3 Day Trip- Cat and Ship Islands

[LooseDiamond]

Had a wonderful 3 day, 2 night trip to Cat Island last weekend. Weather was perfect. Upper 70's during day, upper 50's at night. Winds were good, many dolphins. Calving season, so saw a few little ones!
Caught some specs in Smugglers Cove Sunday morning at daylight. Sand flies got bad Sunday morning, so we motored to Ship Island. Much construction under way there. Rebuilding permanent structures for snack area, housing, restrooms. Talked to inspector and construction super. Expect to finish in August. Mentioned other work on Horn Island (living quarters both ends for rangers). Can see pilings in pic. Wind picked up out of SE, and took us straight to LBH. Thought I would post a few pics. Enjoy!

God Bless MS and pass the antiseptic!

Loose Diamond at anchor



Sunset at Smugglers Cove



Fort Mass on Ship Island



Construction



Dolphins!

 

[Chuck Creel]

Just absolutely georgous photos. Thanks for sharing. This is what lifes all about.

I will be anchored up off petite-boi island the 21st next saturday if you wanna hangout and lie about the admiral.. lol

Capt Chuck Creel
S/V Jacob's Dream
30 ft Hunter

 

[sailaway78]

Smugglers Cove

How much water is there in Smugglers Cove now. That used to be a favorite anchorage of mine, but since Katrina have heard it is to shallow for me to get in there, and have not investigated. If there is enough in there for a 4'6" draft, it will go back on my favorites list.
Nice pics by the way. Hope you can make the raft up.

 

[LooseDiamond]

Thanks both of you. Read often, trying to contribute. petite-boi might be a stretch from LBH. I grew up going to Pascagoula river and Horn. Love to make it over that way. As for Smugglers Cove, I have a C22 swing keel drawing 2 1/2 ft retracted. Still shallow. Can't say for sure, based on transducer mount, but it is shallow everywhere and dicey getting in as far as I like. Little deeper S side of cove. Most sailboats and larger boats anchor out of cove. In the 2 1/2 years I have been going there, almost half of that spit has been cut down and underwater at high tide. In fact, there is a marker like this one at the base of the spit that has been exposed 1-1/2 ft. just this year.

 

[mcaswell]

LooseDiamond,

That marker is interesting... what is its purpose? And thanks for the Ship Island update... we haven't been out there since pre-K.

--Michael

 

[mcaswell]

How much water is there in Smugglers Cove now. That used to be a favorite anchorage of mine, but since Katrina have heard it is to shallow for me to get in there, and have not investigated. If there is enough in there for a 4'6" draft, it will go back on my favorites list.

We anchored there on New Year's Eve (we're 4'6" too)... the red dot shows the approximate area where we dropped the hook. Not as deep into the cove as we used to with our previous boat (26X), though as has already been pointed out, unfortunately there's not much of a cove left. But on that night, there was a stiff northerly wind, so it was fine.

It was getting dark as we arrived, so I didn't extensively scout out the depths, but I also didn't hit any unexpected shoaling.

--Michael

 

[ChuckThomas]

Is the first picture where the beach used to be on the South side? My first cruise in my boat was to there. I have not tried to go there post Katrina.