6 Feb 13

Wednesday morning, we got back on the trail again early, headed for a recommended anchorage on the Mermentau River, although by now, I was beginning to be seriously suspicious of these recommendations. We successfully negotiated the Calcasieu Lock, Bayou Black pontoon bridge and Grand Lake pontoon bridge and made it to the Mermentau River by about 15:00. Following the channel markers about a mile up the river, we ran aground again. We got off the bottom easily enough this time and, being a bit paranoid by now, we turned back down river to deeper water and anchored in 14 ft of water, in what turned out to be the middle of a commercial shipping channel. About 20 minutes later, we were surprised to see a large tug pushing a very large offshore barge down the river right toward us. We hastily pulled up the anchor and headed toward the channel that this barge had just come down and found our way 2 more miles upriver into a very nice anchorage, which was just as well as a front came through in the night and the wind and rain were quite brisk.