Offat's Bayou to Houma

Hanging out in Offat's Bayou was just about what we expected - peaceful. Anchored out in front of Moody Gardens close to the Colonel (a big paddle boat). Saw one more sailboat anchored out in the general area. That was it. The three of us. Like I said, peaceful. The following morning we decided to take our new dinghy out to explore a little. We set out to find the supposed fuel stop and restaurant at the south end of the bayou and maybe do some fishing. It was a nice sunny day with some pretty good wind. We were so excited about taking the tender out that we didn't think to grab some lifejackets. Bad move. Good news is no one fell out. Bad news is we got a ticket. On the up side, the game warden was cool and he told us about all the good fishing holes.
We ended up changing locations to the south end of the bayou. Never found the fuel stop but we did find Boudreaux's Restaurant. It was easy and convenient to take the dinghy to the dock and dine, which we did on two occasions. One evening our friends Neil and Carolina came to visit. Matt picked them both up at Boudreaux's and brought them to Helm's Deep for beers and such, then we went back to the restaurant for dinner an some Saturday night entertainment. Sunday my parents came for a visit. They were kind enough to run us on a couple of errands before we went back to the boat. Spent the day visiting and sailing, then put some steaks on the grill. Great visit with the folks AND we got an early Christmas present! And now we know that, yes, you CAN play wii on a boat!!
Now the decision to either wait for a weather window to head out into the Gulf and toward Florida or to take the ICW on up to New Orleans. Either way we needed to restock and fill up with water. We had been all over the bayou at this point and the only place we thought might have water turned out to be a private residence. Thankfully Dick and his wife were extra kind and allowed us to pull the boat over to one of their several slips and fill up with water. Left the boat there while we rode our bikes to the Wally-world and bought enough to feed us for weeks. The backpacks were pushed to capacity on that trip!
The next day the decision had been made to continue up the ICW due to weather conditions in the Gulf. Impatient were we… And now we know better. The goal was to try to make it to New Orleans by Halloween. After a couple of days and nights plowing up the ICW with not much wind the goal changed to getting to NO by the Sunday night football game. We stayed one night in Intracoastal City at a recommended dockage. Strange accents but nice people.
We made it as far as Houma. And here we are now waiting patiently for our weather window to get OUT of the Intracoastal and into the Gulf.