Last night we were anchored in a nice oxbow, but didn’t go quite around the curve far enough, so we were rocked by some huge oil tankers which went by on the Neche River.  Sailing down the Sabine River through Port Arthur we saw much devastation from Hurricane Ike.  Many roofs still had blue tarps on them and we saw numerous boats up on land.

There was a lot of graffiti on the seawall, including the message in the photo above.   Last night, we had planned on staying at the Paradise Marina in Port Arthur, but when we called the dockmaster said that there was too much debris in the water for us to come close and they only had one boat still left in the water.  They were not open. 

This area of Texas was hit hard by Rita, Katrina, and Ike.

We didn’t quite understand the extent of the damage until we sailed by it this morning.  In the photo sailboat masts are visible by none of the boats in the marina are in the water.

Daisy didn’t get to go ashore this morning and she stared longingly at the shore for a long time. 

We stopped a little after noon at Sabine Pass, Texas, which is right on the Gulf.  It’s another 50+ miles to Galveston and we don’t want to be coming into that commercial port during the night, so we’ll start off early in the morning.

We were going to stay at a marina here, but it is very small and has no water, fuel, or power.  When we arrived, we discovered that it was almost totally destroyed by Hurricane Ike last fall.  We could pull up to a wall, but it was rusty metal, so we decided to anchor out.  We were close enough to the shore to take Daisy for a walk, so all is well.  Tomorrow, we can get an early start, be out on the Gulf in a few minutes, and be on our way to Galveston.