11/9/18 Friday: We tried to sleep in today since we didn’t have far to travel. All these 5:00 mornings reset my internal hopper, and I was awake. I finally got up around 6. We had such a peaceful and calm night! This little creek was great. The It’s OK2 boat was already gone. I rechecked the weather forecast, and it was still showing that there would be wind and rain in Mobile around noon. If we left here by 8:00 or so, we’d likely beat the yucky weather. Here’s our new First Mate enjoying the nice calm morning – not too cold out there, as you can see by the short sleeve uniform.
Kenny, Wayne, and weiner dog hose took care of the anchor while I maneuvered us from the helm, and we were back on the river making our way south. The scenery was beginning to look more like Florida, with low banks, bushes and some palms. We found ourselves following a tow down river as we approached a railroad lift bridge, so we just followed him through. I believe this is the very last bridge that we need to have opened!
And then – our first glimpses of bonafide civilization! Look- it’s Mobile! We had beautifully calm water.
As the river comes into the Port of Mobile at the north end of Mobile Bay, it becomes a busy shipping port, complete with containers, tankers, Coast Guard, manufacturing and industry. Notice that big tanker on the right? We followed it for a very long way out into the bay!
These ships were crazy James Bond 007 looking. This was Austal, a global defense contractor.
Check out what these ships look like from the Google! They have quite the poker nose! I also see that we crossed right over the top of Interstate 10, where a tunnel goes under the river. (See those I10 symbols in the middle of the river?)
And then there were more crazy looking James Bond ships.
Here are a couple of the iconic Mobile city buildings. This was a nice looking area around the convention center on the river.
This shows the Mobile Cruise terminal. It kind of looks like it might belong on Star Trek.
Here is our buddy tanker with his tug boat escort. Right when we got out of the river and into the bay where we had more water, he slowed way down. Probably to disembark the river pilot. We asked if we could pass, and we were given the go-ahead. But then he put the hammer down and started picking up speed. There was no way to get around him for just a few miles before we were going to turn into the Dog River channel, so we just stayed put and continued following.
We saw some dolphins! YAY for salt water! Of course, as soon as I tried to get a picture of them, they played hide-n-seek with me. The Coast Guard had one of those bouy planting boats, and then a Cutter went zooming past us.
And then there were dragnetters. And as we went into the Dog River, we saw crab pots! We haven’t seen those since… Chesapeake Bay in May! Ah – the salt water!
We are DONE with the rivers. It was the part of the Loop that we dreaded the most, based on what we heard from others. Everyone put the fear of Poseidon in us for the rivers. Yes, there was current. There was debris. There were tows. There were locks. There were schedules. There was coordinating with other boats. There was fog. But the rivers weren’t terrible. Some of that stuff actually kept it interesting, because a lot of the time, the rivers were extremely boring. There were long stretches with little to see or places to stop – especially these last few days.
We arrived at Dog River Marina before noon, stopped at the fuel dock and melted the credit card. Then we found our way to a dock. We had a choice – the slips or the face dock. We chose the face dock. That may have been a mistake. Our bow was pointed north and there was big wind building from the north. We had a lot of waves and water slapping the hull. But while we were chillaxing for the afternoon, the boat behind us was having a diver come and install new zincs. Our Maintenance crew has been thinking about our zincs, too. The ones we have on the boat are for salt water, so being in fresh water for the last five months hasn’t done them any good. The fresh water puts a coating on them which makes them ineffective. Kenny talked to the diver and then took a quick walk to West Marine to get some zincs for Island Girl.
The diver took care of changing our zincs for us, and now we are all set for salt water electrolysis protection.
We took a look at the upcoming weather to decide on our next travel plan. Tomorrow (Saturday) looks like the wind will continue to slap, rock and roll the water. It is quite the cold front coming in! We decided to stay here for a second night and not travel until Sunday. And then, wherever we go, we’ll want to stay for a few days while it pours down buckets of rain and the wind blows another cold front in. All the while, we need to keep a watchful eye on the Gulf for any possible upcoming weather window for crossing to Clearwater. We are only a few days travel from Carrabelle now, so if we see good weather coming, we’ll need to move along to Carrabelle to stage for the crossing.
