Mobile AL

We finally finished the river system and made it into Mobile Bay and the Dog River where we stayed 2 nights at a much needed marina. Our last night on the river system had us less than 10 miles away from Mobile. Due to high winds and small craft advisories, almost all the Loopers were also anchored out waiting for the weather to change before entering Mobile Bay.

We chose to anchor in a narrow and deep creek off the main river. In addition to the anchor off our bow, I also set a stern anchor because there was a predicted wind shift and there was going to be a tide change while we slept. Either the wind or the tide would have caused our boat to swing into shore.

In the morning I was listening to the radio and there were 3 looper boats who ended up dragging anchor and running aground at a nearby anchorage. One boat tried to power his way off only to have his anchor chain wrap around the prop and prop shaft.

BoatUS was called and the 3 boats were pulled off. The boat that wrapped the chain around their prop needed to be towed to Mobile, hauled out, and repaired. They ended up staying at the same marina as us and the skipper told me the issue was not enough scope for the rising tide and the wind shift.

One of the daily tasks that’s especially hard when traveling by boat is shopping. We don’t have a car and rarely are marinas within walking distance of a supermarket. We have bicycles BUT the roads around here do not have bike lanes; most of them don’t even have shoulders. So, we rely on Instacart and Amazon. Once we knew we were going to be in a marina, I started placing orders with Amazon. According to Amazon, the packages were going to arrive before we were with Prime 2-day delivery. Well, they didn’t. And they didn’t arrive the next day, or the day after that. I finally had to cancel the delivery since we were scheduled to leave the marina. I was talking to some locals and it sounds like that’s normal for these parts. I know we’ve encountered that in rural areas, but Mobile isn’t exactly rural.

Fortunately, InstaCart kind of worked out. It’s great if you want packaged goods or processed foods. Not so good with produce or anything that’s fresh. I took a chance and let them pick out a few chuck roasts. They’re edible, but certainly not ones I would have picked. But, they got the cheese and toilet paper right.

We left Mobile and we’ve got 2 nights to make it to Pensacola to get our mast. More time than needed, but I’d rather have extra time than not enough. The weather forecast was showing our departure time to be windless and the bay to be calm. It was windless, but the bay was anything but calm. There were still left over waves from the blow the last couple of days. The waves finally settled down as we made our way South and East.

Once the sea state had settled, I had the opportunity to commission my fresh water maker. I wanted to wait for salt water since that’s the real test. I was also waiting for “cleaner” water. Not that Mobile Bay has clean water, but it certainly has less sediment than the river.

I’m happy to report that it worked! That’s been one of my concerns because I haven’t used the water maker since 2020. I replaced all the pre-filters before we left, but never ran it. It was always on my to-do list. On our run down today I was able to add 30 gallons to our water tanks.

Tomorrow we’ll be anchoring off of and visiting the Gulf Island National Seashore.

More to come…