Who knew Galveston was a vacation destination? All those years of living a 3 hr drive to Galveston and its now a 12+ hour airplane ride to where we would spend our first vacation from vacation.
Freezer burn and frigerator burn are the two biggest electrical draws we have on board – not counting the water maker as we only run that every few days. The fridge and freezer burn the most electricity as they are always on. Yeah, I know you’d think the internet was always on and sucking down bits and bytes – but that doesn’t compare to the electricity used to keep beer cold. Yeah, I’m a prima donna.
As we were going to be leaving for a few days, and even though the weather forecast looked light we needed to make a plan on where to leave our home while we traveled back to Texas even for a short weekend. Seeing as we had pretty much depleted the frozen meats, those pork chops from Grenada had seen better days after almost 4 months in the freezer and going through 2 defrost cycles. We were going to be leaving the boat on the hook, at anchor out in the bay and relying on solar to keep the electrical in balance and the hook to stay stuck while we were away. We had worked it out, to where there was basically only ice in the freezer and one last bit of shrimp which we had for dinner, the plan was to turn off the freezer while we were gone and thus remove one of the larger power suckers while we were away.
Our friends had agreed to keep an eye on the shack and also to give us a lift to land so that the dinghy wasn’t tied to dinghy dock for 4 days and nights. That was so awesome, and then they also picked us up at the bar when we arrived as well. Too cool.
The wind was forecast to be light but also shifting 180 degrees from the direction we anchored in. We had found our normal spot, next to the beach, we set the hook and were comfortable, dove on the anchor it was set, but then thought about it. Maybe we should anchor further out away from shore, get more swing room – we don’t need to hog the prime spot while we are not here, so we picked up the hook and moved further out. Found a spot with lots of swing room, till someone anchored next to us later in the day – but they didn’t look like they were going to stay. You can just sense these things sometimes. Dove on the anchor it was buried in sand again. Let out lots of scope and that’s where we would leave it.
Can you spot the shack in the middle of the pack?
Moved some of the last things in the freezer to the fridge after dinner and shut down the freezer. 5 am came pretty early, at 6 am our ride showed up, shuttled us to shore and we set off looking for a bus or taxi to the airport. Was it too early, the roads were empty, we had an 8am departure, sure we could walk it and be there by 7am with the luggage. Then a yellow school bus honked slowed and asked if we needed a lift to the airport. Christine and I looked at each other and said.. uh sure, okay. We jumped on the school bus. This guy knew his route and that school bus cornered like it was on rails – to borrow a line from Pretty Woman. Honk Honk, what speed bump, wowzers how did we make that corner. Was an E-ticket ride for sure, never came to a complete stop to pick up the passengers, and grinned when it was boys as he made it extra challenging for them – everyone seemed to enjoy the challenge too.
At the airport we got our tickets and settled in for a long day of travel to the north side of Houston, where we picked up a rental car and traveled across Houston in rush hour traffic, After moving at 10miles and hour for 4 months – driving 80mph in Houston, in a strange vehicle was quite the experience. 2 hrs later after a stop at williams-sonoma for some cooking gear we finally made to Galveston and the vacation / celebration could commence.
Baie Longue, La Semanna – favorite stretch of beach on a good weather day.