New Orleans to Bay St. Louis

Still got issues but at least we're underway. 

We left the marina around 7:45 am, which got us to the bridge to the industrial canal around 8:30, which is when they end the "rush hour" closure. However, the bridge was being worked on, so it didn't open until 8:45-ish. We immediately stopped at Seabrook Harbor and Marine to pump out and get a new battery for the starboard engine. The new battery didn't fix the issue -- the engine still wouldn't turn over on it's own. Russ suspects we have a grounding problem and that's really all I understand about those words. We can jump it, which is why we can use it at all. Also, we were only able to pump out one of our tanks when the pump died. Ah, boat life!

You can see the RR bridge is down. 
Had to wait a while to get that open for us.

The trip through the canal was pretty mundane. But we're glad we did it. Since we came up by way of the lake, we boated around "the wall" of New Orleans. Going out this way we got to cross into it then out of it.

The Wall was built post Hurricane Katrina. Katrina itself -- the winds and rain -- wasn't the reason New Orleans flooded. It was the storm surge. High waves wore down and broke the levys, causing the lake to engulf the area. The Wall completely encircles New Orleans. When the storm surge is high enough it's closed to protect the city. Some believe once the waters are high enough New Orleans will become an island.

That solid line on the horizon it The Wall.

Once we cleared the canal we were on the gulf. While not crazy windy, it was breezy enough to make a choppy ride. Seas were 1 - 2 feet. We got into Bay St. Louis without any issue, just needed to be cautious going up and down the stairs. Before docking we pumped out the other side and fueled up.

Early day tomorrow. The winds should be around 2 mph first thing in the morning. The further west we go, the better it gets.

It felt like we were going through a lock.
The this was the gate on The Wall.

Update: Within an hour of docking here Russ 1) fixed the starboard engine issue (literally, a flipped switch, which begs the question of "Why is that even here?"), fixed our radar (which died about halfway here), and fixed the NMEA bus (which stopped giving us AIS data). He's my hero! 💗

A little choppy but not too bad.
We ran into a lot of commercial traffic going this way.