Mobile Bay - Fairhope, AL

The trip across Mobile Bay was pretty quick; it's less than the distance across Green Bay. It's very shallow, outside of the main shipping channel it's less than 10 feet! We saw lots of brown pelicans following the fishing boats, but no dolphin sightings yet.

We're now at Eastern Shore Marine at Fairhope, AL. There's still work going on nearby to repair damage done by Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Ivan was also not kind to the Mobile area. We had a great seafood dinner on Wednesday night with three other couples, one from Algoma, WI. Fairhope is decorated for the holidays with thousands of white lights in the trees lining the streets - really beautiful. Paul's cousin Sandy from Bloomington, IL hooked us up with their former neighbors, Art and Marilyn, who live near the marina. We enjoyed getting to know them at dinner Friday night and lunch today. Art is also retired from the FBI so he and Paul had a lot in common. The sunset picture was taken from the first slip they had us in at Fairhope.

The weather over the weekend was pretty threatening (although nothing materialized) so we delayed leaving. Depending on weather, we'll head out into the Gulf of Mexico Monday or Tuesday. We plan to anchor on our way to Pensacola, FL.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO US!
34 years and counting as of November 25th,
and no, we didn't finish this bottle of wine in
one night!

The Mast is Up!

Here comes our mast. There's definitely a tense moment while watching your mast dangling in the air like this!








We had help from Rolf, a sailor from Sheboygan, WI who also had his mast put back on "Norske". He and his wife, Kathy, are truly live aboards after selling their land home and moving aboard in May. (not sure I'd be ready for that!)




This is Roger (who needs a bosun's chair?) from Turner's Marina. He scoots up masts like a monkey! They step so many masts that they're really good at it. It was the place that was recommended to us to have the work done. The $.50/foot dockage rate was the best we'll see in a long time too I'm sure.




As you can see, all went well! It was great to have Restless Wind looking "normal" again. We left at mid-day to cross Mobile Bay to Fairhope. More on that later... Belated "Happy Thanksgiving" to all. We both feel we have much to be thankful to the Lord for this year as always.

Becoming a Sailboat Again!

The mast was taken off the deck and put in the "mast parking lot" for us to prep it. It's scheduled to be stepped on Monday the 19th.

Meanwhile we rented a car and are seeing some of Mobile and got to attend a church service on Sunday. We had "poboys" at The Boiling Pot; they're like a sub sandwich with about a pound of shrimp; Paul had fried oysters on his (no thanks).

We also drove south and toured the Estuarium at Dauphin Island Sea Lab. An estuary is an area where fresh water and salt water meet. It was really interesting - sort of like a museum and aquarium combined. We saw our second fort there (we had toured Fort Conde in downtown Mobile). The Isle of Dauphin was the capital of the Louisiana Territory - lots of history here.

Mobile

We arrived in Mobile, Alabama on Monday, November 12th, two months to the day after we left Green Bay. It felt like a major milestone! Seeing the open water was almost intimidating after being on the rivers for so long with land so close on both sides of the boat. This picture is looking back at Mobile and two of the boats we were traveling with.

Mobile is a major seaport with lots of cargo ships being loaded, tows and tugboats. There was a lot of turbulence while making our way to Dog River Marina on the western shore of the Bay.

We passed by the Mobile Convention Center on our way into Mobile Bay. We felt like we were so far from civilization at the anchorage the night before but we were only 3 hours from this.

A fishing boat in Mobile Bay. This was our first sighting of Brown Pelicans. They can have a wing span of up to 6 1/2 ft and dive bill first into the water for fish.

We stayed at the Dog River Marina one night then moved next door to Turner's where we'll have the mast put back where it belongs. We'll be there a week or so. I hope to put some pictures of that momentous event on the blog next time. Again..... GO PACKERS!!!

Catfish, Gators and Fog

We did get to tour two of the historic antebellum homes in Demopolis before we left: Bluff Hill and Gainswood, both very interesting. They use the term antebellum to refer to anything before the Civil War. Right after Demopolis is the Demopolis Lock (go figure!) Another 40 feet down we went after delaying an hour or so for early morning fog. After going about 50 miles down river, we anchored just off the channel with five other boats. We all got together on Transition, Bill and Jill's 42 ft. Kadey Krogen from Vermont. I was afraid I'd develop "trawler envy" after seeing how 12 people can socialize on a boat and not feel crowded, but I didn't. I purposely avoided touring their sleeping areas however; ignorance is bliss!
















We saw our first alligators the next day: three separate sightings of them just relaxing in the sun - very creepy looking. We're definitely "not in Kansas anymore!"

That night we got to experience Bobby's Fish Camp - a must stop along the Loop. It's just a dock, fuel and the restaurant where 12 of us had a Friday night fish fry southern style. That's fried catfish, french fries, cole slaw and hushpuppies. Paul had catfish at the marina restaurant in Demopolis but it was the first time I'd had it. If you want any alcoholic beverages besides canned beer, you bring your own and they provide the glasses. It was very tasty and a fun time.












Going down 34 feet at the Coffeeville Lock the next morning completed the 26 locks on our way down and we are now basically at sea level. Also the water is considered tidal from this point forward. We felt a sense of accomplishment! That night we anchored in a little creek with just a houseboat for company. That was our first experience with tidal activity. It was doing strange things to our bow and stern anchors so we left there at first light - in the fog. A little scary but we went slowly and made sure the two tows we encountered knew where we were. Ginger did not enjoy the horn we blew every two minutes during the most dense parts. Only one gator spotted on gator watch today.













Check out these chart pages. As you can see, river miles vs. net miles are somewhat of a disparity! Sometimes it was hard to tell what direction you were traveling.

We caught up to the "pack" again and anchored with the same five boats in a very peaceful anchorage a mile up the Tensas cut off, about a mile off the channel. We were now officially on the Mobile River, so named after the Alabama River flowed into it. There was moss hanging off the cypress trees and mullet fish jumping out of the water, no gators though. It was in the high 70s and sunny. Cocktail hour again on the same trawler; kind of nostalgic as this is the last night we'll probably all be at anchor together. On to Mobile tomorrow!

Tenn-Tom River Section

Our plans changed and we never did go to the marina at Columbus, Miss. as I mentioned last time. After we left the Midway Marina we went through three more locks in one day: Fulton, Wilkins and Amory. This is the scene while waiting 1 1/2 hrs to go through the Amory Lock; it was down due to maintenance. It didn't do those big guys any good roaring off ahead of us; they just had to wait a couple of hours longer than we did. Although on a sunny 76 degree day it wasn't much of a hardship! Some people anchor and some just float around. The sailboat on the left is a 38' Cabo Rico whose home port is in Tenn. It was being delivered by 4 sailors for the owner who will meet up with it in Florida. We were interested in watching it go under the fixed bridges which were around 52 ft. They didn't make it by much but our mast wouldn't have cleared them at all, which is why it's still laying horizontally on our deck! About 5 miles past the Amory Lock is where the 149-mile River Section of the Tenn-Tom begins.

Factoid - The Tenn-Tom is the largest project ever undertaken by the US Corps of Engineers. 307 million cubic yards of earth were moved, more than the Panama Canal project.

We anchored that night at Blue Bluff. These recreation areas make great anchorages for boaters with a dog as there are small docks and even clean restrooms with flush toliets if you're really lucky! It was a great anchorage but I'm a little sorry we didn't go to the marina at Aberdeen. Evidently there are Antebellum homes to tour in Aberdeen which would have been interesting. Paul says, "next time!" We were heading for the Aberdeen Lock by 8am the next day (early for us) as we heard on the radio the boats who stayed at the marina were heading for the lock. We got there about 30 min ahead of them and had to wait for the big guys. That night we anchored near the Bevell Lock and Dam near Columbus. We had planned to tour the snagboat Montgomery but since it was a weekend, it was closed for "winter hours" - sure doesn't feel like winter! Anyway, we did look around the Montgomery, read the placards and looked in the windows of the visitors center - another place to visit "next time!"




The US Snagboat Montgomery was the last steam powered sternwheeler to ply the inland waterways of the South. The snagboats removed trees, sunken logs and other debris that might obstruct river traffic. She was built in 1926 and retired in 1982. The boat is now dry-docked to preserve it.

Saturday night we stayed at a tiny marina near Pickensville, Alabama. (We crossed into Alabama mid-day on Friday.) Paul says the marinas are getting "seedier" as we move south. They sure do need some TLC and maintenance and some of the showers make you long for home! Ginger and I did make some new friends doing laundry there though. The girls and little Roscoe the wiener dog were visiting one of their grandparents on a houseboat.

We're getting up an hour or so earlier now with the end of daylight savings time. We'll need to get earlier starts as it'll be dark around 5:30pm. We went through the Bevell Lock and headed for the next one. We were excited to find we could get updates on the Packers-Chiefs game on an XM sports station; usually we just call Alison for updates. While we dropped the 32ft in the Hefflin Lock we lost the signal at a critical time. By the time we anchored just off the river past the lock, victory was assured and all was well - wheww!

The next pictures are of the white cliffs at Epes, Alabama nearing Demopolis. (another seedy marina!) The Black Warrior enters the Tenn-Tom here and it's officially called the Black Warrior-Tombigbee Waterway down to Mobile. We had to raft off 2 other sailboats the first night here they were so full. Now that was tricky climbing over the decks of two other boats and all their rigging in the dark! They left about 6:30 this am so we are at the dock now - much better. We hope to tour a couple of the old homes in the town tomorrow.


"Where the burgee flies". This is the burgee that identifies us as boaters doing the Great Loop.


After we leave Demopolis, there are no marinas until Bobby's Fish Camp which is 100 miles. It'll be kind of like that section of the Mississippi away from civilization except less current and definitely less heat! Paul is studying the guidebooks to see where we can safely anchor as I write. We bought a tiny generator in town today. Paul is hoping it won't prove to be too small; we were price-driven! There are frost warnings out for tonight so our warm days may be over. With the generator, we'll hopefully be able to run a space heater while at anchor. Wish us luck, we'll be out of touch for awhile. GO PACKERS!!!