Great Loop Chronicles Part 21
Marine
- Sponsor
- OPTIMA Batteries
- Location
- Pass Christian, Mississippi
The Great Loop Chronicles will be an ongoing series, following the travels of OPTIMA Batteries staffer, Jim McIlvaine, as he travels America's Great Loop, a 6000+ nautical mile journey around the Eastern United States.
There's a certain nervous anxiety that's been hanging over me for this entire trip. I'm sure it's related to me owning a boat that is far larger than anything I've ever owned before and the thought of safely navigating the Great Loop in it with my famiy. I'm generally an overly cautious person, so taking on a trip like this is pretty far outside of my comfort zone. I think part of these feelings is also tied to the isolation our family is currently experiencing on the Loop. The Mackeys, whom we met on the Tombigbee, aren't even on the Loop but became quick boat buddies with us and it was reassuring to hear a second voice echoing some of the same thoughts, even if they were concerns.
Many people who do the Great Loop run nearly the entire route with multiple boat buddies, but we are still basically on our own. There are positives to that, as traveling off the typical schedule, we have no trouble finding marinas to stop at, but I still think it would be nice to have a buddy boat going through the same experiences, especially if something goes sideways. In spite of my nervousness and concerns, I did buy a boat in Tennessee and manage to take it all the way down to the Gulf coast. If I accomplished nothing else, I did that, which is a pretty cool thing to experience.
The Mackeys and our family had both arrived in Mobile Bay with plans to head West. However, when we woke up, the wind was blowing strong at over 15 mph. Even though the wind was out of the East and would be helping push us toward our destinations, neither of us was comfortable with the thought of heading out, even into the relatively protected intracoastal waters. It seemed like we were so close to making it to Pass Christian in time for me to rent a car and drive to New Orleans for OPTIMA's Ultimate Street Car series, only to have Mother Nature pull the rug out.
With the wind blowing like it was, I decided pretty early on that we weren't going anywhere and the Mackeys had independently decided the same. The Pass Christian Marina was about 87 miles from where we were docked, so it would be a full day's run, even if we left in the morning. However, as the day moved along, the wind started dying down. A little bit after 11AM, it looked downright reasonable and after running the numbers, I called an audible. We were going for it. The Mackeys decided the same shortly after, but we got underway before them.
The Mississippi Sound was choppy, but manageable. With guests onboard, my wife felt obligated to feed them and went down into the gallery to prepare some eggs. That was a mistake, as the rough conditions made her seasick fairly quickly. She had already committed to making the food, so she gutted it out, but learned an important lesson- if you have to make a meal while underway, make it a sandwich...quickly.
The black buoys weren't easy to see because of the rough conditions, but almost immediately we saw the markers for crab pots. They dotted the sound like landmines, with some maybe drifting their way into the navigational channel? I had been warned about crab pots multiple times at Looperpalooza, in online conversations and in training with captains. Some boats install blades on their propeller shafts, in case they run over one and the line starts to tangle in the shaft. I had no such accessories on my prop shafts, so I'd have to rely on good sets of eyes keeping a lookout for the black floating balls (I think most used to be a more noticeable color, but turn black over time).
If you get tangled in a crab pot, it could mean jumping into the water with a dive mask and a blade and attempting to cut the line loose from the propeller- an experience I was not anxious to have. We did start seeing dolphins as well and we were told the ideal speed for dolphins to swim in your wake was about 8 mph. We were going about 15 knots, in the hopes of making Pass Christian before dark.
The Mackeys soon caught up to us, but the conditions were so rough and there was enough space in the sound, that they were able to pass us while both of us maintained speed with no ill effects. We had room to turn into their wake when it approached and we both carried on, texting each other photos of our vessels while underway. Not that I'm biased, but I think they go the better of that exchange, as I was snapping photos of their boat with a Canon camera with a 100-400mm lens, while they sent iPhone pictures back.
Still, I was glad to get photos of our boat while it was under way and it reaffirmed my decision that I had too much weight in the back of the boat. One of the coolest things we saw so far on the Loop was a Coast Guard helicopter hovering right above the main shipping channel. We weren't sure what to make of it at first, but it soon became apparent that they were practicing water rescues. As they saw us approaching, they moved their frogman to the side of the channel and I snapped as many photos as I could, hoping one or two would turn out in the rough seas.
We cut it about as closely as we could, but we managed to make it into Pass Christian at about 6PM. However, the challenges of the day were not over. This harbor had no floating finger docks in the slips, just pilings. I had never backed into a slip like this, let alone one in windy conditions. One of the neighboring boat owners came over to help, as did some of the staff from the harbor and we managed to make it work. Instead of tying off on cleats on the side of the boat, you need to loop lines around pilings in the slip. There were a couple cleats at the main dock, but they were almost an afterthought until you could get the boat positioned and secured in the middle of the slip pilings.
We were safe in the Pass Christian Harbor, but it didn't feel like it. The breakwater of the marina didn't seem to break much water and rollers kept coming in off the Sound. Every boat in the marina, large or small, swayed back and forth with them. Pass Christian was also a mix of commercial vessels and pleasure craft, so we had a floating bait store right behind us and a fishing boat that kept a bright LED light on 24/7. Gwendolyn liked the safety of it and we could make the inside of our boat dark, so it didn't bother me.
Somehow, we made it to Pass Christian in time, but I still had a lot on my agenda besides the Ultimate Street Car weekend. I would get after it first thing in the morning.
There's a certain nervous anxiety that's been hanging over me for this entire trip. I'm sure it's related to me owning a boat that is far larger than anything I've ever owned before and the thought of safely navigating the Great Loop in it with my famiy. I'm generally an overly cautious person, so taking on a trip like this is pretty far outside of my comfort zone. I think part of these feelings is also tied to the isolation our family is currently experiencing on the Loop. The Mackeys, whom we met on the Tombigbee, aren't even on the Loop but became quick boat buddies with us and it was reassuring to hear a second voice echoing some of the same thoughts, even if they were concerns.
Many people who do the Great Loop run nearly the entire route with multiple boat buddies, but we are still basically on our own. There are positives to that, as traveling off the typical schedule, we have no trouble finding marinas to stop at, but I still think it would be nice to have a buddy boat going through the same experiences, especially if something goes sideways. In spite of my nervousness and concerns, I did buy a boat in Tennessee and manage to take it all the way down to the Gulf coast. If I accomplished nothing else, I did that, which is a pretty cool thing to experience.
The Mackeys and our family had both arrived in Mobile Bay with plans to head West. However, when we woke up, the wind was blowing strong at over 15 mph. Even though the wind was out of the East and would be helping push us toward our destinations, neither of us was comfortable with the thought of heading out, even into the relatively protected intracoastal waters. It seemed like we were so close to making it to Pass Christian in time for me to rent a car and drive to New Orleans for OPTIMA's Ultimate Street Car series, only to have Mother Nature pull the rug out.
With the wind blowing like it was, I decided pretty early on that we weren't going anywhere and the Mackeys had independently decided the same. The Pass Christian Marina was about 87 miles from where we were docked, so it would be a full day's run, even if we left in the morning. However, as the day moved along, the wind started dying down. A little bit after 11AM, it looked downright reasonable and after running the numbers, I called an audible. We were going for it. The Mackeys decided the same shortly after, but we got underway before them.
The Mississippi Sound was choppy, but manageable. With guests onboard, my wife felt obligated to feed them and went down into the gallery to prepare some eggs. That was a mistake, as the rough conditions made her seasick fairly quickly. She had already committed to making the food, so she gutted it out, but learned an important lesson- if you have to make a meal while underway, make it a sandwich...quickly.
The black buoys weren't easy to see because of the rough conditions, but almost immediately we saw the markers for crab pots. They dotted the sound like landmines, with some maybe drifting their way into the navigational channel? I had been warned about crab pots multiple times at Looperpalooza, in online conversations and in training with captains. Some boats install blades on their propeller shafts, in case they run over one and the line starts to tangle in the shaft. I had no such accessories on my prop shafts, so I'd have to rely on good sets of eyes keeping a lookout for the black floating balls (I think most used to be a more noticeable color, but turn black over time).
If you get tangled in a crab pot, it could mean jumping into the water with a dive mask and a blade and attempting to cut the line loose from the propeller- an experience I was not anxious to have. We did start seeing dolphins as well and we were told the ideal speed for dolphins to swim in your wake was about 8 mph. We were going about 15 knots, in the hopes of making Pass Christian before dark.
The Mackeys soon caught up to us, but the conditions were so rough and there was enough space in the sound, that they were able to pass us while both of us maintained speed with no ill effects. We had room to turn into their wake when it approached and we both carried on, texting each other photos of our vessels while underway. Not that I'm biased, but I think they go the better of that exchange, as I was snapping photos of their boat with a Canon camera with a 100-400mm lens, while they sent iPhone pictures back.
Still, I was glad to get photos of our boat while it was under way and it reaffirmed my decision that I had too much weight in the back of the boat. One of the coolest things we saw so far on the Loop was a Coast Guard helicopter hovering right above the main shipping channel. We weren't sure what to make of it at first, but it soon became apparent that they were practicing water rescues. As they saw us approaching, they moved their frogman to the side of the channel and I snapped as many photos as I could, hoping one or two would turn out in the rough seas.
We cut it about as closely as we could, but we managed to make it into Pass Christian at about 6PM. However, the challenges of the day were not over. This harbor had no floating finger docks in the slips, just pilings. I had never backed into a slip like this, let alone one in windy conditions. One of the neighboring boat owners came over to help, as did some of the staff from the harbor and we managed to make it work. Instead of tying off on cleats on the side of the boat, you need to loop lines around pilings in the slip. There were a couple cleats at the main dock, but they were almost an afterthought until you could get the boat positioned and secured in the middle of the slip pilings.
We were safe in the Pass Christian Harbor, but it didn't feel like it. The breakwater of the marina didn't seem to break much water and rollers kept coming in off the Sound. Every boat in the marina, large or small, swayed back and forth with them. Pass Christian was also a mix of commercial vessels and pleasure craft, so we had a floating bait store right behind us and a fishing boat that kept a bright LED light on 24/7. Gwendolyn liked the safety of it and we could make the inside of our boat dark, so it didn't bother me.
Somehow, we made it to Pass Christian in time, but I still had a lot on my agenda besides the Ultimate Street Car weekend. I would get after it first thing in the morning.