First Overnight Stay!

After running to the store to stock up on groceries, Ken and I set out on s/vNirvana for our very first overnight stay on her, if you don't count the backyard.  So, the above is our first sunset while anchored out.

We headed down the canals of our neighborhood and into Lake Pontchartrain, which is the second largest saltwater lake in the U.S. and only minutes from our house.  The weather and the lake were perfect!

  

We headed through the drawbridge that you can see on the horizon.  There really aren't any anchorages in the lake, so we wanted to drop anchor at least an hour before sunset in case we needed to relocate or had problems with our anchor.  We picked an area that wasn't in the way of  traffic, and with the bottom of the lake being muddy we had no problems with setting the anchor or it holding our boat. 

We anchored around 4:00pm, lit our new grill, and poured some Margaritas.  By the way, if you haven't yet tried Jose Cuervo's pre-mixed "Golden" margarita, we highly recommend it!  Make sure you get the "Golden", as it has Grand Marnier in it and it's much better than Jose's regular margarita.  Unlike some pre-mixed margaritas, it actually has a decent amount of alcohol in it, and it's really smooth.

  

View of our salon, which is converted into the dining area by pulling down the table.

After dinner, we lounged in the cockpit to enjoy the view while sipping margaritas and listening to our favorite tunes.  The above is our state bird, the brown pelican. 

If you look close you can see the city of New Orleans on the horizon.

The sunset  gave us great views for the evening.

We turned on the outside lights of our sailboat in order to be seen anchored in the lake, then we lowered the dining table and converted the area into a place to lounge and play Scrabble.  I wish we had pictures of the night.  Ken and I kept going into the cockpit to look at the lights from New Orleans, the stars and the moon.  It was such an amazing sight! 

We slept in the v-berth, and it wasn't the best sleep. We definitely need a foam mattress topper! But, the night was uneventful and we woke just in time to watch the sun rise.

We haven't messed with our alcohol stove yet, and not too sure about it.  We'd feel more comfortable with a propane stove.  Does anybody know if we can convert our alcohol stove to a propane stove?  Our stove is in great condition, and we'd love to just convert it.  In the meantime, we used a propane burner and made coffee with our new perculator. We brought some biscuits and grilled sausage for breakfast in the cockpit while enjoying the views.

Rain was coming our way, so we headed back home before noon.  We were glad we did, as it started raining shortly after getting home.  We hung around the Hwy. 11 bridge a while waiting for the train to pass.

So, we finally anchored overnight and survived!  Now that we have that behind us, we can't wait to go again and venture out a little further.  We know it won't always be this easy, and we haven't had to use our GPS yet, but we had a great time and are really excited about next Spring. 

Hasta luego ... until then.  Mid-Life Cruising!