Kemah - Lake Charles

The first pic is Summertime at Olmstede's, the second of the rocks being placed along the ICW. These rocks run for miles. Our tax dollars at work no doubt.

We left the dock at Portofino on a Tuesday at 6 a.m. nice 10 - 15 knot Southwest wind blowing. South down the Ship Channel to ICW a little choppy but mostly right on the bow. Lots of ship traffic, tows & shrimpers. Only saw one other Pleasure Craft a 45' Hatteras.

We get to our designated anchorage at Shell Island about 5:30 p.m. (Port Arthur) with lots of daylight left and mosquitoes we decide to keep going. We called the marina in Lake Charles and found out what slip to go into.

Darkness found use about to pass under the Ellender bridge (2 hours to Lake Charles at 9 mph), where 2 tows pulled in front of use. A whole line of tows are on the south bank, waiting to go through the Calcasieu Locks. I guess they were all waiting for dark because they all started pulling out like rush hour in Houston. This was fun!!

Passed a couple of tows just as we were turning up the Calcasieu River for the run up to Lake Charles. The refinery lights are so bright it's hard to see the water. Thank goodness for the radar & GPSMap.

A BIG ship is coming out of one of the refineries north of the 210 bridge, just as we approach the bridge from the south. He calls us on channel 13 and warns us he is going to use the whole ship channel to make his turn. Also just to make things interesting a dredge is working just South of the bridge and a tow is south bound coming around the dredge. Another tow is north bound on the north side of the dredge. Ran the engines up and out ran the ship. Attacked by mosquitoes and got mosquito spray in my eyes just as all this was happening. Then ducked into Contraband Bayou. Glade to be away from all the commercial traffic!

Grew up here so I have been down this bayou a hundred times or more at night. But it sure was dark with only a sliver of a moon. The marina, Olmstede's is all the way to the bridge. Had to back into the slip. I am really out of practice, since I normally pull forward into our slip at Portofino. It wasn't pretty but we finally got in.

Plugged in, got to bed about midnight after a 16.5 hour boat ride.

Note to self, stop at Stingaree overnight next time!