Ahoy hoy from the Gulf coast!

this is Captian Nathan writing, I have reached New Iberia, LA and am currently at anchor at the Holcomb's house on the Bayou Teche. The Intracoastal waterway took me from Morgan City to "somewhere" near a little town named Landry. I ran after dark trying to make in closer to New Iberia and followed the tug "Jo Ann Marie" for several hours to avoid being run down as well as to keep my bearings. In the dark everything becomes strange and my body has no way to deal with the odd images my eyyes are recieving, so I get vertigo and hallucinations. Following a tug allows me to have a fixed point of reference as well as a big safety zone, if the tug hits anything it moves whatever it hit, sometimes it moves it right under the tug and into his wake so I run just on the starboard prop wash.

I cruised until I came to a private cable ferry that serves a salt mine and pulled into a drainage ditch, it was a nice 6' deep with a soft muddy bottom 1/2 mile from an entrance to West Cote Bay in the gulf. Little did I know I anchored at high tide. I slept in and when i awoke my 1st thougth was, "I don't remember seeing those rocks last night". Matilda was not in the mud, yet, I had all of 3 inches beneath her keel.

My cell phone was out of airtime and Regan was trying to find me, she called the ferry operator and said that she was looking for her friend "in a little sailboat", the ferry captian responded, "I'm looking right at him" and gave Regan directions to find me. I left Matilda for about 24 hours and went into town to do some much needed laundry, have my 1st indoor hot shower since I left the Arkansas and get some innernetting done. I was also able to use the google to find a route from where Waltzing Matilda was to the Holcomb's house. When I call on the radio to inquire about my position I often have to answer the question "You came from where without charts?"

Upon my return to Matilda I had to wait for the tide, she was settled into the mud rudder first as her aft anchor had been hit by a sport fisherman and was not keeping her in the canal correctly, no damage done. I had a few hours to kill and chatted with the ferry operator as his leisure time permitted, cleaned inside the boat and petted my dog. At 11:30 I was ready to move, I had risen 2" with the tide and using my little "hooker" anchor I turned Matilda 180 degrees and moved her out of the ditch into the intracoastal.

I backtracked about 3 miles to the canal that leads to the Teche bayou motored up the Teche river. It was really pretty with so many houses and lawns coming right to the water's edge, lots of parks and people out to wave hello as I putted past. I came to the 1st low bridge and had to call a telephone number to get the transportation department to open the bridge for me to pass. Despite being curtiuos and polite on the phone the state employee was nasty nasty nasty! very rude and curt and then informed her bridge operator that I was rude to her, this was relayed to me via radio from the bridge operator. When I am 700 miles from home I am not rude to anyone, especially not someone I need to open a bridge for me. I assume it has something to do with being a state employee nearing the end of a shift right before a holiday. No matter, the bridges opened and I ran in the dark all the way to New Iberia. I had to pass one barge in the dark and we stayed in constant communication in order to make it past each other safely.

as I approached the "Olivier" (pronounced O live A) bridge I radioed "This is sailing vessel Waltzing Matilda, I am approaching the Olivier bridge". As soon as I released the microphone key I saw fireworks go off on the far side of the bridge, a signal to me from the Holcomb's welcoming me to their home. I had to wait 30 min for the bridge operator to get to his location and open the bridge and when I came ashore there was cold beer, hot food and great company waiting next to a big bonfire.

Waltzing Matilda is currently anchored in the Teche with a makeshift gangplank of old packing crates and a kayak to make shore access, I am showered, shaved and in clean clothing and Mattie is quite pampered. She has adjusted to boat life after a few hard weeks and is the best boatswain I have ever had.