J24 to Galveston-Advice Needed

[baileyrace]

My wife wants to sail the J24 to Galveston, spend the night at Harbor House and sail back to Seabrook the next day. This sounds fun to me and i do not want to miss a chance to get her out on the boat. We want to do this sometime this spring or early summer and the trip will be about sailing, a pleasant dinner, and relaxing at a decent hotel. If all goes well, my chances for a future sailboat vacation increase substantially.

The problem is, I know little about Galveston Bay outside HYC to Eagle Point, and Clear Lake for Wed. night racing. We just have the tiny two stroke motor, so I want to sail all the way and keep plenty of distance from the ships. It seems the best way would be to sail down east of the ship channel. The chart shows spoil banks on the east side of the channel, and on both sides further south. Do I need to find the channel through these spoil banks, or can you just sail across anywhere with a 4 foot draft? What about the Redfish bar?  All we will have is a Tactick compass and hand held vhf radio, so we will pick a good weather window, if Sailflow can give me two days of nice wind.

I have  a lot of racing experience, but the only navigation I know is looking for the windward or leeward marks. Actually. I can follow channel markers and even took a ride on the Bolivar ferry to get a first hand look at that busy intersection.  Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Barry

[Jeff K]

The east side of the ship channel is a nice route to Galveston if you have time. I did it many times in our old Santana 35 that drew 7'. Just put a small jib up and do a couple of tacks to kinda stay in the middle, you won't have any trouble at all. I do recommend taking an extra gas can with you, just because...

[chris]

Handheld GPS is also a good iead 

[Grind4Beer]

With a J24, the Seabrook/Galveston trip is a lot more fun (and less effort) if you can pick a weather window that lets you reach or at least fetch the 20-miles of the ship channel both ways. It's a long, long ride with a 3.5hp Nissan and a 1.2kt adverse current. Since the channel runs mostly SSE-NNW, a nice NE is good for the run down, and a SW for the run home, but that combination doesn't happen often on a single weekend. The usual thing is SE both days, so you get a lopsided beat down and a broad-reach back.

Get into the channel well-north of Redfish Island, do *not* route between there and San Leon Point. You might make it in a J24 at very high tide, but there's been a lot of boats pulled off of Todd's Dump Reef. If the tide is more than a foot or so low, use the South Boaters Cut (it's marked in the charts near #61) to cross or enter the channel.

If your weather window sucks, and you have to short-tack the channel, one option is to exit into East Bay at the Trinity Channel (the bend at #51). There's been some debris reported there, but at 4ft draft you'll be out of the worst of the current and won't have to dodge traffic. Stay at least a half-mile away from the backside of Bolivar and its ferry landing, that gets shallow.

Speaking of traffic, on a J24, ya don't have a lot of speed, so plan *waaayyy* ahead on the shipping ... You're much much better off run-ground than ground-up. Even where there's spoil banks along the main channel, there's usually 12-20ft of water on the outside of the marker. Don't hesitate to use that, the ships won't go there.

The junction of the ship channel with the intracoastal is always bigger than than it looked on the map. Get there during daylight if ya can, from #26 to #20 there's lots of deep water, traffic, and lights. Stay clear of the Galveston ferry docks, and from there it's a couple of miles to Harbor House.

Call ahead to make sure they've got dock space, all their floating stuff was pulled up to dredge a couple of weeks ago. Try the calimari appetizer at Willie-G's, very highly recommended.

I'd also recommend a hand-held GPS, with the local chart updates. It won't cost ya more than a night at Harbor House, and you get to keep more than the memory.

Have fun!

G4B
- J24#3224

[ChrisK]

Plan B might be a nice afternoon sail out to a new place called Judges Bar and Grill in sunny San Leon.

I know J24 Mutinous Dogs was able to sail into the San Leon Marina (in full pirate regalia) during 'Talk Like a Pirate Day' at the Buccaneer Bar a few years back. Sadly, the Buccaneer Bar got wiped out during Ike.

When I drove by the same place last week, the former "World's Ugliest Marina" appears to have been fully cleaned up after the storm.
Judges (with new docks) was built across the parking lot from where the Buccaneer used to be.

I haven't heard of anyone actually trying to sail into the San Lean Marina post Ike, or if any additional dredging that might have taken place, but 'in theory' it's a doable J24 lunch date that would make for a nice afternoon sail.

Old pic of the San Leon Marina before the storm (bonus points if you can pick out the J24 in the picture)

[baileyrace]

Thank you for the info. Now I just need to find the perfect weather.

[Grind4Beer]

The J24 is Wiki-Wiki II, sitting on her trailer at Jim (Hollywood) Sherriff's place. She survived Ike okay, picked up a few new scrapes. They had about 3ft of water into Radio City, but were serving cold beer the next day. I dunno how much draft Judge's Docks can handle, most of the nearby shore and bulkheads looked like they'd collected a foot or more of sand. Maybe somebody can call Judges to check? ...

And then there's the story about trying to get home from Buccaneer-Bar, having run down there in a 20kt northerly, and the water dropping a critical foot while we were having dinner ... *L* ...

Yanno, it is sort of a shame that there really aren't any upper-bay places for a keelboat to day-trip from Kemah for lunch, other than up to HYC. That Tex-Mex bar up by the Hartmann bridge hadn't re-opened, the last time I checked a couple-three months ago.

G4B

[Grind4Beer]

Barry/baileyrace ...

... What I meant to add, earlier: Don't forget to check the channel current as part of your weather window. There can be a knot or so of tidal effect that's with-ya or agin-ya in the channel. Heavy rains and strong northers can boost that to a couple of knots ebbing, and sustained lows or southerlies can push an extra knot or more of flood. When you're making 4-6kts in J24, that much current can giveth or taketh away a lot of speed-over-ground. It's about a 30-nm trip, not including any tacking, so allow plenty of time.

G4B

[baileyrace]

Thanks G4B,
I did guess that the j24 was on that trailer. I had not thought about current until it was mentioned in an earlier post. I am starting to question whether this is the trip to introduce my wife (and myself) to cruising. It is a long time on the water at 4 or 5 knots.

[BJSailor]

I'm not sure what "work" they're doing at Harbor House, but word is that they've been reposesed/foreclosed and are now out of business.  Can anyone else confirm?

[KevinBednar]

I don't know anything about getting a shallower draft boat down to Galveston for an overnight, but if you crew on one of the boats doing the Heald, HYC Triangle or other offshore you'll get a free look at what it's like doing the ride up and down the channel (not to mention an offshore race to boot..;0)

So, being the official shill of the discussion forum I say, head over to the crew finder area and post your interest in crewing offshore.   

[Grind4Beer]

I hadn't heard that about Harbor House, BJ ...

... We had dinner at Willie G's about 3-wks ago, they'd completely remodeled, said they were back in business a couple of months after Ike. The floating dock components were piled up on the pier, and it was the WG-manager who told us they'd started work on the outside of the waterfront bulkheads, but were waiting on a skinny dredge that could fit into the little harbor. Maybe there's more to the story? ...

Barry/bailey ...

... I've made the J24 round-trip to Galveston four (maybe five?) times, and I think the shortest dock-to-dock was just over 3-hrs. That was a spinnaker run all the way up the channel in 12-15 kts of breeze with maybe 1kt of favorable current, and a surfing-genoa reach from Redfish back to Seabrook. All the other rides were more like 4-6 hrs in 8-12 kts breeze give or take. The tricky thing about taking a 'cruising passenger' on a J24 is that the ride tends to get fast and get damp at about the same time. That said, lizbiz and I have been pondering making that trip for a while too, putting the boat at GYC and staying seaside somewhere.

For other cruisable GB destinations, you might check out Remedy Ed's site:
http://www.remedyandcrew.com/
http://www.remedyandcrew.com/Destinations/destinations.html

I don't know how many of those places survived Ike, but Ed has updated since then. His boat draws about 5ft, so you should be able to J24 them. The entrance to Double Bayou is sorta tricky, but doable. For Topwater, plan to arrive before noon, then wait for the seabreeze to sail home. I haven't visited the other places.

G4B

Kevin, izzat a hint or what? ... *L* ...

...

[AndyH]

I think you may be referring to Harborwalk, near Dickinson and off the ICW, west of the Causeway Bridge that is undergoing financial problems.  Harbor House is solvent!

--- Andy Howard

I'm not sure what "work" they're doing at Harbor House, but word is that they've been reposesed/foreclosed and are now out of business.  Can anyone else confirm?

[BJSailor]

Thanks for the clarity Andy.  Glad Harbor House is still up and running.

Harbor House, Harbor Walk, Harbor View, Harbor Schmarber...  Hard to keep 'em straight!

[Burns]

Speaking of places to go has anyone heard anything more from the woman that wanted input on building a marina or anchorage over in Chambers County?  I think she was from the Chambers County Economic Development Foundation.