As we were preparing to retire last night a beautiful boat came into the dock at Bobby's. It was a 60 ft Cruisers Inc Yacht. Wowsers....it is quite the boat. Way to fancy for my blood!
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| 60' Cruisers Yacht.....nice boat! |
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| Renee having her morning coffee prior to shove off for the day |
The last day of May brings us on our final trek down the river systems that we have been on the past two years. Today we made the final 118 mile run down the Tombigbee and Mobile Rivers to Mobile Bay. We started early again at about 630am. The entire cruise today went smoothly with no issues (yay!). The scenery continued to be pretty. Gradually, as we made our way closer and closer to Mobile we saw more homes along the river and it became much less remote. The landscape also gradually changed from flat ground and many sandbars on the sides of the river to a more hilly/rocky landscape. We pushed along pretty quickly (averaging about 16 mph) since we had many miles to cover. Also because we had decided to skip over Dog River Marina which is right in Mobile itself and instead make our way across the bay (about 12 miles) once we got to the end of the river. We decided this because we have heard from many that Fairhope Alabama on the other side of the bay is a very charming, nice town to visit. Also, we found out that a Marinette Facebook friend we have been communicating with (Charles) lives in Fairhope and we were hoping to get the chance to meet him. Bonus is that he is adept in electrical work and says that he is skilled and confident enough to hook up the "Smart Start" soft start capacitor that we purchased for our new marine AC unit. We are HOPEFUL that after getting this unit hooked up we will be able to run our AC unit off of our 3100 Watt generator.
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| Renee tending lines in the last lock we will encounter for a long while |
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| Exiting the last lock (Coffeeville Lock and Dam) of our river system voyages |
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| A Catamaran cruiser that we saw |
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| Renee enjoying her early afternoon nap on the bow as we cruise down river |
We were booking along nicely and coming into downtown Mobile (1.4 miles from where the Mobile River feeds into Mobile Bay) when we came to a screeching halt. Ok....maybe more of a chased halt. Erik, in his infinite wisdom, tried playing dodge um boats with a tug boat that was cruising in the middle of the river stopping any boat traffic for a dredging operation. He was swerving around and Erik THOUGHT he was just a bad boat driver....lol....he was purposefully swerving toward him to stop us and inform us that the river was closed down for 2 more hours (until 430pm). Bummer! We backed out a bit and found a place to drop the hook just beside/behind a turning railroad bridge. It was very hot by this point in the afternoon but fortunately there was a nice bay breeze to keep it bearable. After a 1 hour wait we noticed that the dredge machinery and tug boat were vacating and they were starting to let boat traffic through.
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| Coming into Mobile |
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| Pelicans checking us out while waiting for the dredge operation to end |
Downtown Mobile is very industrial and impressive. We saw huge cargo ships, Coast Guard, and some other type of impressive military ships. There was traffic going every which way. We were the only pleasure craft that we saw. Just a short jaunt further and we were entering into Mobile Bay. The waves and chop picked up immediately. Renee would likely say we were in 4-6 ft seas. Erik knows better and assured her (like he has previously.....ie. Lake Erie boating) that they were really only 1-2 foot seas. The waves were however coming from all directions and very close together making for a bumpy ride that produced multiple splashes all the way up to the flybridge. Pro tip that we just learned yesterday....When cruising in choppy, rough water close the downstairs windows on your vessel! oops. Things got a little damp downstairs, not too badly though.
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| Mobile skyline |
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| large cargo ships...impressive to see them unloaded with crazy cranes |
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| Coast Guard....we didn't even get boarded after Erik's escapades with the tug earlier |
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| Some sort of cool military ships |
A twelve mile ride across the bay and we were entering into Fairhope Harbor where we had a slip reserved. The docks/slips here are like none we have ever dealt with before (stupid Midwestern river boaters that we are). They are a large series of pilings with very small walkways on them that only come out approximately 8 ft from the main dock. This pretty much made our decision for us as to whether to pull or back into the slip we were assigned. Backing in was the only option. With just a bit of nerves in the wind this went smoothly.
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| Our home for the next couple of nights at Fairhope Docks Marina |
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Fairhope is a very nice harbor with a Yacht Club, restaurant, and the Fairhope Docks Marina (where we stayed). Almost immediately after getting tied up we were approached by two couples who had completed the Great Loop a couple of years ago and are now just permanent live aboard peeps. Phylis and Sonny aboard Corkscrew and Ann and Mel aboard Morning Starr ll were nice folks and treated us to some delicious food (chopped steak wraps wrapped in bacon and stuffed with cream cheese and jalapeno....yum!). They of course offered up the traditional "docktail" of gin and tonic....we both passed and maintained our sobriety, at least for today!
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A nice sunset
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It was a beautiful evening with a comfortable stiff breeze (keeping the mosquitoes away!) and after sitting out on the gazebo eating and exchanging Looper stories for a couple of hours it was time for showers and bed. It will be interesting to see how the rocking boat from the stiff breeze allows us to sleep. The comforting sounds of sailboat riggings (sounds a lot like wind chimes) should be nice though.
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The stiff breeze blowing the sailboat masts creating music
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