Mobile, AL to Columbus, MS

Total Miles Traveled 3041

We thought we would be back to our home port by now at Green Turtle Bay, but were held up for 18 days at Mobile waiting on the flood waters to recede and the dredging to be completed.  A lot of the debris from the rivers is working its way down to Mobile Bay.  Good friends of ours on Chasing 80 left 1 day ahead of us and hit something submerged in the channel in Mobile Bay bending one of their propeller shafts.  They didn’t see anything before hitting it or after turning around to return to the marina for repairs.

We departed Dog River Marina on May 21^st ,  we were a little nervous passing the area that Chasing 80 hit something but fortunately we made it all the way to Mobile Harbor without incident. 

The harbor is a busy place, this dredge didn't help matters any.

 Lots of barges stacked up along the river front.

We anchored at the Tensaw River our first night, then continued on to an anchorage at Three Rivers Lake on May 22^nd.    We have anchored here before, but the quarter mile narrow passage to get to the lake is beginning to get overgrown with overhanging limbs.  We barely made it through without rubbing the branches on the sides of the boat.  Another challenge was the heavy current caused by the receding river level.  Once we started in, there was no turning around. The opening on the left is the way in and out.

Coffeeville was our first lock and the end of salt water and tidal waters.  We passed through the lock on May 23^rd to find less current flow and a more lake like pool of water.  We have enjoyed the scenery of hills, bluffs, and tall hardwood trees as we move north.  We really like Florida in the winter, but you can’t beat the inland rivers and lakes in the Spring, Summer and Fall. 

Just a few miles from the lock is Bobby’s Fish Camp, we usually stop here for a great catfish dinner and always meet new friends during our stay. 

We met Kevin and Denise on "Yurt" at Bobby's

On May 24^th we continued on to an anchorage at Bashi Creek, normally we anchor inside the creek but the temperature has been in the mid 90’s so we chose to anchor behind a bend in the river out of the channel to get a breeze.  By late afternoon there were three of us anchored here.

Tombigbee River

Approaching Demopolis Lock

We arrived at Demopolis Alabama May 25^th and headed for the fuel dock.  This is where the tug boats fuel so they sell a lot of diesel fuel at a great price.  The attendant told me a tug will take anywhere between 5000 and 15000 gallons.  The only problem with this dock is the outside is reserved for tugs and pleasure craft must use the inside of the dock.  The entrance is very narrow with a sharp turn and very shallow out of the channel.  As I entered the channel to the fuel dock and started to make the turn, the boat didn’t respond when using the engines to turn to the dock.  We finally made it to the dock but it wasn’t pretty.  At one point I glanced at our depth indicator and saw 1.6 feet under the boat.  After fueling there is no room to turn around so you have to back out and make the turn in reverse.  This is when I realized I didn’t have reverse on my starboard engine.  Fortunately we have a bow thruster so between the engines and thruster we were able to make the turn back into the river.  This was a 70 mile, 95 degree day, so we decided to stay at Kingfisher Bay Marina at Demopolis for a couple of days to cool down and figure out our transmission issue.   Since the engine room was 117 degrees, waiting a day to investigate the problem seemed like a really good idea. Luckily I found two loose screws in the pilothouse shift control that wasn’t allowing the starboard transmission to fully engage in the reverse position.  

Anna Marie, the dock master at Kingfisher Bay Marina organized a Memorial Day party for the marina.  There were probably 10 or 15 people that attended the event and a great opportunity to meet new friends.  One of the boaters looked really familiar but we couldn’t quite place him.  Come to find out, we anchored with him in 2015, Ted on “Blue Gill Heaven”.  Later, while at anchor, a houseboat pulled up to the shore and invited us to join them around a campfire that evening so Ted, Moni and I joined them around their campfire near Rogersville, Alabama.

Tenn-Tom Waterway

On May 28^th, we continued to an anchorage at Cooks Bend, and then on May 29^th arrived at Columbus Mississippi, a marina just past the Stennis Lock.  We caught up with Mike and Jan on Trust Me, that arrived here a few days earlier.  We’re going to stay a couple of days under a covered slip and take a break from the heat.  I also need to change the oil and filter on the generator so an extra day will give everything a chance to cool down.

If the weather doesn’t hold us up, we should be at Green Turtle Bay in about 10 days.

Gulf Shores, AL to Mobile, AL

Total Miles Traveled 2691

With a multiple wave of storm fronts moving across the country, we decided to leave our anchorage at Pirates Cove for better protection at Dog River Marina near Mobile.

Pirates Cove is one of our favorite anchorages, it is a protected anchorage from wind and waves, has a beach, and a bar and grill a short dinghy ride away.

I’ve posted this urinal picture before, but had to share it again, Pirates Cove is truly a green marina, they recycle all of their beer.

Our friends Mike and Jan on “Trust Me” arrived a few days after us, we were at the same marina at Stock Island in February.  They are also from our home port at Green Turtle Bay; we met them when we bought our Mainship in 2013.

We weighed anchor May 3^rd and traveled our last section of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway to Mobile Bay.  Mobile Bay is 413 square miles in area, 31 miles long by 24 miles wide at its maximum width.  Except for the shipping channel, the bay is very shallow with an average depth of 10 feet.

To give you an idea of the size of the ships, this is “Trust Me”, a 49 foot trawler, approaching the shipping channel as a container ship passes their course.

We arrived at Dog River Marina planning to stay only a few days to let the storms pass.  Little did we know that the storms would dump several inches of rain causing major flooding north of us. There were several storm fronts passing across the country, so as soon as the river levels started to drop, another storm would pass through dumping several more inches of rain.  We have been here 18 days.

Another interesting fact about this area is tidal flooding.  Whenever moderate wind blows from the southeast for several days, it pushes the water from the bay into the marina at high tide, which is about 2 feet.  We had only witnessed this once as we are normally here in the fall and the prevailing wind that time of year is out of the northeast.  We have had tidal flooding almost every day during our stay.

This has been a good stop for us though; we have met several old friends, and met new ones.  “Chasing 80 and “Corkscrew” are here and we have met new friends on “Compass Rose” and “Bob n Along”.   Dog River Marina also has a courtesy car so we have used it for provisioning and dining out.  The Mobile Yacht Club is across the street and has great meals at reasonable prices.  We also rented a car last weekend and visited Fairhope and Dauphin Island.

The river levels are falling and the extended forecast looks good for a departure tomorrow May 21^st.  Coffeeville, Alabama is the first lock we will encounter, about 125 miles from the marina.  Until we pass through the lock we will have to deal with tidal waters and river currents associated with dropping the Coffeeville pool down to normal levels.  This chart shows the level downstream of the lock and dam, and the predicted levels a few days out.

The bottom graph on this chart shows the Coffeeville current discharge from the dam, about 25 thousand cubic feet a second today.  I made notes in my log last year when we made this trip and found that our speed dropped to 5 mph at 35 kcfs, and 6 mph at 25 kcfs running our normal engine rpm.  Our normal speed is about 8 mph. 

The next marina from here is Demopolis Alabama, about 225 miles.  There are no services and most of the time no cell phone coverage, it will take us 4 or 5 days of anchoring to reach the marina.