June 7, 2016 New Orleans to Houma

I will start out by saying "WHAT A DAY"!  We knew it was going to be a unknown stopping point day and very hot so we started the generator to keep the AC going, untied from the dock and headed over to Seabrook Marina for fuel at 7:30 am.  We went through the L & N train bridge at 8:00 am and got through the Florida Avenue bridge at 8:30 am right when curfew was over.  So far it was looking really good!  A very nice tow boat was right behind us and said we could tie to him going through the Industrial Lock but let him get in and settled first.  As we got to the lock another tow boat was waiting so we would be second on the list.  Instead of just floating around waiting, the nice tow boat told us to come tie to them while we waited for the first tow to get through.  This made it easy for us. Once it was our turn to go into the lock we untied from the tow so he could go in and then we went in and tied to the same spot on his hip as we did before.  A sailboat also came into the lock with us.   Once the lock on the other side opened we could not proceed until the St. Claude Avenue bridge opened so we waited and waited until they finally said they were having electrical problems and could not open the bridge.  After awhile they told us that we could shut down our engines.  Not a good sign!  Josh and I went below in the AC and had lunch.  We were really hoping to get through the locks by noon.

L & N Railroad Bridge

Florida Avenue Bridge

Industrial Lock

We are tied to this nice tow boat.

Sailboat wanting to lock through also.

Tow boat going into lock.

M/V Last Trade tied to tow boat in lock.

Sailboat also tied up to tow boat.

This is why you do not untie until you're told to!

Bridge broken, can not make it go up!

FINALLY! Out into the Mississippi river.

Heading to the Harvey Lock.

At 2:00 pm we finally got out of the Harvey lock and continued on our way.  Because we did not know what the Mississippi river was going to do to us with current and possible rocking and rolling we decided to turn off the AC and generator while transiting the river.  Not a good thing because when we turned it back on the boat was really hot.  We could not get the main cabin of the boat below 85 for the rest of the day.  With the engine heat, the front window covers off so we could drive from below, the sun shining directly down on the windows and the temperature outside 91 but feeling like 97 our AC units had a hard time keeping up.  This heat has been really getting to me and today's heat was unbearable.  I know it had to be getting to Josh too.  Josh would steer outside when we had boats around us and steer down below whenever he could.  Teak was a trooper!  She would tell me that it was time for her to go below when she got too hot and she was drinking lots of water right along with us.  We decided to just keep going and to get into Houma so we could hook up to power.  It's going to be a long day but with this heat we dreaded anchoring and running the generator all night.  

Boomtown taken over by commercial boats.

Gator crossing the ICW.

This tow reminded us of a grocery cart collector at Walmart but he's pulling dredge pipe.

Sun is starting to go down.

Two tows we followed the last several miles to the marina.

As we were coming into Houma the sun was going down and we had two tows in front of us so we followed them the rest of the way even though our visibility was still good.  We arrived at the Houma Marina at 8:30 pm.  We called the harbormaster earlier so he was expecting us and when he saw us on his camera he came right down and turned our power on.  Thank you Ray!  We will not move on tomorrow - we'll stay and rest in the cool AC boat, check out the weather situation and determine when to move on.