3 Feb 13

After a quiet, restful night on the hook, we weighed anchor about 11:00 on Sunday morning and headed for Stingaree Marina on Boliver Peninsula, about 7 miles up the ICW from Boliver Roads. We arrived at Stingaree at about 16:00, very nearly high tide, but were unable to get within 50 feet of the transient slip due to lack of water depth. I had called ahead to confirm that there was sufficient water depth for our 5' 7" draft, but the fact on the day was that it was only about 3' 6" deep. There are no good anchorages along the ICW between Galveston and Port Arthur, so we had a dilemma: go about 15 miles back to Galveston, arriving after dark, or go to our next planned anchorage 40 miles east on the ICW at the Taylor Outfall Canal, arriving at around midnight. Rather than back-track, we decided to carry on to the east. After a white-knuckle ride along the ICW dodging tugs and barges all night long and touching the bottom 3 times, we got the anchor down in Taylor Outfall Canal, just west of Port Arthur, at 00:30 on Monday morning. Amazingly, the mosquitos nearly carried me away while I was getting the anchor down.