It was never a really pretty day, but the fog did burn off before long, and we had a good day of cruising with more tows and barges...our destination being the Tensaw River about 62 miles away.
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| Bridge tenders quarters on a lift bridge we passed. |
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| The river doesn't exactly run in a straight line...this is a snap shot of our chart plotter along the way. |
We made it to the Tensaw River cut-off by about 3pm, but spent the better part of an hour trying to figure out our strategy. We arrived with Tuscobia, but were joined by 5 other boats before long, and all but one of these had dogs to manage as well. The river itself provided a great anchorage...shallow water off to the inside of a turn, with a predictable and steady current. All of these are positive factors when choosing an anchoring location. The only problem was that shore access was difficult at best. It was thick underbrush everywhere, with muddy banks and the chance for creatures (alligators) lurking just about anywhere. An option was a municipal boat ramp that was 2+ miles back up river...doable in a dingy, but not really safe after dark with the tow traffic and debris that we had seen all day in the river.
So, we all chose to anchor and figure it out. The anchorage itself was just too good to pass up. To make a long story short, all but one of the dog owners tried a trip to shore to relieve our pets, including us. It was muddy, and really dense growth, and swarming with mosquitos like you can't imagine. We managed to get all of us safely on the ground, but were only able to let the dogs walk about 15 feet. Needless to say, we tried this once, and decided it was enough. This was at about 5 pm, and like it or not, this was the last pit stop that the pups were going to get before morning.
In the morning, we took the long dingy ride back up river (in a bit of fog) to get to the boat ramp...a much better alternative. It took us some time, but it worked out great. We don't have any pictures of this anchorage because frankly, we were so preoccupied with our logistics that we didn't take any. But, it was a beautiful night, a great night of sleep, and we were off by 7:30 am with Mobile in our sights!
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| We just liked the looks of this very remote abode. |
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| Notice how the topography has changed...no more hills and no more woodsy river banks. We are now in the lowland marshes, and the sea breezes are close by. |
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| Our first view of Mobile harbor. |
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| And downtown Mobile. |
The port of Mobile was amazing! It is thriving with activity...too much activity to really comprehend. We loved it as we drove through it. Barges and container ships and cargo ships and tugs and ship repair facilities and navy ships being built...it was spectacular! Here are some pics, but they probably don't do justice to the activity level and scope of everything we saw with our eyes.
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| This reminded us of the movie "Captain Phillips". |
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| See that little tiny boat in the picture...that is a boat our size that we are following. |
Here is a shot of our chart plotter as we drove through Mobile Harbor. Every one of these red triangles represents a working tow or tug or ship of some sort. These targets are displayed as part of our AIS and help us determine how to avoid any mishaps. It might sound scary, but it really wasn't...it was invigorating for both of us.
Once we cleared Mobile Harbor, we still had about 20 miles of open water in Mobile Bay to cross. The first 10 miles or so were no problem...just following the channel south. But we knew it was going to get interesting, because we were heading directly into the wind, and we needed to turn due east and would have the wind on our beam. And it was starting to blow in excess of 10 mph. The fetch on the bay coming from the south is the entire Gulf of Mexico, so there is ample room for the waves to build. The short version is that we had 10 or so miles that we had to traverse with this wind and 3 foot seas on our beam. This was a first for our trip, and a good challenge.
We learned a few things on this short crossing: 1) that Rob's engineering job on the dinghy davit system needed some improvement...there was too much slop in the system, and the dinghy was way too loose in the supports. It wasn't dangerous, but it needed some immediate reinforcement to prevent it from becoming dangerous. A longer term fix is already identified. 2) The puppy's seem to have at least some tolerance for rough seas...Lola was a bit unhappy, but no one got ill or close to it as far as we know. And 3) Sandy has learned a bunch about boat handling and seamanship, as she single handedly made course decisions and piloted us through much of this patch while Rob was working on the dinghy. Good stuff!
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| It doesn't really do justice to what we were feeling, but here is a shot out our stern as we were crossing beam seas in the Mobile Bay. |
So now we are tucked away safely at Eastern Shore Marine in Fairhope, AL. We have been here since Friday night, and will likely stay through Tuesday. We have a few minor things that we are getting accomplished on the boat, preparing it for salt water operation, and hopefully repairing an ailing air conditioner that has been acting up. We expect to need it more regularly soon!
We had a great dinner out with California Lady and InSpeyered 2 on Friday night, then snacks on our boat and dinner aboard InSpeyered 2 on Saturday night. And tonight, we think that we are feasting with our friends from Tuscobia. We did some laundry today, and some sight seeing, but it is still rather rainy and gloomy...but sun is promised for tomorrow! We'll post again when we are on the move.
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| Sometimes it's hard to get good help...she was supposed to be manning the radio...oh well. |
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