Spectacular Sunsets and Views from the Marina

    We saw a spectacular sunset the first night at the Wharf Marina!

Sunset in the Wharf Marina

Orange Beach, Alabama

Shrimp Boat in Mobile Bay

Sharing the Mobile Shipping Lane!  

11/4/19       Back in Salt Water!

     We traveled across Mobile Bay about 25 miles to enter the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.  We are finally back in salt water!  We saw dolphins jumping and shrimp boats with their casting nets out, a familiar and welcoming sight!  We happily pulled our boat right up to the dock of LuLu's Restaurant to eat lunch.  LuLu is Jimmy Buffet's sister and she has built up quite a famous place, including a restaurant, gift shop, several huge bars, a marina and a stage for Jimmy Buffet to entertain folks if you are lucky!  We  celebrated our arrival back on the ICW and being so close to home!  We stayed at The Wharf Marina, which is very nice.  It has condominiums, shops, a movie theater, restaurants, putt putt, pool, ferris wheel and even a zip line.  I am glad we are here in the off season, it is probably so crowded here in the summer months! There are many Loopers here, so we are catching up with friends.  This marina is quite a contrast to the ones we stopped at on the river systems!

LuLu's Restaurant with Endorphin Voyager 

Karl at LuLu's

The Wharf Marina

Shops, Restaurants, AMC Movie theater, even a Ferris Wheel

Dog River Marina, Alabama

11/3/19

    We are staying at Dog River Marina  for the weekend.  This marina is kind of isolated and it is really more of a boat yard where you leave your boat to get work done.   It was nice to relax over the weekend.   We ate a delicious meal at the Mobile Yacht Club.

Heron

The Marina

Karl watching the FSU football game.  He looks so excited!

Red Sky in morning, sailor take warning!  We knew we were staying put.
It turned out to be a very windy day!

Mobile Bay

Mobile is a large shipping area

11/1/19  Friday

     We traveled through the Mobile shipping lane for a few miles until we reached the Mobile Bay.  The weather was very chilly, in the 40's and still windy.  Mobile Bay is a mixture of fresh water from the river system and salt water from the Gulf.  We parted ways with Southern Cross today, as they were going on to Orange Beach to stay, and we had reservations at Dog River Marina.  This was a short trip of about 15 miles.  Mobile Bay is fairly large and shallow.  The waves can build up quickly in windy conditions.  We managed pretty well and arrived safely at Dog River.  We have been a little disappointed in the condition of the marina.  We had been in contact with this marina weeks in advance in hopes of getting some repairs done.  As it turns out, there are still many boats ahead of us scheduled for repairs.  We decided to stay for the week-end, but then move on to the Wharf Marina on Monday, not worrying too much about repair work yet.

Unhappy Halloween tricks on the Tombigbee and Mobile River!

Foggy Halloween Morning!

10/31/19  Thursday,  Happy Halloween!  Our friends were certainly on the tricked side!

     We woke up to a rainy morning in our anchorage.  We held firmly through the night.  We got a call first thing from Penny on Southern Cross, saying that their dinghy was gone!  They always drag it behind them so they can take their dog to shore to take care of her business.  They thought it had been stolen and called the local police and coast guard.  Karl and I got our dinghy off our boat to go over to Southern Cross to help in the search and to take the dog to shore!  Karl and Dave cruised up and down the creek to look for the missing dinghy, not finding it.  They were understandably upset, it was a new dinghy bought for the Loop trip.  After reporting it missing and worrying that it had been stolen, and much chatter on the radio, they got a call from a fellow boater.  They had just passed a dinghy about 5 miles downriver that was trapped on the side of the river bank!  Hoping that it was theirs, we quickly brought up our anchors and headed that way.  In the meantime, it had started to storm and really downpour rain!

Dinghy recovery adventure!

      We spotted the dinghy on the side of the shore, but there happened to be two huge tows and barges in the immediate area,  so we passed on by to find a good spot to stop out of their way.  Dave hopped on our dinghy, and worked his way back to the spot where we had seen his dinghy.  Southern Cross and Endorphin Voyager had to hover in the channel of the river to wait in the poring rain with 2 tows in the area, not knowing what was really happening.  It was taking Dave a long time to recover the dinghy and bring it back to the mother ship!  What was going on?  After much worry, we finally spotted 2 little dinghys slowly making their way back to us, in the poring rain!  It amazingly was his dinghy!  He was pulling our dinghy behind him!  The story does not quite end yet!  We found out why it took him so long.  It was because our dinghy had sprung a huge leak!  He had to stop and bale every few minutes to make it to shore for the recovery!  Thank goodness it did not sink!  And thank goodness Dave was a Navy man!  He is a Naval Academy graduate and spent 25 years in the service!

       Karl and Dave spent another good 30 minutes or so, trying to bail enough water out of our dinghy so we could lift it safely with the davit to get it back on board!   All in the pouring down rain and they were soaked through and through and chilled to the bone!  Good news is, they were able to complete "the mission," and we were all thankful to have found their dinghy.  We think someone had stolen it and then abandoned it for some reason, maybe teenagers playing a Halloween prank?
We may never know for sure!

     This all took several hours, but we finally got on our way again.  We followed Southern Cross to Mobile and the rain eventually cleared!  We planned to stop at the Mobile Convention Center, a convenient stop right before we had to enter the Mobile Bay.  This place had no services, no electric, water, etc.  It was just a wall to tie up to, but we were exhausted and ready to be done with the day!

      The adventure continues....The weather was still playing tricks on us, with winds up to 20-25 miles per hour and a river current of about 4 to 5 knots!   Karl had to turn into the wind and current to dock us and it was the hardest dockage he has ever tried!  Fortunately, there was a security guard on duty and he helped catch our lines after many attempts to make it to the wall.  Once he got the lines, we started to quickly go into the dock.  I heard a loud crack, just hoping we hadn't damaged the boat.  It was a harrowing experience!  We tied up, but then had to move our boat back about 50 feet so Southern Cross could get in front of us.  They are a 62 foot Ocean Alexander.  We got secured finally and jumped out in the wind to help them tie up.  They experienced the same awful conditions, and successfully turned into the wind and current and made it safely to the wall!  Both our boats were secured with many fenders and were not damaged!   We were still bouncing around a lot.

     The end of the story....We took the dogs for a walk and Penny and Dave asked us to join them for dinner on their boat!  We had a lovely time, good fellowship, sipping some wine and talking about the events of the day over a delicious barbecue rib dinner cooked in their crock pot!  Good ending to a stressful day and certainly a Halloween to remember!

 


   

Tombigbee Waterway in Alabama

Bobby's Fish Camp

10/29/19   Tuesday

     We traveled on the Tombigbee River 97 miles downstream from Demopolis, Alabama to Bobby's Fish Camp,  a popular spot for Loopers.  It was a very long, tough day.  It was cloudy, but no rain.  We arrived to our destination, but unfortunately the restaurant was closed that evening, so no fried catfish for us!  We ate a lovely dinner with Dave and Penny on Southern Cross and made plans for the next day.

Rain, Rain and more Rain all day!

10/30/19  Wednesday

     We woke up to cloudy, rainy weather, but decided to go on.  We got through our last lock, Coffeeville Lock!  We were very excited to be through this lock, we have gone through over 100 locks on this trip!  We did a little celebration dance!

      Our vision was very poor through the Isenglass at the helm, so we followed Southern Cross for 66 miles, dodging logs and debris, passing several tows and barges, passing an area that was being dredged, all through a steady stream of rain!  We anchored for the evening up a narrow creek, called the Alabama Cut-Off.  It started really storming while we were putting the ancho down and getting settled.  It was pretty miserable, but we were thankful to have the miles behind us.  We cooked on the boat and watched the last few episodes of Yellowstone.  Thank goodness we had WiFi thanks to the MoFi!

Dredger

   

Alabama

10/27/19  Sunday

     We woke up early, still unsure if we were going or staying!  We are in Columbus, Mississippi.  About 7:45 am, Karl announced, "Let's go!"  I knew he was getting antsy, so I was prepared and we quickly got off and underway to make that first lock opening at 8:00 am.  We were traveling with 5 boats, so locking through was not as difficult.  We went through 3 locks and traveled 70 miles.  The rain held off, but it was a cloudy, dismal day.  We anchored in a beautiful, quiet cove, along with Aquaman (Andy and Cindy).  We were able to get out the paddle boards and go to shore to walk the dog and run.  We enjoyed a peaceful evening, listening to the birds and water sounds.  We absolutely loved it.

Aquaman at anchor

We were having to dodge big logs, like this one 

10/28/19  Monday

    We were up early and ready to fall in line with the other boats to make our way to Demopolis, Alabama.  We were among 5 boats and traveled 54 miles to Demopolis Marina.  We went through 2 locks and I am happy to report all went smoothly.  We were captivated by the beautiful wildlife.  White egrets and blue herons gracefully flew in front of our boat from one side of the river to the other.  We were the lead boat again and Karl did an excellent job of dodging the logs and debris in the river.  The white cliffs were very pretty.  We pulled safely into the marina and Salty was just as happy as we were to be in port.  We heard that nine other Looper boats were due to arrive later this evening!  We had another decision to make, either to travel tomorrow or stay, knowing that rainy weather was forecasted for Wednesday and Thursday (Halloween!)  Our plan was to go early the next day, traveling with Southern Cross.

Southern Cross