Because of several Illinois Lock Closures due to rebuilds, we must get south prior to July 1. We have decided to stage in Alton Marina for the summer. We are leaving Spring Brook Marina, Seneca, IL, our home port at 7 AM heading to IV Yacht Club in Peoria, IL. Trip uneventful - we went thru two locks - Marseilles and Starved Rock with very little delay. There was almost no boat traffic. We arrived at IV at 3:00 PM having traveled 84 miles.
Mobile Bay - Intracoastal Waterway to Orange Beach, AL
We left our anchorage at Big Bayou Canot at 6:20 AM, Big Bayou is at MM16. Heading South the Tombigbee River ends at MM 0. It turns into Mobile Bay which is MM 127. The topography instantly changed. We started to see Palm Trees on shore, a few dolphins and the water turned from dirty brown to clear. Mobile Bay was very busy. Shipyards, Container ships etc. We had to stay alert. We were suddenly in civilization after the desolate Tombigbee. These warships are huge! We worked our way through Mobile Bay and instead of taking the channel down the west side to the mouth of Mobile Bay we took a bit of a shortcut across ending up at the east side of the mouth to enter into the Intracoastal. We watched our charts closely as Mobile Bay has some very shallow sections. Halfway through this "shortcut" we could see on our AIS system we would be joined by some looper friends. "Lady C" who we met in Alton this summer...and "Gemini Gypsy" who we met when we were held up...
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