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My Annual Island Trip

tfrere

Thomas McNulty
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A few buddies and I are on our last day of our annual sailing trip to the Mississippi Barrier Islands. We took two boats including my M382.

We left Mandeville, LA on Thursday mid morning and headed SE toward Slidell and The Rigolets to get out of Lake Pontchartrain. Of course, the wind was coming out of the SE so we tacked a bit until the wind died off then we motored. When leaving Lake Pontchartrain, two train bridges and the bridge on US 11 all need to be opened. Interstate 10 and US 90 have high vertical clearance. The waterway that connects the Lake to the outside world is called The Rigolets. This waterway is very deep and typically has fast moving current.

The first night we anchored at Rabbit Island just south of The Rigolets. After breakfast on Friday we made way to Cat Island.
Part of Cat is owned by the National Park Service but some of it is privately owned. Since the wind was out of the south we anchored in a cove on the NE side of the island. The water was clear enough to see the yellow on my Spade Anchor from about 8 feet of water. After we anchored in the evening two of us jumped in the dinghy and went ashore to explore. The mosquitoes almost carried us away so we quickly returned to the boat.
On Saturday morning we made our way to Ship Island. This Island is fully owned and managed by the National Park Service and they have ferries to bring folks from Gulfport on day trips. Since a hurricane recently damaged much of the walkways and structures, the ferry service was suspended. We anchored and went ashore. Ship Island is home to historic Fort Massachusetts which was built from 1859 to 1866 and remained operational until 1903. Unfortunately we were unable to tour the fort because the hurricane damage had the Island evacuated by the Park Rangers. We did, however, walk to the beach on the south shore.

We left Ship Island on Saturday afternoon and headed to a marina in Bay St Louis. Very nice marina if anyone needs a spot for a night or two. The fees were $1.25 per foot/night.
On Sunday morning we made our way back to The Rigolets and back into Lake Pontchartrain. Overall a very nice trip and I am very pleased with my M382 for these types of trips.
 
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Great trip report & photos ... thanks Thomas. Looks awesome. I like how At Last looks enormous next to Bucanero. ;)
I cleaned up the duplicates, no problemo.
Cheers
 
Jim,
This was our second annual trip. We plan to do it every year. We had 3 on my boat and the other boat owner went solo. He never dropped his anchor, he just rafted up with us all 4 nights.
I hope to someday do a bit of cruising with my Morgan. My wife isn’t too interested in doing it so I don’t know if we will ever do more than these long weekends.
 
Mark,
Yes my boat dwarfs Bucanero. She is a 27’ Albin Vega. We waited on her quite a bit on the trip.
 
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