Captain's Choice blog: Mobile Bay and LuLu's

You come around the last curve of the Black Warrior-Tombigbee section of the Waterway and there is Mobile, Alabama. It was a short ride from our anchorage to Mobile and since it was Sunday morning there wasn't too much boat/tow/barge traffic. We can only imagine how busy this area is during the week with all the industry there. We passed by Austal's Mobile Shipyard where they are producing the Navy's newest class of warships, the littoral combat ship (LCS) of which they have a contract to build 11. The LCS has a relatively small surface intended for operations in the littoral zone (close to shore). We passed downtown Mobile and headed out to Mobile Bay.

We have been so spoiled by the rivers with no wind concerns, waves, great weather. Sunday was windy and the Bay is very shallow, there was definitely a chop on the water. There are several marinas to choose from and we decided on Eastern Shore Marina in Fairhope, where we stayed until Wednesday morning.

Sunday night we got the courtesy car and took a drive to get the lay of the land. Fairhope is a cute little town with restaurants and shops, the only drawback is Fly Creek. You have to go 3/4 of a mile to get to the bridge to cross Fly Creek and it is the opposite direction to town. So your really going 1.5 miles before your heading to Fairhope. On Monday I decided to walk to town and I could see Captain's Choice right across the creek thirty minutes into my walk. It's about a 3 mile walk to town, so I certainly got my exercise in for the day.

Tuesday is election day and it brought the first rain to the area in 42 days, it won't be enough to end their draught and after today they really don't have any rain forecasted for the next week.

The day after...we tried to stay up to see who won the election but "boater's midnight" hit and we went to bed. I did wake in the middle of the night and glanced at my phone and saw that the president elect is Donald Trump...and we woke to more rain. Once the rain cleared we headed out to an anchorage at Ingram's Bayou near Gulf Shores, but first we had to stop at Lulu's for lunch. Lulu's is owned by the sister of Jimmy Buffett, Lucy Buffet. When we were pulling into the dock we saw Sanctuary was docked, so we joined Steve and Teresa for lunch. By the time we left 2 other looper boats had shown up, a little mini-reunion with Robin's Nest and Rascals Retreat. They were all headed for a marina after lunch and we headed for our anchorage. We were greeted by the dolphins (so much fun to watch) and pelicans (equally as comical). The anchorage is extremely quiet and we are the only ones here. As we sat and watched the dolphins play we could hear the owls and coyotes in the background. Tomorrow we set out towards Pensacola, FL.