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 in Columbus Marina by Hurricane Zeta. Both loopers had pulled out of a marina in Fairhope,  AL which is on the East Side of the Bay. Fairhope is a popular town - one we tried to get dockage in and couldn't. It was great to see both of them joining us. The water system, truly is like a roadmap.
We do not enter the Gulf of Mexico, but instead enter the Intracoastal.

Upon entering the Intracoastal - officially the GIWW ( Gulf Intracoastal WaterWay). we begin to see destruction from past hurricanes. This region has been hit hard in recent years. We are now in a narrow waterway with residential homes. Their docks are damaged and we see boats on shore or abandoned. We understand a great deal of this damage is from Hurricane Michael which was in 2018.  I think the thing we don't understand is the length of time it takes these communities to rebound after such devastation because of funding, lack of manpower and building supplies.

It was almost 11 AM and "Lady C" radioed and asked if we wanted to stop for lunch.  We stopped at Lucy Buffett's " LuLu's" on the waterfront. Yes, that is Lucy Buffett, sister of Jimmy, who owns a small marina and famous restaurant in Gulf Shores, AL. ( Gemini Gypsy kept on going as they had a service appointment at a local marina). We were lucky to be there early as "lady C" and "Talisman" took up 100 ft. of dockspace!..It was very crowded by the time we left. What a fun place! A great respite after finishing the river system.





Terry and Cathy (Lady C) - Doug and Pat



We had a great lunch, enjoyed the company of Terry and Cathy (Lady C) - they are from the Carolinas - and headed to "The Wharf Marina" , Orange Beach, AL.  
Total Miles traveled today - 47


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