November 17, 2008: Mobile, Al

When we first peeked out the window this morning we were all fogged in, but by the time we got up for breakfast, the fog was gone and so were the other four boats who shared our anchorage.

We passed under the bridge for

Highway 61, locally called the Dolly Parton Bridge. This is the first bridge we have seen that crosses the TomBigbee for 71 miles, which just indicates that we have been “in the wilderness”.

When we came to the railroad bridge, we had to wait for a train to go through before the bridge opened for us.

We passed another connection with the Tensaw River with an wide anchorage. The locals call this a hurricane hole as the nearest safe place to move your boat up from Mobile for safe haven during storms about 10 miles north of Mobile.

We are now in the Mobile River Delta – 25 miles wide and ranks second in the nation in plant and animal diversity including Alabama’s only population of black bears. It is a network of creeks and islands where we are now seeing palmetto plants with the wide green fans.

As we neared Mobile, we began to pass a huge industrial area, including loading docks full of coal, lumber and tractor trailer containers. The area was alive with commerce. There were ocean going freight ships from Italy and Greece being loaded by conveyor belts where you could tell how much of their load was by how much of the red bottom you could see above the water line. We also passed Carnival Cruise ships with passengers waving from the top deck and a Norwegian Cruiser in dry dock. There was the ship that was the USS Shadwell, the Naval Research Laboratory docked there as well. On the city waterfront, we sighted the Battle House Tower with its pointed top and 35 stories as the tallest building in Alabama.

Passing the city, we reached Mobile Bay, and it was the largest expanse of water that we had been in since we left Lake Michigan. The Bay brought brown pelicans, sportsmen fishing, Sea Gulls, low white fishing boats with the back full of crab pots and huge live oaks. The Bay was very calm as we crossed to marker 63 to make our turn into the Dog River Marina. Although the Bay is very broad, it is not very deep; you have to stay exactly in the channel.

Tonight we have tucked The Next 30 Years into a large slip under a shed roof at the Marina. This will be the home port for the next several months while we go home for Thanksgiving, our Grandbaby’s birth, and the Christmas holidays.