Day 46 - 51 Rabbit Island to Biloxi Point Cadet Marina

As we were leaving Rabbit Island in the AM it was cloudy with enough wind to sail but it was completly on the nose so we motored all the way to Biloxi






The West approach to Biloxi brings you by the West end of Deer Island.










You Make the turn very close to the beach just after clearing Deer Island on the right.









This is Point Cadet Marina, all the way to the East end. A very nice city owned marina with a helpful staff.

WS tucked in on A dock at Point Cadet.

The admiral snapped this sunset pic over Deer Island where you can see the trees are still recovering from Katrina.

There was a lot of commotion down at the entrance to A Dock. A crew had just brought in a 12' Mako Shark. There were about 30 people gathered on the dock as word had evidently spread fast. This was an amazing sight, very deep blue in color and magnificent! A little clowning around with the Budlight can in the teeth.

The Biloxi light house is lined up with the west entrance to the Biloxi Channel.

Day 46 - 51 Rabbit Island to Biloxi.

Underway 7:20 hrs, 46.2 Nm., Avg speed 6.4Kts. , 28-50 degrees,Prtly cloudy 0-10 SE winds.

We had anchors up and underway by 0645. We wanted to make sure and make Biloxi and avoid a stop at Gulfport. Since we would finally be getting into so big water, The Mississippi Sound, I was hoping for some sailing. The winds were either right on the nose or non-existent. Go Yanmar! We were able to completely avoid tow traffic as we could take short cuts across the sound and just enter the ICW whenever it was necessary to get through spoil areas. Just as we made the first turn East down the Biloxi entrance channel, the winds piped up to 15kts. The Point Cadet Harbor master answered our first call and from his office on the 3rd story of the Marina facility building he could watch our progress to the marina. He met us on the dock and with his very professional assistance we were in our slip and secure. He hung around and gave us plenty of local information to get our visit started. The marina is right behind a huge Hotel and Casino. There is also a trolly line you can pick up there and get around to all parts of Biloxi. The best news is there is a Non-Smoking Casino within walking distance so we did enjoy the Paradise Casino a couple of days and actually walked out $5.00 ahead! The Admiral suggested we go right away to Homeport but I was reluctant as there was another frontal system coming through and if we had to get stuck somewhere I thought this very reasonable marina would be preferable compared to HomePort where the rates are about double. Turns out the Admiral was right, we could have used the next two days to travel and would have made Pensacola before the front. I erred a bit to far on the side of safety and it cost several days time. Biloxi is good for about 3 days max but ended up staying 5 days. I did talk to a couple of locals about the weather patterns but no one will advise you to go when weather is on the way. It is the Captains call and in my case a mistake could cost my crew so it is just a case of learning how these fronts move through this area. They are slow, they do not march across in quick stormy order, they take longer and are not as violent as in Texas....at least not yet.