It's Friday

6 AM and the marina was a beehive of activity but it’s not like we sleep in much these days anyway. Rather than take a tour of Lake Pontchartrain we decided to retrace our steps and returned to the ICW just back down the channel. From there we continued on our original path headed east through the marsh lands. Pretty quiet journey today not too much traffic. Just before entering the Mississippi sound we passed by Rabbit Island, one of our favorite anchorages from 2 years ago. The old dilapidated oil rig was still standing on the west end of the oxbow.

The weather had been extremely hot and sticky all morning and the winds began to kick up. We noticed all around dark ominous clouds forming, Tom even noticed a funnel cloud way off in the distance – I did not like the looks of that! (I took a ginger pill) Since we were just about to enter into ‘open’ waters I phoned daughter Wendy and asked her to check the weather in our area. We had listened to our NOAA and had not heard of any major storms cropping up and she confirmed they were just little, rather stationary, thunder storms. We did hit some rain and the swells got to 2-3 feet, but that was the worst of it (Thank you very much)

Not knowing for sure if the weather was going to stay nice we opted for another night in a Marina. So many marinas along this way did not make it through Katrina and have not reopened, but we did find (with the help of http://www.activecaptain.com/) Pass Christian Harbor in Mississippi. They did sustain lots of damage but have managed to rebuild, and in fact, are still rebuilding. We walked to the Harbor Masters office, stopped by the quickie mart and enjoyed a wonderful dinner on the outside patio overlooking the marina of Shaggy’s Restaurant.

After returning to the boat to get some minor clean up work done 2 gentlemen of the US Customs and Boarder Patrol walked down the dock and struck up a conversation with us. Seems they came specifically to inspect us so Tom invited them aboard. As it was 2 years ago they went through all our paperwork and investigated every cabinet, nook and cranny they could find, even did a thorough search of the engine room this time (bet that guy was hot!) I did ask if I could take their picture and they said no they’d prefer I not. They were both nice and friendly guys, but it was still weird having them aboard.

(sorry Wendy the stacks were closed and I was unable to get a picture)