As the ICW turns

Annie finished the wood last Sunday, so we went ahead and departed Watergate Marina as planned on Danny's Birthday. Thanks to her generosity, we used her car almost everyday and luckily were able to get some much needed chores done. We spent Sunday night at Steve's Landing about 5 hours down the shipchannel into the ICW. It's located on Bolivar Island and we have now started on parts of the ICW we have never ventured onto before. Steve's is a great restaurant/marina with room for about 3 of our sized boats to park in the protected side area. Many more will fit in front of the restaurant but you would still be in the ICW so the barge traffic would rock you all night long. We celebrated Dan's 59th birthday with dinner at Steve's; catfish and steamed crabs. We left Monday morning around 7am and motored 8 hours; past High Island, past Port Arthur and spent the night at a nicely protected anchorage at Shell Island. We got up early today thinking it was about to rain and now we're underway; soon to cross into Louisiana, where we will spend another night on the hook. All is going well, beautiful weather, wide waterways with a moderate amount of barge traffic. So far we've only seen 2 other boats that appear to be cruising; both sailboats. Let us hear from you guys!!