Follow the Leader and Cruise Around the Bay!
May 15, 2021 (NOTE: Due to the probability of t-storms etc on the originally-scheduled May 16th date, this cruise has been moved to Saturday May 15th.)
- Are you a new TMCA member perhaps with not much experience on the bay???
- And have you never been through either of the two Boater Cuts into Trinity Bay???
- And have you always wondered what that big island is out there in the middle of the bay???
- And have you never had courage enough to try getting through West Pass???
Well this little day cruise will allow you to achieve all of those previous challenges that you might have had, but were not quite sure how to do something about achieving them!
.jpg)
So here are the cruise details. After meeting up in the vicinity of the Clear Creek channel Marker #2, the route has been planned to take you out to the Redfish Island area and safely through the varied in-the-water hazards along that route. From there, for those maybe having wanted to try the West Pass Route to Galveston (click here for details), but were afraid to do it, we will go through West Pass heading south for a half-mile or so, and then after everyone is through, do a 180° and head back through the pass northbound. We will next skirt around through the Redfish anchorage area and then continue heading north to the markers 5 and 6 “gate” of the South Boater Cut (SBC) and then cross the Houston Ship Channel (HSC) into Trinity Bay. From there it will be a 2.5nm run up the east side of the “Mid-Bay Marsh” island until we reach marker 1 of the North Boater Cut (NBC). Then heading WSW we will traverse the NBC and finally we will head west back across the bay towards the Seabrook shoreline, following a track south to see all the pretty waterfront homes along Todville Road.
The nautical chart above shows the actual route that has been created for this cruise and it can of course always be altered due to conditions and preferences out there on the water that day. But as part of the experience of doing this cruise, entering the waypoints provided into your chart plotter, and then following them, is part of the cruise plan. A list of these waypoints is below and the Cruise Leader recommends that you load these into your chart plotter prior to the cruise, and then also create a route for you to follow! These waypoints will give you confidence in trying West Pass and the two boater cuts, and then you will also have them there for future use.
In 2020 when we first did this cruise more than 20 boats participated, both power and sail. Only a few did the entire 22nm route as several chose to drop off along the way and do other things. But again, if you are new to the bay, this is a great way to learn your way around some of the routes and landmarks that we all use, and to practice your navigation skill while doing it.
To keep this calendar write-up relatively short I am not going to add any more here. But to learn some details about some of the things that you are going to see along the way, and some of the history of how they got to be there, and how they have changed over time, I have created a separate document for you to read, and it is available on my Dropbox site at: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kfjydd98t5jb0r0/Follow%20the%20Leader%20and%20Cruise%20Around%20the%20Bay%202021%20%28Dropbox%20post%29.pdf?dl=0 . I will be calling out some of these things on the VHF as we progress along the route, but reading this document ahead of time I think will make the day a bit more interesting for you.
Feel free to contact me with any questions prior to the cruise date, and any late-breaking changes in plans due to weather, etc. will be posted on TMCA Facebook. My boat, s/v Silhouette, is a 27ft rather slow-moving sailboat, typically motoring at 5kts or so. But the whole idea of this adventure is to go slow, see the sights, and have a pleasant day on the water. So please come join me!
Philip Kropf, s/v Silhouette, 713-598-6454, pkropf@flash.net
