Saturday October 8: Fairhope AL -South of Mobile

Our anchorage Thursday night on the river out of the channel worked out quite well. We did hear a tow in the middle of the night - amazing how noisy it was! Sounded like an airplane approaching. We both heard it but Steve was the one who got up and turned on more cabin lights. Just to make sure the tow captain saw us!

Shortly after we were up a northbound tow went by making us think we should check the AIS to see if maybe a southbound tow was headed our way.

Turns out there was one just 3 miles away and traveling at almost 8 mph! Which for us means it would be very difficult to pass on this curvy river - quick - get the anchors up ....

Ended up that the southbound tow was also headed to Mobile so it would have been a very frustrating day following it.

Every once in a while I would turn around to see if somehow it was catching up :-)

It was again a wonderful weather day. Kind of felt guilty knowing Matthew was kicking his way up the eastern seaboard and also knowing many of our Banana Bay friends were in harms way.

Most of the travel was along the tree lined Tombigbee River but occasionally a large plant of some sort would be along the bank.

We still continue to see many eagles along the way - so enjoyable to see!

It was another 7 hour travel day to the Tensas River anchorage we had picked out for the night. Wide river, easy to enter. No wind, little current. Again perfect - and a plus of no tows on this river.

However no one told us there was a bass fishing tournament that obviously started somewhere up the Tensas River. The first of the boats flew by us sometime around 6:45 or so. After the next 15 or 20 flew by we figured we might as well just get up .....

So we were off for the final 40 miles traveling the rivers. 1300 miles of river travel from Chicago - a long way to not have to really be concerned about the weather or dealing with waves that like to rearrange the inside of the boat!

It was actually cool enough that Steve put on his very comfy Big Bang Theory sweatshirt compliments of Becky :-)


It was about noon by the time we were just north of Mobile and ready to head through Mobile itself.



It's really surprising how much us going on at this port. Many ocean going ships being loaded and unloaded. Lots of cranes, what we think are Navy ships and a new Maritime Museum built in 2015.

Because we were not stopping in Mobile this time perhaps we'll see the museum sometime on a road trip. Very unique building though. Shaped like a ship which is certainly appropriate.

Once through the harbor we entered Mobile Bay - our first open water since Lake Michigan - two months ago!

And we had checked the NOAA website for the wave prediction :-) Tolerable but some beam seas but it was only 1 hour to our marina on the east shore of the bay.


We were in and plugged into power by 2 so it was a good day.

Sadly it was so rolly in the marina (and still is!) that our tv dish wouldn't keep a signal.

No football for me today :-(

Steve's solution (even after I said no way would it work!) was to put the dome on the cooler on the dock. Good job Steve!

Moving on tomorrow .....