were ripped off. Gigantic oaks have crushed homes that have obviously been given up for lost. And we saw more blue-tarp roofs through here than even in east New Orleans.

Mother Nature really had it in for Louisiana this year.

T-t-t-texas
I don't think I've ever been so cold. The cold snap that chilled us in Florida and Louisiana turned us into blue popsicles in Texas. The wind was bitter and relentless. On the bright side, the sunset was extraordinary. We spent Tuesday night in Ft. Stockton.

New Mexico
We were there for about two hours. It was uneventful.

Arizona
I love Arizona. But by this time, we had promised the girls we'd do our best to get home by Saturday the 10th so they could attend a tree-decorating party at my mom's. It meant driving with dedication, despite the lure of the beautiful Arizona scenery. We enjoyed another spectacular sunset past Tucson, cruised through the huge freeway superstructures of Phoenix, and settled in for the night in Buckeye.

California
We've driven the length of California so many times, it was mostly a chore this time around. We did cope with and enjoy some amazing fog, and were impressed by our 3rd stunning sunset in a row. Thursday night, we stayed in Tulare (north of Bakersfield on Hwy. 99). Friday, we drove past the stunning vistas of feedlots (not really stunning, except the smell), Shasta Lake (really stunning), and Mt. Shasta (and how!), and it was a very happy Krewe that crossed into Oregon about 8 p.m. On a whim, I took exit #1 so we could get out and play in the snow for two seconds. It turned out not to have a return ramp to I-5 N., so we ended up sailing right on back into California to turn around at exit #796 or whatever it is. The girls and I were wildly entertained by this, and cheered even louder entering Oregon the second time. I think Frank was less amused. :-)

Oregon
Somebody else pumped our gas for us. That's Oregon for you (state law requires attendants do the pumping). We slept in Eugene. Portland was as pretty as ever. And then we crossed the mighty Columbia River into...

Washington!!
...where we promptly got stuck in traffic. That's Washington for you. Travel the entire country and people keep right except to pass. Enter Washington and everybody jumps into the left lane. And traffic stops. Coincidence? I think not.

We did eventually make it to our very own hometown, though, with about two hours to spare before Grandma's party.

We got off the freeway and entered our residential neighborhood. It hadn't really occurred to us, but that was our first visit to a non-hurricane-ravaged residential neighborhood since Houston in early September. The first words out of my mouth were "It's so clean!" The lack of destruction here seems like a miracle, and it is certainly a big psychological relief. (Washington locals who want to know what the Katrina aftermath is like should imagine Tacoma to Marysville flooded then dried out again, with mud and mildew everywhere, and with *every single house* gutted onto its front lawn. Then imagine living in that environment for three months, with no real end in sight.)

And now
We've been home for a week. We're almost unpacked, almost settled into life here, almost ready for Christmas, and almost happy to be here. Well, the girls are completely thrilled to be here. Frank and I are still grieving for what should have been and wishing things were different.

We did finally plug in the CF card from our camera and found some poignant pictures of our time in Bayou Bonfouca. It's pretty ironic that turned out to be our only real cruising time, but they're fun shots. I'll close with a few of those.


Note all the cruiser gear shown in the 3rd picture: sun awnings, spare gas and water tanks, windscoop (colorful "sail" over the forward hatch, funnels breezes into the cabin), mosquito netting, laundry/dishes bucket, and cushion and pillow for lounging on the bow. The scuff marks on the side of the boat are Katrina damage. There are similar marks on the port side, too.

KQR

Home again, home again, jiggety jog

Yes, we are back to being landlubbers. Our 4,200-mile drive home was long and mostly uneventful. We froze from about Gainesville on, with our two days in Destin a relatively warm stretch and with Texas being especially frigid thanks to a cold snap. California and Oregon were more temperate, but very foggy.

Back in the great northwest, we're unpacking, getting back on top of the details of real life, and suffering a certain amount of culture and climate shock. We're also kind of jet-lagged after all the time-zone changes. But I do have some things to say to wrap up this blog, percolated stories to add belatedly and reflections-in-conclusion to share. If you check back in a few days, I might have gotten caught up enough to get some writing done.

KQR

'Home' in Destin, FL

After an unexciting bit of car trouble, we are cozy in our old stomping grounds. Sugar sand at last!

The last cruise of the Zombie Princess

Yesterday morning, we put to sea once again, to sail around Key West to the new home of the Zombie Princess at Peninsular Marine boat yard. It was a beautiful, sunny sail, with crisp wind and calm seas, but it was a bit chilly! (A cold front has come through that's bumped the high temp down to about 71 degrees. Brr!!) Marjie spent most of the sail huddled under a blanket, and we got an early (before noon) start, so nightowl Chloe slept through the whole thing. But we had a completely uneventful trip, believe it or not. No rain, no giant swells, no seasickness, so sail mishaps/errors, no spills below. Amazing.

At the boat yard, we tied up to the seawall and emptied off the last of our belongings. The rats found their shady space on the wall pretty interesting, and the yard guys found the rats pretty interesting. But duty called, and before long, the ZP was loaded onto the TravelLift, going up.

Seeing the bottom was pretty interesting. It was "done" last June when we bought the boat, but you couldn't tell by looking at it. I think they didn't do a very careful job. On the other hand, the boat's been through three big storms. There are a couple of whacks (my highly technical term for places where we obviously hit something), one at the bow and one at the crease of the keel, that must be from Katrina. I hope potential buyers won't be too turned off by them.

As for the Krewe, we are headed home. I write this from a motel in Florida City, the gateway to the Keys, or, in our case, the gateway to the continental United States. We've rented a small U-Haul trailer so we can haul home the dinghy and motor. (Our too casual effort to sell them resulted in only one lowball offer. We have always been tempted to keep them as our boat for home, and we figure it won't be too late to sell them once we get there.) It also let us pack quickly and with abandon, instead of having to carefully apportion van space. So we're loaded for bear.

We're keeping our options loose for the trip home, taking one day at a time. Today's big debate is which route to take through Florida. The choices are the Florida Turnpike (efficient but dull with about $20 worth of tolls), Alligator Alley (very, very cool -- gators sun themselves along the freeway -- with a return trip to Naples on the other side, but a longer, squared-off route), or this little principal highway that runs by Lake Okeechobee (an unknown, probably scenic but slow). Whatever we choose, we're all looking forward to some fun land cruising.

KQR

The cork pops

We move to the boatyard tomorrow, get on the road on Fri. Mixed feelings as we spend our last hours aboard the ZP.

Percolations 1

With time to breathe, we've had cruise memories percolating up in our minds and conversations, events and moments and observations that didn't previously make the blog. I'm almost out of Internet time here at the KW library, so I'll share just one now, then add more later.

**Chloe teaches Marjie to drink**
As you might recall, during the passage, Chloe got to a point where she began feeling human. She was stretched out on one of the dinette benches, crosswise to the boat's motion. Part of what helped her is finding a jug of juice on the floor under the table. She began drinking that. Up in the cockpit, we were aware that she was getting fluids, but didn't really understand how much juice she'd consumed until she popped up in the companionway with the nearly empty jug. The child was positively giddy on a sugar high. I asked her to share the remaining juice with Marjie, and she began teaching Marjie how to wrap her lips around the mouth of the jug so as to prevent sloppage when the boat moved. She made perfectly ridiculous "O" shapes with her mouth that had us -- even poor Marjie -- cracking up. It was a most welcome moment of hilarity after a grim couple of days. Weeks later, Chloe still remembers the necessary "O" and still gets a chuckle when she demonstrates it.

KQR

Creeping up on December

"The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the orange and palm trees sway; there's never been such a day in Key West, F-l-a." (with apologies to Barbra Streisand)

I hear rumors that winter has arrived in some parts of the world. Not so here. So, while we're getting a bit frustrated and anxious about the slow pace of things here, we are certainly enjoying the weather! Still hitting 80 or better during the day, with nights in the 70's. Love it!

As for getting out of here, we're hoping that today will be the day the cork pops and we get some action. Hurricane recovery efforts at the boat yards and then the holiday pretty much meant no action toward our goals for two weeks. Tough when we all just want to be home now.

On the bright side with the sunshine is the fun we're having as a family. We're still more homebodies (boatbodies?) than tourists, preferring to hang out reading, watching movies, and having family game nights, but it's a good time. Last night, we finally tried out Fluxx, a wacky card game, and we all *really* loved it. The rules and the goal of the game keep changing, so there's a lot of laughter and having to remind each other of what comes next. Kind of like life, I guess....

KQR

Gobble gobble

It sure doesn't feel like November here, but Happy Thanksgiving anyway, with love from the Krewe!

The Conch Republic

I learned the story behind Key West's being called the Conch Republic. Here's the story, borrowed from one of Lonely Planet's guides:

"In 1982, the U.S. Border Patrol set up sporadic roadblocks on U.S. 1 just south of Florida City in an attempt to stop drug smugglers and illegal aliens driving up fom the Keys. As traffic jams and anger mounted, many tourists decided to forgo the Keys altogether.

"Enter a bunch of outraged Conchs, led by Key West Mayor Dennis Wardlow, who came up with brilliant idea of seceding from the U.S. They established the nation of the Conch Republic on April 23, 1982, seceded from the U.S., rebelled for one minute, and then surrendered and requested $1 billion in foreign aid and war relief.

"Every April, Conchs celebrate the anniversary of those heady days."

The official store of the Conch Republic is located on Duval Street. There, you can purchase flags, t-shirts, shot glasses, etc., bearing the bright Conch Republic logo. You can also read posters and watch a video that reveal the more entertaining details of the rebellion. For instance, the Conch weapon of choice was hard Cuban bread, and their troops were sustained by conch chowder and Key lime pie.

KQR

Conchs

Residents of Key West refer to themselves as Conchs, and they call Key West “the Conch Republic.” The conch is even the fierce and frightening (not) mascot of Key West High School.

From what we’ve observed, your typical Conch is very friendly, a bit scruffy, a bit sun-weathered, smokes and drinks however much s/he damn well pleases, and feels vastly superior to mainlanders. One of the most popular bumper stickers here says “Slow down! This ain’t the mainland!” (No, we haven’t observed that Conch drivers are any less intense behind the wheel than the rest of us). They’re a funny mix of liberals and conservatives, but as a group they are environmentally conscious enough that bicycles are everywhere. (The marina here has a couple of sizable areas dedicated to scooter and bicycle parking.)

So, no, not all Floridians – or even Keys residents – are Conchs, and I think you have to live on Key West quite a while before you earn the name.

Pork fried rice

Before Katrina hit, we went to the (subsequently flooded and looted) Winn-Dixie in Slidell and bought a bunch of canned and dry goods. This was supposed to be our food when we couldn’t find good fresh food at our exotic cruising locations. As it’s turned out, we’ve never been more than 5 days from a grocery store, and that was on our passage across the Gulf. Currently, even with the flooding KW experienced during Wilma, we have 4 fully stocked grocery stores within 5 minutes of us.

Still, we’ve been trying to eat the canned goods, both to save money and to avoid having to give it away or haul it all home. The other night, Frank made what he wisely termed “pork fried rice.” It was nicely seasoned, with vegetables, big hunks of (ahem) meat, and even some bits of egg. Marjie and Chloe were munching away pretty happily until I made the mistake of referring to the “pork” as SPAM. Our gourmet girls immediately lost all interest in the dish, and we ended up feeding about half of it to the fishes.

World famous sunsets

There has been a turn in the weather down here since Wilma. High temps are “only” in the low 80s, the humidity is down, the water has cooled considerably, and we have some cloud cover and sprinkles on and off most days. The upside of the clouds (aside from the happy fact that we’re no longer broiling to death) is that the world-famous Key West sunsets are exceeding all expectations.

Last weekend, we went down to Mallory Square for the nightly sunset celebration. We watched several street performers (a tumbler, an escape artist, a unicycling juggler of flaming batons, a not-so-high wire walker, and a fire eater), listened to some good music, browsed through the arts and crafts booths, and applauded with the rest of the crowd when the magenta ball of the sun sank into the water.

Tropical storm Gamma

Imagine my dismay when I made my morning trek to the restrooms yesterday and saw this headline on the Key West Citizen: “Gamma targets Key West” UGH!! At the time the paper went to press, the forecasted path “eerily” matched Wilma’s, with Gamma hitting KW noonish on Monday. Happily for us, the forecasted path has moved steadily southward and the storm is weakening, so we’re not expecting to see much activity from this one. What a refreshing change!

Katrina and Wilma woes continue

If you can find it in your hearts and pocketbooks to send a little (more) money to the Red Cross, the people of Louisiana and Florida would really appreciate it! As you’ve probably gathered from the news, FEMA help is limited to nonexistent. Here’s a quote from a flooded resident in the local paper: “[We] would like to thank the Red Cross for giving us water, food and helping us to buy new furniture. They’ve been wonderful to us. FEMA has not done one thing.”

From our conversations with friends and relatives in New Orleans, we know that things are still Really Bad there. Many areas *still* don’t have power and gas. This has impact city-wide. Chris says the few school buildings that are open are “platooning” students through, holding classes for one school in the morning, another midday, and a third in late afternoon. With the infrastructure coming back at a snail’s pace, with some areas still closed completely to residents – they can ride a bus by their homes to have a look at the outside but are not allowed to disembark – and with very few stores and restaurants open very limited hours (making for lines and crowds), life there sounds pretty depressing.

Here in the Keys, the damage was a fraction of what New Orleans suffered and recovery is well under way, but people are still hurting. Insurance checks are starting to arrive for damaged homes, businesses, and boats (we heard 3500 wrecked boats from Key Largo to Key West), but the big pinch here was all the cars destroyed by the flooding. One guy joked that 5% of KW residents evacuated, so about 5% of KW residents still have cars. In many cases, comprehensive auto insurance does not include flood damage. This is true for one of the guys in the dockmaster’s office here. To replace his flooded work truck will cost him more than $20,000 out of pocket. Even those with insurance or the wherewithal to simply buy a new car are having difficulties. Imagine car dealerships under six feet of destructive salt water, and you can see that not only did residents lose their own cars but there was nowhere to go to buy new ones! When we turned in our Orlando rental car, the agency waiting list had more than 700 names on it, and two weeks after the storm, we still see truckloads every day of replacement cars being hauled in and ruined cars being hauled out. (I don’t want to think about where they’re putting all the heaps.)

Anyway, sad stories abound, and help is still desperately needed. Pitch in if you can!

Marina nights at Garrison Bight

During all this time spent resting and soul-searching in Key West, we have become part of the liveaboard community at Garrison Bight (one of KW's city marinas). It's been an interesting experience.

Our neighbor on one side, Tim, is in a 2-room houseboat. He's a massage therapist, drinks quite a bit, and is playing host to his 20yo nephew and the nephew's best friend. They're pretty crowded in there, but they're having a good time. The other night, they threw an anti-hurricane party, celebrating the end of "the season," that was attended by folks from several boats around. The girls and I stopped by (Frank was retrieving the van) for a bit and had several inebriated Conchs tell us how silly we are to quit our cruise. It was entertaining.

On the other side of Tim is a young couple in a pretty Oday sailboat. They are both pilots for a local airline, so the $1000/month slip fees (which include utilities) probably don't make much of a dent. Their snazzy new 350Z sits in the parking lot between flights.

My favorite marina resident is 11-month-old Judah. He lives with his parents in a somewhat rundown but huge houseboat -- probably 1500 square feet of living space in there. He is as enchanted with our rats as I am with him and squeals with delight when we bring them out to visit. Mezza and Snowball are less entertained.

On the next dock over live a couple of guys in their 40's who are trying to break into the music scene. They had their first gig this past weekend. One of them looks amazingly like Frank. The other is a big black guy who wears dark shades at all times and has wonderful rasta dreads.

I love nighttime here. Warm air, sweet breezes, stars and moon, and a quirky shabby-but-ready-for-anything atmosphere. Frank and I agree that we wouldn't want to live here -- guess we like a little less Conch and a little more yup -- but it's an intriguing place.

KQR

What comes next

After much agonizing and discussion and a few tears, we have decided to conclude our cruise here in Key West. The girls -- Marjie especially -- are done, with the captain nearly as reluctant as they are to continue. That leaves yours truly as the only one hoping for a little more tropical time. My "I'm sure it will be better now" reassurances carry no weight whatsoever anymore; I've offered them too many times now when they turned out not to be true.

I know there will be some among you who can't believe we're bagging it NOW, when hurricane season is finally over (or should be) and we've got the whole Keys island chain stretched out before us. We understand how backwards it is; Chloe says it's like agreeing to do the dishes in exchange for $5, then declining the $5 after the dishes are done. But we all agree that continuing because we "should" is not what this cruise was supposed to be about, and the simple fact is that all the running and recovering from hurricanes has significantly depleted our cruising budget.

So. We're taking care of practicalities now, and trying to enjoy a little island time, Key West style, in the meantime. We met with a broker yesterday and felt pretty good about what she told us about the market here and the price we should be able to get for the ZP. The downside is that moorage space is at a premium, both in terms of price and availability. We're chasing down a lead on a dry spot at a boat yard. If we get in there quickly, we'll be cruising west (over land) by next week.

KQR

Some family notes

Please join us in wishing nephew Jerry (Judy's son) a safe deployment shipboard. Also, send lots of hugs to Cori to help her get through this lonely time. We love you both!

If you can catch a Michigan game, watch for niece Katie (Chuck's daughter) in the cheerleading squad. She's terrific!

KQR

Not quite a Fantasy Halloween

With the girls in make-do costumes, we toured the island yesterday looking for a neighborhood where we'd be comfortable trick-or-treating. Unfortunately, KW is looking a lot like Slidell did, with houses gutted into piles on the streets. Would you let your kid beg candy at a home where they've lost most of their belongings? No.

Needing an alternate plan, we pulled into a drugstore and bought some bags of candy ourselves. Then we headed for Duvall Street and handed it out to the kids we encountered. This is probably the quietest Halloween Duvall Street has seen in 40 years. They've postponed Fantasy Fest (KW's Mardi Gras) until early December, so there weren't many people down there. We did see a few wild costumes and the usual weird mix of people that seems to be standard for Key West (degenerates, yuppies, retirees, very few families, very few minorities). Clothing is optional during Fantasy Fest, but the only thing we saw of the (in)famous body-painted Conchs was very impressive photos in a shop window.

Handing out candy was fun, though. The kids we gave to positively lit up. It wasn't much of a Halloween for them either, I think.

After our tour of Duvall, we bought key lime sherbet (ice cream in Frank's case) at a little shop and sat outside in shirtsleeves enjoying that. It was a very pleasant evening. The rain didn't start until we got back to the boat, and the BOY did it rain. Hard drumming all night long. We had to get up a few times to deal with leaks and clean out the Wilma rubbish in the cockpit drains because it started to fill.

This morning, the town is drowned again. We had to negotiate several lakes to make it to the Internet cafe.

We are pretty tired of all this, and we're contemplating going home. More on that later after we've talked it out.

KQR

All is well

Boat is ok, more scrapes but afloat. KW is shaken, some flood damage, but 80% functional. We'll spend H'ween here.

Plans made

We reached the marina by phone today. The ZP is not on their "Sunk" list, so it looks like she made it through another one. They have power there. We've decided to drive back down on Saturday, hoping that will allow time for a few more gas stations to get back on line between here and there.

In the meantime, we've been doing Disney. On Tuesday, the girls and I went to Epcot. They are having a food and wine festival this month, so we ate our way through the World Showcase. We had tasty tidbits from Greece, France, Turkey, Ireland, China, Norway, and Japan while enjoying a variety of musical acts. My favorite was Off Kilter, a kilted Canadian group featuring bagpipe and electric guitar. They were very fun, doing a mean Whiskey in the Jar, Johnny B. Good, and (of course) Amazing Grace. The Taiko drummers in Japan ran a very close second.

Yesterday, Marjie and Chloe stretched their wings a bit and went to Magic Kingdom on their own. They had a BLAST. I remember going to Disneyland alone with my sister, so it felt like a traditional rite of passage for them.

Much of today was taken up with a trek to the doctor's office and pharmacy. I've been having asthma trouble, so it was time to go back on the "control" medication. I'm not sure if it's close proximity to the rats or a new selection of pollen. I tend to suspect the latter, since I breathe just fine when we're out at sea.

We all have mixed feelings about returning to the boat. We're all a little homesick and discouraged. But Halloween is a rockin' time in Key West, and then simple Keys cruising awaits. We'll see if we can't get this adventure back on track.

KQR

Making plans

Despite tornado warnings a couple of counties over, Wilma was no big deal here. We got a lot of rain -- the hotel pool overflowed a little -- and the winds blew steady at about 35 mph for several hours, but we never lost power and certainly never felt endangered. The theme parks reopened in the afternoon ('though we found out too late to take advantage), and we were able to have a pizza delivered this evening.

Our plan is to visit the Magic Kingdom tomorrow, and then head back to Key West on Wednesday. That depends on the Keys highway being reopened by then. If it isn't, well, we'll get to visit Epcot, too.

I had written up the highlights of our visit to Disney-MGM Studios, but the computer hates me today and I lost it. When I quit being frustrated, I might try again. Short version is: We loved the Beauty and the Beast show, we loved the giant fish puppets in the "Under the Sea" part of the Little Mermaid show, and Marjie and I got happily scared to death on the Aerosmith Rock'n'Roller Coaster (Chloe sat that one out with the 8yo daughter of the family in front of us in line). The rains hit in time to cancel the laser show at the end of the day, but nature substituted thunder and lightning. Marjie didn't have a raincoat, so she got totally drenched, but she got a new shirt and a Mickey rain poncho out of the deal.

KQR

The rains arrive

Had a fun day at MGM, didn't get soaked til eve. when fringes of Wilma arrived in style. Parks closed Monday.

Waiting and moving

Wilma's slow pace is costing us too much in marina fees, rental car days, and motel nights. When all is said and done, we'll have gone through more than a month's worth of cruising budget in order to spend this week on land. And I know we've been making the best decisions we could with the information that was available at each decision point, but it's pretty frustrating that we could have had another day or two in the Tortugas or Key West.

Frank has a cold. Too many germs on land.

Anyway, now that we've had a couple of days of veg'ing out in front of the TV, we're moving again. The Motel 6 up in Orlando is our next destination, being both cheaper and less in the line of fire (we hope). If the rains aren't too bad -- and so far they haven't been -- we might even hit Walt Disney World. The girls just have to agree on which park to visit.

KQR

West Palm Beach Motel 6

We had a very uneventful evacuation drive today. We got up early to avoid traffic, expecting it to be like our 13-hour 5 mph drive out of New Orleans. Instead, thanks to Wilma's slowing down out there and the resultant push-back of the mandatory Keys evacuation, we had clear roads and (ahem) easy sailing. We got up to Lantana (just south of West Palm Beach) before noon. We have reservations here at the Motel 6 through Monday, so we're all set. Depending on what Wilma does, we may end up heading south again before then!

Yesterday was a busy day. We got into Key West in the morning and, after getting turned away from one marina (scary moment), found a spot at the Municipal Marina at Garrison Bight. That's on the north side of the island, with Lemming Key stretched out to the west, so we hope we've found the best protection we can from the nasty southeast winds that come from being in the "bad" quadrant of the storm. The marina also has floating docks, a nice plus for riding out storm surge.

After a phone call to the concerned rangers at Dry Tortugas National Park to let them know we made it, I made a lot of phone calls trying to find a rental car. We did not want to become dependent on government services to get out of town, so it was with great relief that I took the last car Enterprise had to offer. After that, we could "relax" into prepping the boat for a hurricane. That we have down to something of a routine, unfortunately. We strapped down and stowed everything loose, packed up a trunkful of possessions we'd rather not lose if the worst happens, and then took a few minutes to enjoy the famous Key West sunset (made truly spectacular by an advancing squall) and drive down to Duval Street (KW's mini-Bourbon Street). It wasn't enough sightseeing at all, but we took what we could get.

As for today, we spent the afternoon watching HBO in the air conditioning. I guess there are worse things.

KQR

And about the Dry Tortugas

Here's a belated trip report about Dry Tortugas National Park.

The 20-hour passage from Naples was distressingly familiar. The girls and I were sick again, so Frank ended up doing most of it alone, poor guy. We made good time, though, due to some very fresh winds. We arrived at dawn at the first of the ring of lights that mark the shallow waters of the mini-archipelago. From there, it's a connect-the-dots cruise to the channel that leads to the keys within.

The main island is Garden Key, home of Fort Jefferson. The fort is a very interesting place, constructed in the 1800's for its strategic position out in the middle of the Gulf. It also did time (pun intended) as a prison, with its most famous prisoner Dr. Samuel Mudd and several other men convicted of complicity in Lincoln's assassination. (It was there that Mudd earned his pardon; he took over as post doctor after a yellow fever outbreak killed the regular doc and worked with great dedication.) Engineering and water-supply difficulties abounded, and, combined with disease and a big hurricane, led to the fort's being abandoned without ever being completed.

Nowadays, it's a fun place to explore, with three stories of pentagonal structure to wander through. (See photos at http://www.nps.gov/drto/.) It has a moat, and the sea creatures are making fine use of both sides of the wall as a handy reef. It was really wonderful to get in the water finally. Chloe and I did the most snorkeling and saw a nice variety of flashy fish and corals, but Marjie got quite close to a big barracuda under the pier. They are pretty creepy to encounter, what with the way they just hang there watching you, and she cracked me up with the less than ladylike exclamation that escaped lips and snorkel.

There were several boats in the anchorage when we arrived, a couple of sailboats and a variety of fishing boats, but there was far less tour-boat traffic than we'd been led to expect. A seaplane or two came out once or twice a day, and a couple of big catamarans (the powerboat kind) came every day from 11 to 2. It was fun to watch the traffic - especially the seaplanes - and we ended up having a really fun chat with a Scottish man and his two teenaged sons. We also made the acquaintance of the folks aboard the Delfina 2, a Catalina 38 that we first saw in Naples. They kept trying to leave but a persistent overheating problem kept bringing them back. We could relate!

Wilma soon became the dominant topic of conversation among visitors and staff. We had one day - ONE DAY - where we felt really relaxed, thinking she was heading straight north to Texas or (gulp) Louisiana. That didn't last long. Tuesday morning's trip to the dock to see the latest tracking maps revealed the updated forecast path, with the Tortugas in the crosshairs.

We made plans to depart Wednesday, taking the trip to Key West in two hops, with an overnight stop at the Marquesas preserve. A visit and strong recommendation from the ranger scotched that plan, and we ended up hustling to get ready and leave Tuesday afternoon with Delfina. With only about a quarter of all we wanted to do in the Dry Tortugas done, we headed out together, to discover the upsides and downsides of making passage with another boat. Delfina has fancier navigational equipment than the ZP, so they took the lead. That was comforting, and the company was nice. But they also had a questionable engine and less fuel than us, so we ended up following as they tacked their way east (upwind). Plus, we're slower than they are (partially on purpose, with sails reefed in to keep the boat level enough to avoid scaring the krewe), which must have been irritating for them.

After a very rolly start, the seas and winds leveled out. About midnight, with everybody obviously safe, we parted ways with Delfina and motored on in to Key West (while they kept sailing). Miracle moment of the night: Keeping to Frank's excellent course, I not only motored directly to an unlighted channel marker a few miles from Key West, I didn't hit the damned thing even though I didn't see it til I was right on top of it.

Fortune favors the foolish.

I do love nighttime sailing, though, when the seas are calm and the skies are clear. It was full moon time for this one, playing peek-a-boo in enchanting fashion through banks of drifting clouds. And after doing it twice, I think dawn is my favorite time to come into port. You can see all the channel markers really well in the dark - the lighted ones anyway ;-) - and then the sun comes up in time to help you find your anchorage or marina. I've seen much more of sunrise than I'm accustomed to these past weeks. :-)

KQR

ZP 'safe' Key West

Easy overnighter to KW marina gives us time to evac by land if needed. More later when I find Internet cafe.

Passage notes

Good morning! Sorry for the delay in posting; Internet access here at the Naples City Dock is a pain, and I suppose I’ve been on strike, preferring resting and doing nothing to taking care of business. Nevertheless, I have put together some notes and stories about our passage from Gulfport to Naples. In fact, I spent quite a bit of time during the passage mentally composing my blog entries about the experience. (During the first day, I decided the title would be This Had Better Be Worth It. Things improved after that, and I’ve had a couple of days of recovery in Naples, so that doesn’t seem quite necessary any more.) Given 5 very long days to think about it -- and given my intense need for distraction during that time -- I composed quite a lot! The notes that follow are the highlights of those mental ramblings and should paint you a picture of life as a deep-water sailor. Enjoy!

First, last, and always foremost
Frank is my hero. With his entire crew incapacitated much of the time, he bore a heavy burden indeed. His watches were longer, his rest periods were busier, and his responsibility for getting us all back to shore safely was huge. He never faltered and he never complained. I was already pretty fond of him before this trip ;-), but my admiration for him now knows no bounds.

The days have character
A lot of things about the trip are already blurring together, but less so than I might have thought. I think this is because the 5 days we spent at sea were surprisingly distinct, as these next few sections will show.

Thursday – Day 1 – Rainy, chilly seasickness hell
The big weather system that we had hoped we would be tucking in behind was still very much in residence in the Gulf. We rocked and rolled and took in most of our sails and still did better than 5 knots in the right direction. The girls and I were so sick, from the outset, and even iron-stomach Frank succumbed eventually. We were somewhat underprepared for the cold, so we were terribly uncomfortable outside. Plus, everything below decks that we hadn’t stowed properly and a good bit that we thought we had ended up tossed every which way. The ensuing mess meant the inside wasn’t terribly comfortable either. We got through this day not so much with grit and determination as by the simple fact that we had no choice but to do so. In the Captain’s Log, Frank described this day as “Survival conditions,” and I’m afraid it was no exaggeration.

Friday – Day 2 – A little less rainy, a little less chilly seasickness hell
Signs that the weather system was moving away were the only thing that kept us going. Land was no longer in sight when dawn broke, and the water was a deep, pure blue. We were literally surrounded by storm clouds, but our regular drenchings fell into the category of showers rather than squalls. I got out the silver emergency blankets and we used those to line our rain gear. It helped the warmth situation immensely and left me kicking myself for not thinking of them sooner. The entire cockpit and good portions of our bodies were soon tinted silver, since that silver stuff rubs off of cheap space blankets, but it was well worth it. Our seasickness continued unabated. Not wanting to be too graphic, I will just say that I did all right while I was driving, but once relieved of that duty, I would “make a stop” on the way to the companionway, go below to strip out of my rain gear and make a stop in the galley, walk the ten feet forward to the head to make a stop there, and then collapse into my bunk. Most unpleasant.

Saturday – Day 3 – Twilight at the end of the tunnel
Oh, the relief as the seas calmed down! People tell me that the third day is always when things start to get better, but we’ll never know, because the conditions were so markedly improved by our third day. We all managed to eat a very little bit and – most importantly – to start taking in fluids. The skies were thick and gray, so that we couldn’t tell 11 a.m. from 4 p.m. Twilight all day. That suited Chloe just fine, since she stayed below all day. She’d found a spot – lying crosswise on one of the dinette benches – where she didn’t feel sick. She read and slept all day and began caring for our poor, neglected, storm-tossed rats. (Their water bottle went flying on the first day, and I was worried about them but beyond helping them. They owe their little lives to Chloe.) Marjie, meanwhile, stayed in the cockpit most of the time and was still one miserable kid. I had to bully her into taking small sips of water. By the end of the day, when she ate half a slice of bread with jelly, she and we began to know she would be all right. So, things improved. But there was still a fair amount of tedium, and I’m sure you can imagine our dismay when we realized we’d need a fifth day to get there.

Sunday – Day 4 – This isn’t so bad
With the weather turning ever more pleasant – warm but with enough overcast to keep us from broiling – we got a glimpse of what the passage would have been like if not for the bad weather. The sea was actually CALM, and we had Singular Experiences (see below). Chloe came abovedecks and Marjie actually sat up. We’d gone 24 hours without “feeding the fish.” As night fell, we could see the glow from Tampa, and it was comforting to know that we could end our passage at any time simply by heading due east.

Monday – Day 5 – Nature’s last laugh
It was a beautiful day. The sun was out, the seas were calm, and we were almost there. Unfortunately, our Conservative Navigation (see below) and a shift in the wind meant that we had to take a power-boaters-don’t-have-this-problem jog back out to sea to get around the headland at Fort Myers. How depressing to spend hours going in the wrong direction!! Okay, okay, we were still headed south, but – with the way the Florida coast curves to the southeast – we were heading AWAY from land. Ugh. We did that until I simply couldn’t stand it any more, then took aim at Naples. We were running downwind now, with a stiff breeze and waves pushing us east, so our speed was about 8 knots. Cruising, indeed! But the wave action wasn’t pleasant and driving the boat as it surfed took a lot of energy and attention from our sleep-starved selves. I managed to broach the boat once, fortunately with no harm done except to re-trash the interior that Frank had recently tidied. By nightfall, the clouds rolled in again, and we had to dig out the raingear. (Our raingear being rather icky with sweat and saltwater by now, this wasn’t thrilling.) I felt totally disoriented. My tired brain was not quite able to simultaneously reconcile that (1) though the land and lights were on our left with a big empty nothing in front of us, we were going the right way, and (2) though the coastline was in sight and curved around to be directly in front of us, we were in no danger of hitting it. I spent a few hours alternating nonsensical worries that we were off heading out to sea with even more nonsensical worries that land was about to jump out and bite us. To cap things off, the wind shifted again to come straight at our noses. There was NO WAY we were going to do the purist sailor thing and do a bunch of tacking and jibing to come into Naples under sail. We fired up the diesel and motored the last 3 hours, anchoring about midnight off the Naples beach, in the rain, just outside the channel that leads to the Naples boat basin.

Singular experiences: Dolphins!
On the fourth day, there were dolphins. Oh, my, how there were dolphins! We were cruising along, feeling mostly human again by now if a bit bored, when there was a sudden commotion alongside the boat. A pod of dolphins arrived with much speed and fanfare and began frolicking around us. There were at least 30 of them, in a wondrous variety of sizes and colors. The girls ran forward to see them better, while I enjoyed all the slicing fins and splashing breaths from the wheel until our cries of excitement woke Frank. Then he and I took turns driving and going forward to watch their show at the bow. That was definitely the best viewpoint: seeing those sleek forms zip and dive and dash as they played with our boat was amazing and glorious. There were several babies in the pod, with one little guy no more than a foot and half long joining his elders at the bow. Fabulous sight. We cruised along together for probably half an hour, til even the teenager dolphins had enough hot-rodding and the pod moved off.

Singular experiences: Merry and Pippin
During a rainstorm in the fourth day, a significantly bedraggled little brown bird arrived on our boat. Shellshocked and shy, she at first huddled on the bow pulpit looking distinctly pitiful. We left her alone to rest – we were at least 100 miles from shore!! – and by morning, she was hopping around deck like she owned the place. Alone with her for the moment, I started calling her Pippin. As the sky lightened and my family began to stir belowdecks, she got increasingly brave, til the moment came when she perched on the companionway, eyeballed the interior with visible curiosity, and then flew right on in. Marjie and Chloe were thrilled.

Not long after this, Merry arrived. He plopped down out of nowhere to perch on a coiled line hanging next to the companionway. I called out to the girls to let them know we now had two birds, and Chloe cautiously stuck her head out to have a look. He was too tired to be perturbed, so she slowly reached out a hand toward him. He let her pet him! A few minutes later, she had him perched on her hand, and a few minutes after that, he was sitting on my shoulder while I drove the boat, listening with great curiosity to my whistling.

Interactions with these little friends dominated the rest of the trip. Pippin nibbled on some spilled rat food and whatever tasty tidbits she was finding on deck during her constant patrols. Merry wouldn’t eat anything, but he grew increasingly comfortable with us, and even seemed to seek out our company. At one point, he discovered a conveniently concave little spot in Frank’s discarded rain jacket and burrowed and nestled in there with evident great pleasure.

As we neared the end of our trip, you will recall that things got a little hectic. I did my daring 360 in the sailboat, we had yet another rain squall, we took down the sails and started motoring, etc. Somewhere in there, Merry took his leave. We were only about 10 miles from shore, so we have every hope that he is now happily munching food from some backyard feeder, but we *really* wish he had stayed with us all the way to Naples so we could be sure.

Pippin did just that, though. After we dropped anchor and made our way below to collapse utterly, I found her sitting in the open window in the head. I wished her a good night and went to bed. When we awoke the next morning, she was gone.

Points of reference
When you’re out in deep water, you don’t have land masses, radio towers, buoys, and the like to use as points of reference while steering the boat. Staring at the compass or wind indicators for hours is not exciting and, for me, not conducive to good steering or a calm stomach. Here are some things I used to help me stay on course:

• Sail shape and sounds (sails make unpleasant noises when you’re not steering right)


• Wind direction


• Wave direction


• Oil rigs (first night only)


• Stars (when we could see them)


• The new moon (when we could see it)


• Cloud shapes (unless they were moving)


• City glow (last two nights only)

Here are some things that did *not* help me stay on course:

• Other boats that I’d mistaken for stationary objects


• Gut instinct

Conservative navigation
One principle of upwind sailing is that you should sail “tight to the wind,” meaning you point the nose of the boat as much into the face of the wind as possible. This is because no boat can sail directly upwind and some boats are, in fact, really bad at sailing anywhere close to that. If you get as close to it as possible, you will be free later to “fall off the wind” – sail so the wind is coming comfortably over the side of the boat – and point directly at your destination.

Well, for two days of survival-conditions sailing and without consulting each other about it, Frank and I both endeavored to sail a bit tighter to the wind – in this case, more east than south – than our course required. We had these huge southerly swells that we just *knew* had to be pushing us south, and one just never knows what the wind is going to do later on in the trip. Thus confident that we weren’t going to miss Florida entirely and with other more pressing priorities on our minds (surviving), we didn’t check our relative position on the chart until the third day. We realized then how far east we’d come and how much south we needed to go. That’s about when the wind changed and “falling off” was no longer possible. Instead, we had to sail downwind, and we couldn’t point as southerly as we wanted to without a bunch of maneuvering that we didn’t have the energy for.

The result of all this was that we “came out” near Tampa instead of near Naples. Not the end of the world, but it probably added twelve hours to our passage.

Sleeping at sea
Reading between the lines, you may have figured out that Frank and I didn’t require Marjie and Chloe to stand watches. They were both too sick initially, and then Frank and I were in a groove and just happy to have them pretty much taking care of themselves. So all steering on the passage was done by the adults. Since the longest either of us took the wheel was about four hours, you can see that Frank and I got our sleep for those five days in small doses. I discovered a variety of ways a tired, seasick KreweQueen can sleep under those conditions.

While on watch:

• Slumped over the wheel


• Sitting upright at the wheel


• Standing at the wheel


• In any position, with eyes wide open

Note: These are not as dangerous as they sound. The sails make those aforementioned unpleasant noises and wake you up if you start to drift off course.

While not on watch:

• Curled up on the stern seat next to the captain


• Curled up on the low-side cockpit seat


• Curled up on the floor of the cockpit


• Stretched out on the floor of the main cabin


• Curled up crosswise on the slightly damp sheets of the very noisy forward cabin


• Stretched out on the side deck


• In the rain


• In the sun


• With blankets


• Without blankets

The 110-degree diet
We had a small lunch as we left Gulfport. That was about it for food for nearly three days. Then we had some very small, bland meals here and there as we finished out the passage. There's no scale onboard, of course, so I can only guess at how much weight I lost. Let's just say that, while I wouldn't wish the 110-degree diet on an enemy, I am quite pleased with the results!

Technical notes
Days 1 and 2 – As we left Gulfport, the wind and waves increased. We gradually took in sail until we were running with only the jib sail, and even that was furled to about 50 or 60 percent. We held a rough heading of about 110 in a close reach and did about 5 knots steady.

Day 3 – The wind had eased up considerably, but we were all SO tired that we didn’t add any sail back on, being quite sure that would be Mother Nature’s signal to kick us in the head. Besides, we were still making about 4 knots. By end of day, the wind shifted so we were running downwind.

Day 4 – Returned to full sail. *Tried* to hold a heading of 125 or so, but it meant a careful balancing act to keep the sails full of wind.

Day 5 – Full sail mostly, with occasional variations in the amount of jib we had out. Standing rigging on this boat keeps us from pushing the boom out enough to run downwind smoothly, so the price for our excellent speeds (8 knots or better) was a whole lot of muscling the wheel around. We jibed out to sea at a heading of ~135 for several hours, then back in to Naples at about 120.

And in conclusion
Naples. City of the rich, evidently. We motored up the channel to the Naples City Dock, flanked by gigantic mansions that inspired thoughts of hurricane vulnerability. But it’s definitely Florida!! Palm trees, lovely beaches, mangrove swamp, and dozens of million-dollar power boats.

I totally impressed myself by piloting the boat into the gas dock like a pro. To my desperation-tinged inquiry about guest facilities, the clerk replied, “Of course!” We filled up, found our slip, and began the recovery process. SHOWERS!!!!

It’s all been rather surreal, but no moment more so than our first shore dinner Tuesday night. Remember all we’d been through, then imagine my near-hysterical, laughter-and-tears reaction when the waiter at the marina restaurant presented us with a basket of bread and said, “And that’s mango butter with honey.” Of course it was. What else could we possibly have on our bread at such a time?!

We’ve spent the last few days doing as little as possible. We have managed to clean the boat, stock up on provisions, and have a little engine adventure involving a bad batch of diesel (the dockmaster apologetically took care of having the bad pumped out and we’ll fill up with a complimentary tankful today). We also had a few meals that we didn’t have to prepare and walked around Naples a good bit. A fine little vacation!

What’s next
We leave Naples today for the Dry Tortugas, a small collection of islands at the western end of the Keys. They comprise a National Park, complete with a ranger-staffed fort to explore and lots of good snorkeling (finally!!!). About a dozen tour boats come out there daily from Key West, but before and after tour-boat times, we should have the place to ourselves.

Days 2 & 3 of the Florida Crossing

Friday, October 7th: Calmer Seas, 200 Miles est first full 24 hrs. Current position: N29deg 6.35mins; W86deg 45.17mins; About 4:30 PST. Est. speed 7-9 mph, yes, mph.

Saturday, October 8th: Much calmer seas; Queene Ronnie is able to eat; traveling much slower. Pointing 110-120 degrees into the wind. 4:38 PM PST: N28deg 35.59mins; W85deg 12.92mins. 4-5 mph.

Jerry LL: I hope you're plotting this! How many more days do you estimate to Naples, Florida?

Further locations, when they call them in, will be posted as comments on this page. (I hate to mess up her blog.)
She's calling now about 4:30 while it's still light in the Gulf.

Mary, aka Queen Mother

Day 1 Crossing to Florida

Veronica called; big rollers and queazy but all are comfortable. At 6:20 PDT: N2949.5W; W8814.6 Decreasing if we got it right via Sat phone and Frank yelling it up to V. They will call again Day 2, October 7th, about 6 PM PDT.
Mary

Lazy days

Well, we're still at Cat Island. We discovered that none of us was so anxious to do the passage to Florida that we could resist having a few truly relaxed days. We have the island all to ourselves, you see, and the beach is nice, and the breeze is steady, and the stars are gorgeous, and we have dolphins around regularly, and... you get the idea. Our only complaints about this spot are that it's pretty rolly when the wind clocks around from east to northeast, and the water isn't clear. Frank says the Gulf in Louisiana and Mississippi is too muddied by the Mississippi River to be that beautiful blue-green we're all dying to see. But it's still a nice spot, and we've been such a long time getting here.

If Stan proves no threat, we'll spend tomorrow getting shipshape, and then jump off on Thursday. (To give you an idea of how relaxed we are, I had to check the calendar to see what day of the week it is.)

I had a little adventure today. Frank and the girls weren't interested, so I went ashore alone. I had a lovely time exploring the north tip of the island -- went wading, found a suitcase from New Orleans, saw a small ray in the shallows, and walked over to the eastern beach to look out at the wide expanse of water that we'll soon be crossing -- then got back to discover that the dinghy was floating away. (Lesson learned: No matter how far up on the beach you *think* you've pulled the dinghy, you still need to tie it up to something.) After a 100-yard sprint up the beach, I entered the water already tired. Fortunately, the water is about 3 feet deep, even just beyond the ZP's anchor 1/4 mile out, so I could walk when I got tired of swimming. I was still pretty whipped by the time I got up with the wayward Grave Tender. I walked it back to shore, then collapsed in the limited shade of the scrawny pine trees that inhabit the center of the island. Phew! Definitely got my exercise for the day!

Marjie remains diligently at work on her novel. She has more than 300 pages now. As have we all, she's also been working her way through our collection of paperbacks. She very much enjoyed the first 5 Janet Evanovich stories and is currently reading a medical thriller.

Chloe is doing her usual craft projects. She made quite a few Harry Potter-themed items, including badges for her improvement on Hermione's S.P.E.W. club, H.E.L.P. (House Elf Liberation People), and a bunch of sickles and knuts. This evening, she had a somewhat chilly shower in the cockpit, so I bundled her into a big green beach towel. She discovered how to drape it as a toga, so we've been digging out safety pins and talking a lot about Roman lifestyles. She draped her toga-draped self across the boom and said, "Venus on the boom."

As for Cap'n Franko, I think the quiet days are doing him a lot of good. He's been reading and napping and adjusting to the heat and taking care of his queasy wife, but mostly recovering from all the stress of recent weeks. We're all slipping into cruising mode, and it feels really good.

KQR

Cat Island, Mississippi

We made it! An actual cruising destination, sort of! Cat Island, Mississippi. (For Jerry and other GPS fans: N 30 degrees 14.680' by W 89 degrees 04.704'.)

But first, some details about our trip here. Bayou Bonfouca was... UNEVENTFUL!!! Crossing Lake Pontchartrain was fun, breezy, and easy. The only real excitement came in anchoring after dark. New Orleans is pretty devoid of lights right now, with the exception of some big generator-powered halogens they're using while they do repair work at the Lakefront airport. With those hummers as beacons, we zeroed right in on our destination... and almost hit some big pilings that extend out into the lake past the end of the runway. Fortunately, a big tug was there, too, feeling his way with a big spotlight. We tucked in behind him and he led us right to the entrance to the Industrial Canal. We dropped anchor just off the airport, in dead calm conditions, with dolphins as escorts. It was really nice.

Up early the next morning, we scooted in to the Seabrook Bridge, right there at the mouth of the canal. Informed by the railroad bridge operator that we would have to make arrangements to get the roadway bridge opened, we started our round of radio and phone tag. Coast Guard to DOT to a different DOT number to "hang on, I'll call you back." Fortunately, all that tagging led to not only the Seabrook being opened for us, but also the Danziger farther down. The Danziger operator drove out just for little ol' us. Once clear of the Danziger, you can imagine our jubilation with no further obstacles between us and the Gulf.

The Industrial Canal shows heavy hurricane damage. The warehouses there look blasted, with shattered windows, crumpled walls, and twisted frames. And the smell is AWFUL, except for one short stretch that smelled strangely of coffee. We didn't have far to go before making the turn into the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (or Mister GO, as it's known here), which is also the Intracoastal Waterway. We branched off to the Rigolets cut of the ICW, a peaceful motor up what is essentially a bayou. Before we knew it (about six hours later), we reached Lake Borgne, aka the Gulf. WHAM! Big waves, big winds, but still a narrow channel to stay in, keeping company with big barges making their way to and from New Orleans. With the wind coming right over our nose, we had little choice but to keep motoring, so we've made a bigger dent in our diesel supply than we had anticipated. By early evening, we had entered Mississippi Sound (aka the Gulf). The channel markers were a little messed up, thanks to Katrina, but we found our way to Heron Bay where we could anchor with a (very) little shelter from the wind. Fine all day, even out in the big waves, the girls and I got a bit queasy at anchor, rolling around in the bay. Chloe soon adjusted. Marjie and I each took a Dramamine and went to sleep.

This morning, we got up and rejoined the ICW traffic. All the barges were headed to New Orleans today. We saw some more dolphins. The rats coped better with the big waves. And it was a long, slow trip east. About 5, we pulled up to Cat Island. Cat is about 4 miles long, with a 2-mile foot that stretches north to south and provides some protection from the wind and waves. It would be better if we could get closer to the island, but we ran out of depth about 1/4 mile from the beach. Eager to run around a bit, we took the dinghy ashore. There are a couple of wrecked power boats and miles of Katrina debris there, which made for an interesting hour of beach combing. We're going back tomorrow with a knife so we can salvage some rope off a big reel. Other than than, it's a mixed collection of trash, furniture (including several chairs, a TV, a couch, and a computer monitor), and dock and pier pieces (including a door that says "Test Operations"). One of the boats is perhaps salvageable; the interior is fairly intact and there are no holes in the hull. She's out of Mandeville, LA, not far west of Slidell. Hard to imagine her getting carried all this way.

Tentative plan is to stay here all day tomorrow, then start our passage on Tuesday. So if you don't hear from us for a few days, that's why!

Marty home Sunday

See more family news from Judy in Comments on my "Back in Slidell" post from 9/26.

Mississippi Sound

W/bridge operators coming to work just for us, we left LA for open water. Sad rats but girls had fun bow ride.

The lake at last

Believe it or not, we went sailing today! Did ~5 knots upwind. It was GREAT! & dolphins guided us to anchor. :)

We're off!

We are just about ready. New engine parts, new batteries, new groceries, and a burning desire to go and do are with us. Our only land-based task left is parking the van for the winter. Unfortunately, that's a real pain with all the traffic hereabouts. Even so, we'll be under way by mid-afternoon. The plan is to cross the lake today, and then do the Industrial Canal and Intracoastal Waterway out to the Gulf tomorrow. Once there, the sky is the limit!

The whole Rita story

So there we were, finally on our way. Getting out of the marina was tricky, due to sunken boats and random lines strung across the bayou where boats had floated from one side to the other during Katrina. We bent one safety stanchion a bit, but we made it. Frank contacted the Bayou Bonfouca bridge operator on the radio, and - much to the girls' excitement - the bridge swung open so we could pass.

Motoring down the bayou was a strange mix of excitement and sadness. We saw a number of sunken barges and other boats, and the homes along the channel are in pretty bad shape. We saw the "usual" downed trees and crunched roofs but also extensive evidence of flood damage, with reeds and mud lines as much as 12 feet above the usual waterline. Numerous little floating islands of grass were everywhere, so we inched our way along, never quite sure if one of them might turn out to be a genuine shallow spot in the bayou.

We hadn't gone very far at all when the engine-temperature alarm began to sound. Our initial hope that it was a short in the alarm itself died quickly, so we picked a wide spot in the bayou and dropped the anchor. As I've said previously, it was at least a lovely spot.

Bayou Bonfouca twists and turns its way out to Lake Pontchartrain, with signs of human habitation dwindling as you get closer to the lake and signs of wildlife increasing proportionally. Fish jump constantly, and a stunning array of birds go about their feathered business. We saw pelicans, egrets, herons, eagles, gulls, and a host of smaller birds, who dove and swooped and fished and rode the (ever increasing) air currents all around us. Smiley the gator was a regular visitor, and that snake once, and we soon came to realize that a goatlike mewling I'd been hearing belonged to a furry creature we occasionally saw swimming around off in the distance. Frank thinks he may have been one of Louisiana's famous Rodents of Unusual Size, the nutria.

Steady breezes and wild neighbors notwithstanding, it didn't take many days before we were all feeling pretty restless. Between post-hurricane pollution and the less friendly residents of the bayou, we didn't dare swim, so rides in the dinghy provided our only real form of recreation. Other than that, we read and wrote and read some more. Normally, "reading and writing and reading some more" would describe my ideal vacation, but we had all been psyched up for a bit more adventure than that.

Then we got it. Rita took aim at the Gulf Coast and left us nervous that she would head right for us while we sat there with a disabled engine. But the part came in, and Frank was able to quickly install the new water pump. Hurray! We ran the engine for a while, just to be sure our problem was solved. About the time we relaxed and quit listening for it, the alarm sounded again. Alas! The air turned blue for a while.

Nevertheless, our engine was at least back together now, so we could use it if we had to, to reset the anchor or even limp back to port.

Meanwhile, Rita was deciding which part of Texas she would clobber. We listened religiously to the updates from the National Weather Center, and they *said* Slidell would only be in the tropical storm watch area (as opposed to the tropical storm warning area west of Lake Pontchartrain). So we stayed put.

The day before landfall, the skies clouded over. Relief! It was almost like being back home in the Pacific Northwest, except for little things like gators and temperatures in the 90s. We enjoyed our respite from hot rays anyway, and we really enjoyed the wind and resultant lack of bugs. That squall blew through, bringing excitement and confidence that Rita would be purely fun.

By about midnight, my confidence was in the toilet. Rita - and the tropical storm warning area - had shifted east, and the winds kept getting stronger. With the storm surge pouring into the lake and bayous, we ended up with wind and waves opposing, causing the Zombie Princess to do this rolling, swinging dance at the end of her anchor lines that did *not* agree with my stomach. With steady winds of ~30 knots and gusts a good bit more than that, I became extremely paranoid about the anchor's holding ability. Every time the boat swung hard - think Crack the Whip - I was compelled to pop my head out a hatch and check our position relative to shore. Add that to my need to listen to the weather report every couple of hours, and you can imagine the quality of my sleep that night.

I counted down the minutes til morning, when I was just SURE things would ease up. Rita would make landfall and everything would stop. Right? Wrong. By afternoon, Rita was approaching Shreveport as a mere tropical storm, but we were still rocking and rolling in 30-knot winds. Remind me never to sit in the southeastern quadrant of a hurricane again, okay? The only bright side was that, by that time, I had begun to believe in our anchor. (Kudos to Cap'n Franko for feeling that the boat's standard anchor wasn't weighty enough and purchasing a larger one!)

I should describe the storm surge, because it was quite impressive. At one edge of the bend in the bayou where we were anchored, there is a tall white pole that probably means something to the boaters around here (and maybe even to Frank, I didn't ask). It became my depth gauge. In normal conditions, about six feet of pole show above the water. By dawn on Saturday, there were about three inches showing. The marshland on both sides of the bayou was drowned, with only a two-foot band of grasses marking the usual banks. The bayou had in effect become one with Lake Pontchartrain.

Oh, the birds loved it! The pelicans, who tend to hang out more toward the lake, came in close to ride the wind and fish just off our stern. I guess the fishing is good after a storm, because they were quite successful. And the gulls seemed to be having a field day in the recently "annexed" marshlands, no doubt finding all sorts of delectable critters that had been flooded out of their homes.

We got very little rain. Well, we got about four inches of rain, but most of that came in a couple of squalls. Used to northwest storms, I had expected the rain to be constant. No complaints that it wasn't!!

I slept better Saturday night, even though the wind hadn't let up at all. Sunday morning, the floodwaters started receding. This left us worried about being left aground - the south winds had lined us up alongside the reemerging bank - so we *gently* fired up the engine and weighed anchor. Weighing anchor in a very strong headwind when you're afraid to push the engine above 1200 RPMs is a tricky proposition! But my muscles were up to the task. I am the KreweQueen, after all.

So, we inched our way back up Bayou Bonfouca, intending to return to our little marina and find a mechanic. We made it about a third of the way when the temperature alarm went off again. In one of those mad scrambles that anyone who has ever been sailing will be able to relate to, Frank killed the engine while I jumped in the dinghy and got it going. The Grave Tender earned her name then, providing power while Frank provided steering aboard the ZP. The girls were dispatched to find a hat and squirt bottle for their suddenly sun-baked mother. And then we had about an hour of put-putting up the bayou.

The wind was significantly less the closer we got to town. I can't regret being away from there during the storm, though. All those signs of flood damage we'd seen on the way out were doubled on the way back in, and I believe there were a few additional sunken boats. I'm glad we were out there away from the crowd and floating debris.

When we got to the Bayou Bonfouca bridge, we discovered that the operator was unable to open it until an electrician came out to certify that the works were still workable after their Rita-dunking. With limited choices, we tied up at the submerged gas dock adjacent to the bridge. The dock and the little store there have been closed since Katrina, but it looked really sad now. The dock itself was under at least two feet of water, and the bayou extended right up to the front door of the store. (It wasn't until the waters receded that I realized the area between dock and store was actually a lawn.) I was nervous about being tied up there, because the owners clearly wouldn't want anyone poking around, but we figured it would be all right due to our disabled engine and as long as we stayed on the boat.

Marjie and I took the dinghy under the bridge, parked it at "our" marina, and then walked across the road to visit the bridge operator. He's a big, bearded guy with stories to tell and a need for company. Katrina had affected him in a somewhat unusual way: his new dentures weren't fitting properly and his dentist wasn't back in business yet. Toothless or not, he was able to help us with a time estimate on the bridge electrician (Monday or Tuesday) and a battered phone book that provided numbers for taxicabs and diesel mechanics. His air-conditioned office was pretty nice, too.

Back on the ZP, we used the satellite phone to call a cab. We rode out to Lacombe to retrieve our van, entertained along the way by the Saints game on the radio and the cab driver's post-hurricane philosophy. He also shared an unwelcome superstition: "These things come in three's, ya know."

We have our van back. I don't know if I can effectively describe the joy that brought us. Trapped in Slidell, bridge not working, engine possibly in need of multi-thousand-dollar repairs, but at least we had our car!!! We are true Americans.

Our first stop was Wendy's. That sounds pathetic, but you might understand when I tell you that the highlight of our meal was cold drinks with ICE CUBES.

After we'd made some pre-arrangements with Country, the caretaker/manager of the boatyard, a bit of grocery shopping rounded out our first day back in Slidell. We bought ice there, too, so we could transfer all of the food from the boat refrigerator into our cooler (which was in the van). That left us battery power for fans and lights and other luxuries, so our night at the gas dock was fairly pleasant.

Monday morning, I resigned myself to the near certainty that we wouldn't get through the bridge that day and resolved to do just whatever I wanted. Top of the list was a shower, and I was about halfway through shaving my legs when our social life kicked in. The owner of the gas dock showed up and in a quite friendly fashion came over to see who we were. Picture me sitting on the stern, razor in hand, wearing my never-worn-in-public bikini, as this smiling stranger strolls up to the boat. Oh, it's funny now, and I can just hear you all laughing at my predicament, but at the time I was disgruntled to say the least.

Meanwhile, noises and test runs from the bridge let us know that the electrician was there. Of course! If I had waited anxiously for him all day, he wouldn't have come until Tuesday.

Five minutes later, just when I'd gotten back to my shower, deluding myself that I now had a modicum of privacy, a guy on a boat across the way got on his PA to tell us unnecessarily that the bridge was working, incidentally informing us that he was much more aware of us than we were of him.

Plans for puttering set aside, we passed through the bridge and returned to the marina. We immediately set out for Covington in truly horrible traffic - an unexpected aftereffect of a major hurricane is that everybody in town in using the same few roads to get to the same few places - to the parts place to purchase a new thermostat. That was our last hope for an inexpensive solution to our overheating problem until a guy there suggested taking a look at the exhaust mixing elbow, explaining that they are often clogged in older engines. To make a long story short, that turned out to be our problem. We had a repair guy out today to get that sucker off. It took him some monster pipe wrenches, a couple of hours, a whole lot of effort, and a couple of badly banged knuckles to do it, so we know calling him was the right thing to do, and boy, was that elbow gunked up. It wasn't a cheap fix exactly, but it was a whole lot less than replacing the head gasket would have been!

So. We have a working engine and very little to do to get ready to leave again. We're aiming for Friday morning. Keep your fingers crossed that Katrina, Rita, and a mixing elbow were the three crises that we had to deal with before we could cruise!

Back in Slidell

With Rita passed, we're back in town figuring out what else is wrong with our engine. But we have a/c again!

Dark & stormy night

Our bayou is a lake this a.m. Wind & waves very intense all night. Scary, but we held. Slowly calming now.

WAHOO!

Fabulous squall came thru. We went on deck in Gore-tex & shorts to let it pound us. Loved it!

One night down

Our 1st Rita night went well. Winds & rain made for cool sleep, and 2 anchors held us well. It was fun!

Marty stays put

Being north and inland, Chuck, Karen, and Marty don't need to evacuate.

Sunrise before the storm

We have steady winds and some bands of clouds moving in this morning as Rita passes below us. They are predicting increased thunderstorms and tides 2 to 4 feet higher than normal (significant in an area where the tidal range is less than 2 feet), and there are small craft advisories along the coast. For us, none of this has much impact, other than bracing to get rained on and possibly having one more day�s delay, but for the residents of low-lying areas, it is a blow that can barely be tolerated right now. Flood waters that only just receded are going to come bounding back in. It will probably only affect areas that get flooding in any storm (like a good bit of Slidell), but I doubt very much that they are ready for it. We�re talking about families, like Judy and Gary, who had just started to get a handle on the mud and muck; it is bound to be very disheartening.

I�ve heard that Houston is evacuating. Poor Marty! He�ll want to come home more than ever, I�m sure. I plan to talk to Chuck and Karen today and will post an update on their plans later.

In other news, Marjie soloed in the dinghy. That little boat is really pretty powerful � we used it to pull a sailboat back into the channel after he ran aground the other day, and it really scoots when you get it up on a plane � so Mom is nervous when the girls go out alone, but they are doing great. Like her sister, Marjie shows much more talent for parking than her mother.

The rats do not like the heat. They�ve become accustomed to getting sprayed down, however. Not that they truly enjoy it. Mezza flattens her ears and looks resigned when we spritz her. We also make sure to get them out in the breeze whenever possible. They enjoy scampering around the cockpit, with Mezza being especially ingenious about getting herself to areas we hadn�t intended for her to explore. She climbs down the cockpit shower hose to get from bench to floor, and she has discovered that she can jump down to the top step leading into the cabin, which pretty much gives her access to the whole boat. The bad part is, rats don�t forget once they�ve learned cool tricks like that, so we�ll have to watch her most carefully.

Frank will make a run up the bayou in the dinghy today to pick up our new water pump. It shouldn�t be difficult to install (famous last words, spoken by the one who doesn�t know engines), so we should be completely mobile again by end of day.

KQR

Parts on the way

Our engine will be ready to give us options for dealing with Rita. I hope to run, not hide. I'm anxious to GO!

Shakedown

Our little shakedown cruise down Bayou Bonfouca has been valuable in many ways.

For one thing, it has been a psychological relief to get away from the destruction in Slidell. Remember, there were sunken boats beside, behind, and in front of us, with unhappy owners arriving daily to survey the damage. And even when we managed to be philosophical about these sunken dreams, figuring the owners have other resources elsewhere, our daily trips into town made us pretty sad. Our little landmarks were hit hard: Captain Humble’s (the little po’ boy place I raved about); West Marine; the Winn Dixie where we bought our provisions; the ancient, creaky swing bridge at Bayou Liberty; and even the Shell station where we’d been buying our gas. I didn’t realize it was getting to me until we motored away.

Then there’s the engine trouble. As depressing as it’s been to have it happen at all – and ironic, since Frank has replacement parts for the *other* water pump but not for this one – it’s fabulous, amazing, really lucky that it happened here. The resources in Slidell are limited right now, but they’re still better and much cheaper than what we would/will have in the Turks.

We’re also discovering our boat’s little quirks and some tricks and schemes for living comfortably aboard her. The biggie is that it takes more than 4 hours per day of generator time to keep the batteries charged. (It seems like they may be a casualty of Katrina, killed off by going so very dead during the storm.) That being noisy and inconvenient and requiring comfort compromises we’re not willing to make long term, we’ll be investing in a couple of new ones once we reach Florida. Ouch.

But we’ve got our sun awning all rigged. The bimini is on the small side, so we’ve augmented it with a big tarp over the boom and a homemade side panel that I’m kind of proud of. We bought a length of vinyl tablecloth material at a fabric store in Houston, and I rigged the edges of both it and the sides of the bimini with self-adhesive Velcro strips. Now we’ve got a side panel that can be attached to either side of the bimini. And it’s has festive stripes to boot!

Unfortunately, no shade is enough shade on a boat in the tropics. I stayed under the awning for most of the day yesterday and still ended up a little bit pink. Of course, I was a lot less covered up than I usually am. My already nicely browned daughters, who don’t share their mother’s pathological avoidance of bikinis, didn’t burn at all.

I fired up the new barbecue last night. It cooks really nicely, and it was nice to sit down to some real food. As previously mentioned, Smiley-the-gator enjoyed our barbecued chicken, too.

The cockpit shower and cockpit table are two of our best loved additions to the boat.

We didn’t buy enough bungee cords. I thought the two dozen or so I did buy would be plenty, but they are useful for too many purposes. We’re using them on the awning; to hang the rat cage; to hang our headlamps and other daily use items from the cabin grab rails; to hang the trash sack; to hang mosquito netting over the cockpit at night; to secure SCUBA tanks, gas tanks, water containers, and laz lids; etc. We’re rotating cords right now, so these are at the top of my new Slidell shopping list.

Something else we didn’t buy enough of is bottled drinking water. Despite official assurances to the contrary, we’re a little hesitant to drink the water we took on in Slidell after Katrina. It’s fine for everything else, of course, and can be boiled for drinking if needs be, but I prefer the bottled stuff for now. That is disappearing quickly, raising the paradox that it’s really great that we’re drinking so much – no kidney stones are allowed on this boat – but it would be nice if the supplies could be stretched.

I brought too much bedding. I only brought light blankets, but – with air conditioning a thing of the past – I don’t think we’ll use them at all. Ever. So far, the only time we’ve been remotely cold is when we stood on deck in bathing suits during a rain squall.

Marjie and Chloe are going to be great cruisers. The book that Marjie is writing – the one she started on our roadtrip in Spring of 2004 – now fills 210 numbered notebook pages. I have still not been allowed to read this book, but Chloe loves, *loves*, LOVES it. They find a quiet corner away from curious adult ears, and Marjie reads her latest installment to Chloe. We don’t hear much of the story, but we hear Chloe’s peals of laughter and clamoring for more.

Marjie has also been working in some movie time. She loves it when the generator is running. :-) She got some movies for her birthday and, with some careful laptop-power management, was able to watch two of them yesterday: Pitch Black and The Fellowship of the Ring. Kind of fun to have Riddick and Frodo and Aragorn and Legolas along on our cruise.

Chloe has taken a real shine to fishing. So far, she hasn’t caught anything except bayou plants, but she enjoys it anyway – with classic Chloe running commentary – and has a fine hand for casting. She is still our nightowl. She was up late enough night before last to wake us up at dawn yesterday, clomping around on deck with her fishing pole. So she spent part of yesterday asleep in the cockpit.

She is also reading some of the Harry Potter books again. She asked for her own paperback copies of a couple of them, and she is reading through them, scribbling notes and sketching in the margins. Knowing Chloe, she’ll have all the mysteries solved before the last book comes out.

As for Frank and me, we spent yesterday calming down. We’ve been running at high rev for weeks. It was nice to read, doze, and putter our way through an entire day. Oh, yes, and to write blog entries for our faithful readers.

Speaking of which…

FAMILY UPDATES
Cellphone service continues to be very spotty in the greater New Orleans area. It was easier to get updates from everybody when we were in Houston! But here’s what I know:

Marty is fine in Houston. No word yet on when St. Francis will reopen.

Chrissy is working in Baton Rouge. I believe she has an electrician lined up, so she’ll have power at her house shortly.

Judy and Gary have power at their house, but the air conditioner was flooded, so they’re relying on ceiling fans (not a big help) while they do their cleanup. The task ahead of them is daunting, but they’ll tackle it in small doses.

Lori and Bobby are looking for a trailer or RV to live in, because there are no rentals available and the house they were renting is not livable. Lori is back at work, though, and they have shelter with Bobby’s mom for as long as they need it.

Brian is doing well in North Carolina. The school is bending over backwards to help this “poor homeless boy” settle in, Jerry’s CO had a spare twin mattress to loan them, and Ophelia – Brian’s second hurricane in less than a month!! – didn’t trouble them much. Lori thinks the hurricanes are following her son. I sure hope not!

I haven’t heard anything about Paul for a few days, so this may be out of date, but… He was planning to take advantage of the huge demand for strong backs and get some work shoveling debris or cutting up trees. I don’t think he’s living at Chris’ yet with no power there, so he may be staying with his paternal grandparents in Destrehan.

MONDAY UPDATES
We’re having trouble getting in touch with the parts people. (sigh) We’ll try again tomorrow.

Last night, we had a little snake come out and check out our waterline. Although Chloe and I were in the dinghy at the time, we didn’t attempt to get closer in order to identify him. Tonight, Smiley came back for seconds. A raccoon came to the water’s edge while he was here, but he scampered away before Smiley could finish stalking him. I was worried there for a minute that we were going to get a Wild Kingdom episode right before our eyes.

Chloe soloed in the dinghy today. She “parks” better than I do. Marjie’s turn tomorrow.

The wind died. Hot night, hotter day, and the lovebugs found us, in force. They don’t bite or anything, but they are really annoying anyway.

We’re watching Phillipe and Rita.

KQR

Water pump woes

It's always something. At least we can order by phone and hang out here in a pretty spot til parts arrive.

Smiley visits

Had dinner with a baby gator tonight. We call him Smiley. Unsurprisingly, he likes chicken but not bagels. ;-)

Post-Katrina Slidell

Only now that the residents and business people of Slidell are returning is the devastation wrought by Katrina really coming clear. Every street – and I do mean *every* street – in town is lined with heaps of soaked, mildewed furniture and belongings; piles of ruined siding, drywall, and insulation; and the occasional boat or car. For every business that has reopened, there are two dozen that may never open again. And on the principal roadways, relief stations and donation drops do a booming business, with people of all income levels lined up for blocks for free meals, water, and clothing.

We drove out Highway 11 toward Lake Pontchartrain and toured the part of town that was hardest hit. The storm surge exceeded 10 feet there, so just about every building is trashed. We saw fishing camps (inexpensive frame houses on stilts) that were lifted off their foundations and deposited on the other side of the highway. Boats rest in trees. Cars lie crossways on roadways and in ditches. A U-Haul truck perches on a levy. And million-dollar homes are gutted, their insurance claim numbers marked in bright spray paint on their facades. Some areas, including the Oak Harbor marina where some of Frank’s Internet sailing buddies are (were) moored, have police barricades or guards posted to keep looters and tourists like us away. (There are a lot of people here with cameras and curiosity.)

As for the looting, the atmosphere in town is calm compared to New Orleans, but people are still edgy. Local medical clinics offer free services but point out on large, hand-lettered signs that they have no narcotics. Other signs warn that “Looters will be shot and prosecuted” – evidently in that order. My favorite says “Loota’s will be shot! No traespass!” (sic)

On the bright side, helpfulness and camaraderie abound. Strangers chat and sympathize in long lines at recently reopened grocery stores, and inconveniences are taken with smiles and “what are you gonna do?” shrugs. Local businesses are doing what they can to help, both in the simple, normalcy-restoring fact that they are open and by selling for very reasonable prices. Domino’s is offering only two kinds of pizza – cheese and pepperoni – but it’s a popular dinner location anyway, and it is efficient that way! You stand in line, pay, and walk out with your pizza in less than five minutes. Baskin Robbins is *very* popular – lines out the door – despite being a few miles from the part of town where most of the open businesses are concentrated. Gasoline prices here are 20 cents per gallon less than we paid in Texas (although you don’t always have a choice of grades). Grocery store prices are low, too, and clerks are patient with customers using unfamiliar relief debit cards.

I think the only people getting rich off this are the tree services and electricians, especially those who’ve come to town from parts unknown to do business from their RVs. Oh – and the drive-through daiquiri stands are all back in business and doing very well.

Here in the boatyard, there is progress on all fronts. They brought in a big crane yesterday and began righting fallen boats. It’s an impressive but slow process. They did about four boats in a full day of work today. Survivor boats from other marinas are also beginning to arrive, ready for haulout and repair. The boatyard crew is a tough bunch of guys, working hard in the heat day in and day out.

The Zombie Princess Krewe is learning to be tough, too, since there’s no electricity – and thus, no air conditioning – in the yard. The days aren’t so bad – we keep our cold drinks and spray bottles handy, and we jump in the air-conditioned van and run errands whenever it gets to be too much – but the nights are pretty miserable. There are no breezes back here at night, and even if there were, we wouldn’t feel them much, because we have to close the ports and hatches that don’t have screens in order to keep out the swarms of mosquitoes. All that standing water, you know. We’re making screens as time allows each day.

We and the ZP are about there, though. All of our food is aboard and stowed, we stocked up on fuel and water, and we’re all beyond emotionally ready to get this show on the road. Er, water. Also, word from the DOT is that the bridges between us and the gulf are all open to marine traffic. There’s a fair amount of misinformation floating around, so we’re taking that news with a grain of salt, but it’s encouraging.

Today, we hope to meet up with Judy and Gary to pick up our logo from their house, and then we’ll meet with Bob to leave the van at his property in Lacombe (Chrissy’s house being a four-hour drive around the lake and back). With those tasks done, we’ll be free to cast off. Best case, we’ll leave this afternoon and anchor out in the Lake Pontchartrain breezes. If we can’t get out early enough (needing light to navigate debris-strewn bayous), we’ll suffer through one more hot night, leave Saturday morning, and spend our first night in the Gulf. Both plans have their appeal.

SATURDAY UPDATE
Well, we had a nice run up the bayou Friday afternoon. Now we're anchored in a very quiet little bend, enjoying the peace and the breeze while we tinker with the engine. Marjie and Chloe have been playing with the new fishing poles, and we had each a lovely deckside shower. Bliss!

KQR