We got an early start out of the marina this morning at 7:15.  This trip would be a lot quicker in the spring or summer when we would have hours more of daylight.  However, today we only have about 25 miles to go to our stop so were there shortly after noon.  We aren’t going farther because tomorrow we are going to try to enter the Gulf and go to Port Aransas,which is the Gulf entry to Corpus Christi.  That is, if the winds are good, as it’s about a 50+ sailing day to Port Aransas.

Daisy always gets quite excited now when we put her life jacket on and raise the sails.  She usually takes a position on the forward deck, as she does in the photo above.  After awhile, she settles back under the feet of the helmsman

until she sees us lowering the sails.  Then, she’s back up at the front again.   

The first thing we had to do this morning, as soon as we turned into the Intracoastal, was go through a swing bridge and then two locks.  We called before we left and all were open.   There are a variety of reasons why there are locks along the Intracoastal.  Some raise or lower the water level and others keep out sea water.  The lockmasters were very friendly today.  The first one stepped out of her building and commented on what a cute dog Daisy is.  The next one asked us where we were headed and said to have a great time. 

The weather was chilly this morning, but clear and sunny.  The wind was only 4.5 kts out of the SE. 

We arrived at our anchorage after about five hours of motorsailing.  It was on the Matagorda Bay, which is huge and has several channels cutting through it, as well as some wrecks and shoals.  This was marked in the cruising guide as a deep anchorage, near an “old airfield.”  Well, it wasn’t deep, so we had to go into Port O’Connor to a marina.  The marina is pictured above, and it was too shallow to get into, so we tied up at the dock entering the marina.  This is a town of many small fishing boats, which is all we saw at the marina and along the shore.  It turns out that the waterway through Port O’Connor is actually the Intracoastal route, and all night long we were rocked and banged against the dock.  We had lined the starboard side of the boat with fenders, but it still was annoying to be pushed against the dock every time a barge went by, which was often.  It was also surprising that this was not a “no wake zone,” as it was a rather narrow channel going past many houses and small marinas.  The fishing boats blasted by all afternoon and evening, again making us rock in their wake.  The barges go slow, but they can’t avoid rocking us also.