We woke up Christmas morning to very dense fog.  We were near two bridges which we couldn’t see through the fog.  We were at the City Docks in Morgan City and we shared it with shrimp boats, pictured above.  There was room for just a few “pleasure craft” there, and we were the only one.

Several people walked by us on the dock this morning.  It seems like we were the big attraction in town, as cars drove by and stopped to look.  Some come over to talk.  It’s a very friendly town.  We got directions to the restaurants last night from a policeman who was driving by.  One man told us that the Coast Guard shuts down the Intracoastal when it’s foggy like this.

The fog lifted suddenly and we were on our way at 10:40.  There sure was a lot of traffic today.  This area is very congested with huge barges as there are canals coming out onto the GIWW.  We had to report in at several checkpoints to VTS which is a traffic controller.    They basically just want to know who is here and to avoid congestion. However, all of the barge captains are constantly in contact on the VHF radio on Channel 13 so we monitor that. 

We pulled over into a nice anchorage off the channel and thought it was well protected from the barges.  We had passed what looked like a hunting cabin so we took the dinghy back to it.  This area is the Atchafalaya Swamp, so there is no place to get out and walk Daisy.  We pulled up to this cabin, tied up to the dock, and checked to see if anyone was there.  It appeared that it was only accessible by boat, so Mark took Daisy for a short walk while I waited on the dock.  I could picture alligators and snakes.  When we got back to our anchorage, we were getting ready to have dinner when a barge went by and told us on the radio that we were not in a good spot as we were blending into the shore on their radar and if it got foggy tonight, the barges wouldn’t see our anchor lights.  The photo above was our anchorage.  So, we pulled up the anchor and went a few miles farther where there is a wide canal off the Intracoastal. We pulled far off and should be fine here.