Friday - November 19, 2010

Friday – November 19, 2010

We left the most beautiful anchorage this morning around 8 and are only 16 miles from Mobile. We moved out on the river and as we approached Mobile Bay, the landscape became much more marshy as the salt water of the Gulf mixed with the water of the river we were traveling on which is why is defined as an estuary. Soon we could start to smell the salt air and as we moved down river closer to Mobile, the number of boats – tugs, freighters etc increased. Mobile is if nothing else a huge sea port and there is activity everywhere. One has to watch other boats and what they are doing for they are much bigger than the little pleasure craft.





Again we were following Next Endevour, Moor $tuff and Quest as we moved through the dock area. Eventually we got out to Mobile Bay where we followed the channel out for about 18 miles before the three other boats turned off to Dog River Marina. We likely will not see them for some time since they each had different plans.




The channel was about 45 feet deep but going off to the side just outside the markers the water got very shallow very quickly, likely because the dredges when working to keep the depth in channel dump the sand off to each side. We continued on until we reached the turn to the east and Eastern Shore Marina where we have decided to stay for two nights. We pulled into the marina, filled up with fuel and got a pump out.

We then rented a car and went into the town of Fairhope. Fairhope is a little town full of trendy stores although we did manage to find a couple of book stores and also a Royal Bank of Canada branch – known in the States as RBC. Only Canadians know what the letters stand for. We then went to Walmart and got provisions for our trip down the intracoastal waterway. Went to dinner at a nice little restaurant on the wharf out to Mobile Bay, but only after trying to find another restaurant with our Garmin that didn’t exist once the Garmin got us to the spot out in the middle of nowhere.