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

Back to New Orleans

Chris left this morning to attend a planning meeting at Ochsner. She hopes she'll find power at her house and can move back in there. If not, she'll stay at Marty's with Judy and Gary.

As for the Krewe, we're packing up and heading back today, too. This means that my blog posts are likely to be less frequent, but I'll do my best to keep you up to date.

Marty will stay here in Houston with Chuck and Karen until St. Francis Villa reopens. A New Orleans news station is broadcasting here in Houston, and their news makes us hopeful he'll be back there by the end of the month.

"See" you in a few days!

KQR

Shopping, splashing, and sad news in Houston

Thursday was eye appointment day. Chloe and I both got our eyes checked and did the one-hour-glasses thing at Lenscrafters. I’ll post a picture of Chloe’s new look soon, but I’m too tired today (see below). She looks great, and her resemblance to her Aunt Lynn is more noticeably revealed.

On Friday, Frank and I resumed our cruising preparations. We shopped, shopped, and shopped some more: Target, REI, West Marine, Joann Fabric, and Home Depot. It was great, felt really good to be *able* to make cruising preparations.

REI was the most fun. It felt like being home, of course ;-), especially when the cashier turned out to be from Olympia! He was very interested to hear about our Katrina misadventures and then picked our brains for cruising tips. REI ought to feature the adventurous nature of their employees in their advertising.

Saturday, the four of us returned to Splashtown. The weather was iffy – overcast with occasional sprinkles – so the crowd was light to begin with. (Southern mothers worry about their kids getting cold if the temperature goes below 90. I believe it hovered at about 89 all day.) When the afternoon thundershower hit and they closed all the rides, the crowd went down to probably less than 100 people in the whole park. We waited 30 minutes or so for the storm to pass and then wore ourselves out climbing stairs and sliding slides as fast as our legs could carry us. It was pretty much an ideal watersliding experience.

I think, all in all, our favorite ride is a relatively mild one called Thunder Run. You go down in 2- or 3-person toboggan-style tubes, so there’s the fun of shared experience, and it has thrills without leaving you adrenaline-shaky afterward like the Tornado does (for me, anyway).

Saturday night, we took the gang out for Tex-Mex food, in an attempt to thank Chuck and Karen for hosting us all through all this time. As we begin our third week in their house, one meal out doesn’t seem like much! Needless to say, they will be welcome to crash with us any time they like, for years and years to come!

Today was boating day. Chuck, Frank, the girls, and I left Karen, Chris, and Marty to quieter pursuits and headed up to Lake Conroe with Chuck’s powerboat. We spent the day being towed on inner tubes, dodging lovebugs, and swimming in the ~90-degree lake water. The lake was a bit more crowded than we like it, so we also had the opportunity to watch the usual assortment of dingbats and daredevils do their thing. One guy was towing a tube behind his jet boat, with the tube rider constantly subjected to the 70-foot arc of spray. It looked like tubing in a waterfall.

Unlike the double tube that we’re accustomed to, Chuck and family like to use single-rider tubes. We trailed three of them today, and it is fun to bounce off of each other and try to move from tube to tube. Marjie was a natural at all the tube acrobatics, and the faster the better. Chloe was happiest sitting steady on the center tube, although she got pretty cocky about riding with no hands as the day wore on.

Battered, bruised, and exhausted, we returned to Chuck and Karen’s to some bad news. One of Chrissy’s friends who also evacuated to Houston had called to say that her heart-patient mother hasn’t recovered from the stress of evacuating. They aren’t expecting her to make it. Chris headed up to the hospital to deliver some fruit and other supplies for the vigil. I don’t imagine situations like this are turning up in the Katrina death toll, but they ought to be. This is a woman who might have lived years longer without the storm upheaval. Very sad.

The news today from Slidell, on the other hand, is pretty good. Power, water, and some phone service have been restored, and no official deaths have been recorded. The communities where flooding is a periodic fact of life are coming back much more quickly than New Orleans and St. Bernard parish, with many of them even expecting to open their schools within a week or two.

Power restored to the boatyard doesn’t necessarily mean power restored to the boat slips, but we’re probably going to head back soon, even if it means some time without air conditioning. We want to get everything ready to go so that once the waterways clear and the bridges become operational again, we can head out. Or we’ll at least be there in the thick of things to find out if that isn’t going to happen soon enough to do us any good.

If anybody knows of a cheap way to move a sailboat over land to a functional port, let us know. ;-)

KQR

Only one thing will kill a Zombie Princess...

... and a hurricane is not it!!! Our boat is fine!!! Wahoooooo!!!

As you can imagine, we approached Slidell with much trepidation. As we got farther east on I-12, things didn't seem too bad. We saw the occasional downed tree, but nothing that we could label hurricane damage with certainty. Then we crossed into St. Tammany parish. Here's one example of what we saw along the freeway (click pictures to see larger versions):


Once we turned into Slidell, we saw the kind of damage you're seeing on the news -- lots of trees down (it's a wooded area), lots of power lines down, roofs damaged, etc. -- but we also lots of recovery and repair work going on. Slidell is coming back to life.

This was our first look at the boatyard (M.G. Mayer's Slidell Maritime boatyard, at the junction of Highway 11 and Highway 433) where the Zombie Princess lives:


The heap of debris in the right foreground is the contents -- including paneling and insulation -- of the little office building. It was totally submerged. The shredded jib sail you can see above the building belongs to the Radio Flyer, the otherwise undamaged sailboat that used to be in the slip next to the slip our boat used to be in. (Both boats are out in the middle of the bayou now.) The big hull near the building is about 20 feet closer to the building than she used to be, but still upright. She's a formerly sunken boat that a Baton Rouge couple has been out there every weekend refurbishing. I think she came through pretty well, although they will have to redo some of their bottom work. Behind her, you can see the mast of the Zombie Princess.

And here is the ZP (left of center with blue sailcovers), with very sad boat friends all around her. The trailer in the foreground is across the slip where the ZP used to be. ZP was still tied to the dock, but the dock, unfortunately, was at the bottom of the bayou.


Most of the boats that were out of the water to start with look like this:

And while several in-the-water boats came through fine, there were casualties:

As for our incredibly lucky little boat, she has only cosmetic damage. There are some scratches on the starboard side where she rubbed up against the powerboat beside her, our radar reflector (a multipanel shiny thing that makes skinny little sailboats register bigger on ship's radar) is gone, and we lost a dorade vent. It's possible there's damage underneath that we can't see, such as gouges in the bottom or damage to the rudder, but that kind of thing can be repaired.

Being prepared for the worst, we are still in shock at finding the best possible outcome. When we saw her floating there, whole and calm, Frank and I just stared at each other, speechless and with no idea what to do next. A very happy confusion!

After charging the batteries and adding some dock lines and bumpers, we got back in the car and headed out Highway 433 to Judy's house at Coin du Lestin. The woods along the highway look like they've been bombed. They are about half the height they used to be, and very much thinned out. Power lines -- and utility crews -- were all over the road.

The picture below of Judy's house shows the mud that's everywhere (check out the depth of the footprints at left), the red mark painted by search-and-rescue crews who checked the house, the smashed stairs, and -- if you can zoom in a bit and look closely at the leftmost column -- the high-water mark. The boat that's planted in the yard and a big tree that fell down across half their driveway are not shown.


This picture shows what we found when we opened the significantly warped front door. Note that these steps are actually a lovely blonde oak.


Thankfully, the damage stops about three feet shy of their living area, and it doesn't smell too bad in the house. Her neighbors across the way are back in residence, living without air conditioning, boiling water for safety, and bathing in trickles instead of showers.

We're back in Houston now, trying to figure out what comes next. More on that later.

Our thoughts and sympathies continue to be with the people who were hit so much harder than we were.

KQR

The damage report so far

Here's the status of the six Maier residences that were in Katrina peril, with a few notes on their inhabitants:

• Dad Marty's place in Metairie: Very minimal wind damage, no flooding, power and water are either restored or never went out. This is definitely the best of our news. Marty had a good day today, watching TV and sneaking junk food with his "pretty girls" (Marjie and Chloe) and going with Frank and me to run a couple of errands. With Chris and Judy both gone, he had a rather inexperienced nurse (me!) giving him his insulin, but we muddled along.
• Sister Chris' place in River Ridge: Fence blew down, no flooding, no power yet. Chris toured it today and gathered some belongings and is now back with us in Houston.
• Sister Judy's place in Slidell: Front staircase wiped out, power boat lifted off trailer and deposited in the front yard, deep flooding that we're still hoping didn't reach the living area on the second level. Judy and Gary are staying at Marty's place for the time being, and Judy is returning to work at East Jefferson hospital.
• Judy's daughter Lori's place in Covington: Significant roof damage led to ruined property inside, carport fell down on Lori's car. Lori's son, Brian, flew to North Carolina today to stay with his Uncle Jerry and Aunt Cori and return to school. Lori and Bobby are staying with Bobby's mom in Madisonville.
• Chris' son Paul's place in Lakeview (New Orleans neighborhood near the lake): Totally flooded, with extensive loss of fancy electronics and other belongings. Once services are restored, Paul will live with Chris and work with his dad, Pat.
• Our boat in Slidell: Reports are that it's either sunk or blown ashore, with both scenarios really bad news for our cruising plans. Frank and I will attempt to go see for ourselves tomorrow.

In addition to our cellular and satellite phones, VHF radios, some spare gas, and our own food and water, we have 35 gallons of water and miscellaneous other supplies loaded into our van, ready for delivery to Slidell relief crews tomorrow. With 12 hours' driving minimum ahead of us and an unknown amount of time spent in (careful!) salvage work, I won't be posting again until Thursday. So don't worry in the meantime!

KQR

Going to see

The radiologist Judy works with went by and checked out Marty's house. It looks like it did stay dry. There's some fence damage and a tree across his driveway, but it is otherwise in good shape. Since the renovations were essentially complete, this is very good news! Chris and Judy plan to put the house on the market as soon as possible. The market will either tank because nobody wants to live in New Orleans any more, or it'll be booming for houses like this that stayed dry during Katrina. Maybe both.

St. Francis Villa, being near Chris' barely touched neighborhood, is probably in good physical condition, but we don't expect it to reopen for some time. Marty will stay at Chuck and Karen's "until." He is finding all this pretty stressful and says he feels lost and useless. We've told him we're all feeling that way and that we just have to take it one day at a time.

Chris returned to Baton Rouge yesterday. She plans to meet up with Pat and Paul in Destrehan today, and then they'll return to Jefferson Parish as a group. Ochsner, the medical facility where Chris works now, is putting together teams of temp workers at their facility in Baton Rouge. Chris hopes to get on one of them.

Judy and Gary are loading up their car as I type this. Judy knows she has work to go back to -- East Jefferson Hospital is overrun with people who need x-rays from injuries sustained doing repair work -- and Gary hopes to get up to Slidell to get a firsthand look at their house. Ollie the cat is going with them; he'll stay at Marty's.

As for us, we are making plans for a commando run to look at the boat tomorrow, provided Aunt Karen doesn't mind keeping the girls. We'll take our own gas, food, and water, plus as many extra jugs and cans as we can carry. Frank is in touch with some people (www.jojamela.us) who are doing lots of good recovery work at the ravaged Oak Harbor marina; we'll take them supplies if we can. And that will leave the van empty for whatever we can salvage from the boat for the return trip to Houston.

Keep a good thought for all of us as we go and see.

KQR

Unschooling in difficult times

A bit of background: The type of homeschooling we do is usually called “unschooling.” It’s a lifestyle based on the belief that kids – humans, really – are learning all the time, and that structured lessons are just not necessary. With our academic backgrounds and priorities, it took a real leap of faith for Frank and me to try this little experiment on our kids. Two and a half years later, the results have far exceeded our hopes, not only in terms of the learning that we are seeing (and can prove to the state), but in the fun we are having and in the way it has strengthened our relationships with our kids.

An ideal unschooling environment is one where the kids are exposed to a wide variety of materials, people, and experiences, usually with one parent on hand whose full-time job is creating, maximizing, and “refreshing” the kids’ learning opportunities. We do this by packing our house with books, supplying learning materials, answering questions, subscribing to magazines, signing up for classes and teams, watching movies, and, of course, traveling.

Hurricane Katrina tossed the ideal right out the window. In addition to suffering a tremendous family disappointment, we are facing insurance and other hassles, worrying about money, living in somebody else’s house, sharing said house with 8 members of our extended family (for a total of twelve people), trying to find what we need in an unfamiliar town, and feeling completely removed from the resources we usually rely on. Add into that our concern for our relatives and other residents of the Gulf coast who’ve lost so much more than we have, and I’m sure you can see that we are unschooling in less than ideal circumstances right now.

It’s working beautifully anyway.

In the past few days, we’ve had conversations about the periodic table (encompassing atomic weights, compounds, chemical names and tricks for remembering them, and protons, neutrons, and electrons); _The Scarlet Letter_ and the mores of Puritan society; evaporation and why lakes don’t dry up; the Civil War, the assassination of Lincoln, and how diseases spread (all thanks to watching “Sahara”); regional political leanings; the differences and similarities between Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Green Party members, Socialists, etc.; the process for and implications of appointing a Supreme Court justice; imagination and what counts as “real”; positive, negative, and neutral buoyancy and what it takes to achieve each (with real life experiments in the pool involving flotation devices and a big rock); and, of course, hurricane formation and direction, latitude and longitude, barometric pressure, levee construction, FEMA, civil disobedience, what a modern city is like when you remove the “modern,” economics and oil reserves, insurance-industry-as-legalized-gambling, electrical grids, dehydration, sanitation, how boats sink, and the best and worst of human nature.

My kids have also been reading, writing, interacting with 3 generations of people, experiencing a culture that is noticeably different from the one they usually live in, exploring the resources of a house and city other than their own, watching TV and movies, exercising, watersliding (whole lot of physics at work at your local waterslide park!), doing random math-problems-with-a-purpose, and eating new foods. They’re also gaining experience in coping with loss (experience a protective mom might have preferred they wait a lifetime to gain), and they’re watching a variety of adults cope with loss in a variety of ways.

And then there’s the way unschooling has centered and anchored me through the storm. My kids always center me, of course – if they’re okay, I’m okay – but this is more than that. Unschooling is *there*, a core purpose that runs through even the toughest days. I mean, not once in the past week have I given a thought to creating a learning-rich environment or accommodating my kids’ different learning styles or even unschooling itself really (and I usually think about unschooling quite a bit), but I’ve been conscious of and immensely comforted by all the sparkly moments of learning.

We’re hearing a lot about displaced families struggling to find schools for their kids and talking about how that will give their kids a sense of normalcy. I am so grateful that isn’t us! My kids get their sense of normalcy from being with their family (with an added boost from a trip to the local mall ;-)), and we are able to see that – far from being a time when learning stops – difficult times provide the kind of learning that will last a lifetime.

KQR

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Surreal Splashtown

Today, the Krewe and I went to Splashtown, the local waterslide park. It's one of those mega waterparks with a bunch of slides, a wave pool, a lazy floating river, and a couple of play areas. It's also home to the aptly named Tornado, a big funnel that four hardy souls at a time can get sucked through at high speeds. (Why we thought we needed to go through a tornado after dodging a hurricane, I can't explain.)

So. One week after fleeing Katrina, we found ourselves surrounded by screaming kids, listening to loud rock and roll, eating chili dogs, and swooping downhill on big innertubes.

Surreal, huh?

We bought season passes.

KQR