February 5, 2010
After spending awhile in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, doing repairs on his boat, Nathan called yesterday to report that he had set sail again. But he didn’t get very far. He sailed and sailed -- eight hours to be exact – and was wondering why he could not get out of sight of the large bridge connecting Ocean Springs with nearby Biloxi. So he did an inspection of his boat. That’s when he found his rudder had ensnared a crab trap and all the while the trap had been hampering his progress. While bemused by it all, he felt bad that he had inadvertently made off with part of somebody’s livelihood.
While sailing, Waltzing Matilda was again joined by dolphins. Nathan said Mattie would bark at them and the dolphins would tease her.
About 7 this morning, I received the following text from him: “30 kt wind, 6 ft sea, lightning fog and rain, and Im still in the Missi sound. Exploring horn [island] today if I can get to shore.”
In my reply, I told him to let us know when he had reached the island.
At 8:20 a.m. I received the following text: “Im @ the isl, can’t get off boat. Anchors have held well for 36 hours, should hold 12 more. Wind reversed but decresed, low cel signal”
Located in about five miles into the Gulf of Mexico due south between Ocean Springs and Pascagoula, Mississippi, Horn Island is a strip of land about 11 miles long and no more than perhaps a half mile across.
About 1:20 a.m. Saturday we were awakened by Nathan’s voice on our answering machine speaker, calling us from Horn Island, Mississippi, where he had been riding out a storm: “I’ve abandoned ship! My boat is breaking up! The Coast Guard is en-route!”
Not the kind of call parents like to get in the middle of the night.
We immediately got in contact with him by text and voice. He and Mattie the dog were on the beach in the wind. They were 50 feet from Waltzing Matilda which was being tossed by the storm, making sickening crunching sounds. For sure it sounded like she was being wrecked, smashed on the beach.
But there’s more to the story.
--Official Correspondent Dad Landry
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