Staying Local

It’s been a week. Sorry. In my last post I said I was ‘going to stay local for the next week or so until Mark arrives’ and that’s exactly what happened.

Morgan City is on the Gulf Coast Intracoastal Waterway at mile 95. Mile zero is the intersection with the Mississippi at New Orleans. After I wandered around a bit, filled the tanks and had a couple of meals out I got restless, and headed out from Morgan City Friday afternoon, less than 24 hours after arriving. Spent 5 nights at anchor on the way to mile 4, and spent the night tied to an old wall at the casino that night. Then back West to Houma at mile 57, where I am now.

Why Houma? A few weeks ago I started a thread on Trawler Forum essentially pointing here. And I’m really pleased that I’ve had what I think to be decent numbers of visitors and subscribers from TF. It’s a great community.

By the way, if you came for the Mississippi trip you can stop following or reading this blog. I won’t be offended :-). Although I do want to create one more ‘lessons learned’ sort of artifact here. And I’m still musing about climbing the river. I really think it’s doable and would be a lot of fun. But I think I’d want a copilot. Boat could do it.

Anyway, back to Houma. A TF member, Ronney, sent a note a few weeks ago with an offer of a dock in Houma for the boat while I’m home for a few weeks. It’s perfect, on a private residential canal. Safe and secure. I came in today and met him and his son Eric. Tomorrow Mark arrives in my car, we go cruising for a few days, then drive home to the frozen north.

Here are a few pics from the last week

Chicago to the Gulf Fuel/Mileage

This is a summary of my fuel use and a few other tidbits for the Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico segment. It includes about 45 miles touring around Chicago, and ends at Morgan City. All currency USD.

Total distance traveled: 1,492 miles / 2,402 km

Days underway (incl stops): 25

Motor hours: 171

Generator hours: 136

Fuel consumed: 249 gal / 943 l

Total fuel cost: $715

GPH: 1.46

MPG: 5.98

This also includes heavy (for me) generator use. Needed it for heat much of the way. My best guess is the generator used 15-20% of the fuel.

Also the entire trip was down-current, and that really boosts the MPG. I kind of wish I had boat speed/distance through the water so I could accurately assess the current, both instantaneously and in aggregate. I’ll add that to my next list of possible upgrades for the next haul.

As long as I’m doing some accounting here, I also paid to stop for 7 nights, total cost $246.