Week 20

Nov. 24-30

Monday

We woke up to really dense fog. We waited over 2 hours for it to clear up enough to safely see and navigate down the river.

We entered the mobile river in Alabama and saw our first alligator sunning on the bank of the river. He was about 5 to 6 feet long. Ed had been dying to see an alligator. It was a nice cruising day. Warm and sunny and we sat on the flybridge outside. We traveled 47 nautical miles to big briar creek anchorage. It felt a little like a bayou because it is in the bayou. It was really pretty and lots of animal sounds. It was my favorite anchorage along the rivers.

Tuesday

We only had to go 11 nautical miles to get to the downtown free wall of Mobile AL. It's the oldest city in AL and one of the biggest ports in the country. There was a lot of commercial traffic coming into this spot. We have now left the river systems and fresh water and are in the horrible, nasty, dirty, stinky salt water. We hate salt water. Fresh water boating is so much better in so many ways. We once again have to plan around tides, currents, and weather. It was nice to travel these past weeks without having to worry about any of those things. Just getting into mobile we had 2–3-footer waves.

We went in to ask about the city tour and the man said something and Ed responded with “Why am I a hippy?” The guy started laughing and annunciated more clearly How can we help you? But at first sounded like "haw canny hip E"? It's a different language here!

We took a trolley ride for a history and architecture tour of Mobile. We learned so much. Mobile was founded in 1702 by the French. It's the oldest French colony in America. It was founded 15 years before New Orleans so it's actually the first city in America to celebrate Mardi Gras, fat Tues. It's always celebrated the Tues before Ash Wed and the start of lent. New Orleans had some of the same architecture and street names. The slogan for Mobile is born to celebrate. Mobile had 6 flags to represent possession of this city: French, Spanish, English, Republic of Alabama, Confederates, and then the U S.

At least once a year there is a jubilee. Something happens that causes all the oxygen in the water to go to the surface. Therefore all the fish come to the surface. People run with their nets and coolers to gather all the fish, shrimp, crab, etc. they can gather. It lasts for about 30 min.

The biggest wetlands in the U S. reside here. It's the wettest city in America 67 inches of rain per year, twice the amount of Seattle!

The company from Australia, Austal, that builds the fastest ships in the world resides here. The French company that builds the Airbus also resides here.

It is the site of one of the fiercest naval battles in the history of the navy at the end of the civil war.

Hank Aaron is from mobile.

We went to lunch at Dauphin's on the 34th floor of the convention center. We had a beautiful view and the meal was cheap! $30 for the two of us. We had to hurry another mile to Mo'bay Beignet Co. We were told they were the best and we were not disappointed.

We hotfooted back to the boat to get off the wall by 2. We had to get down into mobile bay and over to the marina before 4. Not 2 min after we got underway, a huge rainstorm hit. Luckily it stopped for awhile while we got fuel and got into our slip. We aren't on a floating dock this time. We had to tie our lines in a criss cross fashion to allow for the boat to rise and fall during the night with the tide. We hate old, fixed docks. We traveled a total of 24 nautical miles today. The Mobile Bay is dredged to be 10 feet deep in specified navigation channels, but some of it was only 5 feet.

Some of the movie scenes for forest gump were set here but were actually filmed in south Carolina. We are in Bubba Gump Shrimp territory! We drove to Forrest Gumps hometown.

Wednesday

We got the courtesy van at 8 a.m. and went to do our Thanksgiving dinner shopping at Walmart. It's interesting to see the different foods that are sold on huge quantities i.e. collard green, black Eyed peas, okra, boudin. We can get them in Salt Lake but in really small quantities.

We love how they say “have a blessed day” instead of have a good day. And it's bless-ed, 2 syllables! They almost always say yes sir and yes ma’am. It is such a polite culture. We love it.

We bought some easy things to make a Thanksgiving dinner.

We had our institute class and then shoved off to cross mobile bay. It was about 13 nautical miles across the bay. The water was much smoother this time but we still had bean seas for about 6 miles and rolled a lot. We pulled into Fairhope marina. It's a city marina. They had a free laundry. I couldn't pass that up. While clothes were washing, we walked along the beach. It was low tide. The laundry took so long we couldn't scooter to town. We were disappointed about that.

Thursday

Ed did chores this morning changing the air and fuel filters. I talked to the kids. We were told the yacht club was hosting a Thanksgiving dinner. We didn't have a reservation so we couldn't sit in the dining room. We were off to the side in the bar. We didn't care. The food was amazing. We had to walk 2.2 miles to get there, each way. It was nice to walk back after that huge meal.

We watched football for a bit and then got on the scooters. It's about 4 miles to the cutest town!!! It was all decorated for Christmas and Christmas music was playing on speakers. Everything was closed and will be closed tomorrow too. Otherwise we would stay another day. The shops were so cute. It's an upscale place a lot like Saugatuck, MI but not as touristy.

Friday

We left early this morning before the tide got too low. It was very shallow, and we kicked up sand at the harbor entrance. The coast guard came on the radio with a warning for small watercraft. The waves out on the gulf all the way down the gul coast from New Orleans to Florida border were 8-10 feet! We were further north so our waves were about 4 feet and on our beam. It was a really rough ride rocking more side to side for about an hour or so.

We left the bay to get in the GICW, Gulf intercoastal waterway. We traveled 40 miles to Gulf Shores AL. The water was much calmer once we got in the protected waterway.

We got docked at a wonderful clean new marina called HomePort and went to LuLus. It's the restaurant chain owned by Jimmy Buffet's sister. It had a very southern menu!

We watched the Utah game and another win for them!

Since we are out of the rivers that caused a mustache on the boat and a water level stain, I scrubbed the starboard side of the hull of the boat(dockside). It looks so good. Hopefully it will stay white now. We went for a walk and then back to LuLus for the Friday night live music.

Saturday

We traveled a very short distance of 4 nautical miles to orange beach, Alabama. We did it mostly to be able to get to church tomorrow. This is a wealthy vacation beach town. Very expensive marina. We had a very tricky time getting into our slip. The wind was helping at first and then it just switched. I missed lassoing the bow cleats and then wind just pushed the boat into the other dock. There's not much at all damage. It's just super stressful and today we didn't have any dock hands or boaters nearby to help.

It's a bit chilly today but nice blue skies. We went for a walk and browsed in the wharf shopping district. They had a huge jumbotron in a center area with chairs and football on. Ed plopped down to watch football while I meandered through some shops.

I did our Sat boat chores and scrubbed the port side hull (we did a port side tie up).

We decided to go to a movie. We haven't done that on the loop.

Sunday

We were able to get a ride to church with Dennis and Kim Singleton from Orange Beach. They only live 3 miles from the marina. It took over 25 min to get to church. The boundaries of this ward are huge. It's one of the mid-sized buildings. The chapel just had folding chairs. It's a really great ward. We could really feel their spirit and comradery. They asked us to pray in church.

Ed put the first coat of varnish on the wood table up on the flybridge. Maybe by the time we're done with the loop we'll have all the projects complete.

We went for a really nice scooter ride in Gulf State Park. We were gone for a couple of hours. We made it al the way to the gulf coast. There are alligators in the swampy parts. Ed is constantly on the lookout! He wants up close video for our YouTube.