It was a fairly windy morning when we decided to break one of our cardinal rules (don’t travel in high winds)!  Galveston Bay was white capping, cargo ships and tankers were lined up going into the Houston Ship Channel.  We were anxious to get “on the road again”.  Fortunately for us, this time we only had to “cross” their paths rather than travel with them in their wake (they had 5 foot wakes when we traveled in the same direction with them last month).

We had several congested areas getting from Galveston to Lake Charles.  You see in the first picture we are overtaking one tow, with another coming head-on, but we were “on the road” and hoping to make it to Lake Charles today.    

We were delighted to have dolphins swimming in our wake!  Always exciting, only wish we could capture more of them out of the water.  We saw several sets of 2 or 3 dolphins this morning.

    

And, yes – that’s the Golden Nugget again!  We enjoyed their small marina, extremely clean and convenient to restaurants and activity (which in some marinas is non-existent), when we were heading West so we decided to stop over again on our way back East.  And – just when you’re thinking you’re the “big dog” on the block, someone bigger and meaner pulls in next to you.  This 70 foot Johnson from Clear Lake, Texas pulled in and dwarfed us!  They were decorated “Texas Strong” – all 70 feet.  Made our little Santa shrink!  But they were nice people (as most boaters are), that came for a short gambling trip.  Last I heard one of them say was, “I just cashed out at $2,500”.  He did better than Santa!

    

    

The 13th., we decided to lay over for the day.  We enjoyed breakfast in the Casino’s “Claim Jumper” grille and hung out on the boat the rest of the day.  Ron washed layers of salt residue off Kara Mia while Karen caught up on photos, the blog and paperwork.  We will head to Shell Morgan for fuel in the morning.

With Ron washing the boat and chilly December winds, Santa decided to move in and watch a little television.