Florida at Last!

Thursday and Friday, November 19 and November 20 - We left Turner Marine Service with a repaired LeeLoo!  Unfortunately, once we were out on Mobile Bay, the water was very rough again.  Before we left Turner, we "battened down the hatches" so to speak, so we were in pretty good shape even in rough conditions.  It was not an easy cruise across Mobile Bay because we had to stay in the channel.  But once we entered the ICW (Intercoastal Waterway), conditions settled down and it felt like we were back on the rivers!  A highlight of the cruise was stopping at LuLu's, a well-known restaurant that is owned by Jimmy Buffet's sister, LuLu.  There was a courtesy dock along the ICW, so we docked LeeLoo and enjoyed the ambiance of LuLu's!  

                                        

                                  LeeLoo docked at courtesy dock alongside LuLu's.

After a great lunch at LuLu's, we cruised to The Wharf Marina in Orange Beach, Alabama.  Now this was a marina!  There was shopping and even a movie theater!  We treated ourselves to a movie - a luxury we haven't had in the last couple of months!

Saturday-Monday, November 21-23 - We left Orange Beach on Saturday, continuing down the ICW.  We were very excited to see a Bald Eagle fishing for his breakfast.  It was a beautiful Bald Eagle and he came very close to our boat.  But, what thrilled us more was seeing lots of Dolphins!  We have been told that we will continue to see Dolphins, but seeing them for the first time was really awesome!

The scenery along the ICW really looks like the "South"!  We started seeing sandy banks and palm trees.  Then we saw the sign welcoming us to Florida! 

                                          Welcome to Florida Sign.

                                            Sandy Beaches along the Shoreline.

                             Even the homes along the ICW look like Florida homes!

As we neared Pensacola, we passed a several tows pushing barges.  We did pass a tow boat that was not pushing a load - it was such a pretty tow boat, so we are including pictures of it.

                                             Tow boat along the ICW.

We arrived in Pensacola and stayed at Palifox Pier Marina which is in downtown Pensacola.  Finally, we were at a marina where we could walk to restaurants and shopping.  We even found a grocery store that was similar to Whole Foods that was about 1.25 miles away. 

                                          LeeLoo docked at Palifox Marina.

The temperature was a high of 72 on Saturday!  On Sunday, a big weather front moved in and the temperature dropped in the low 50's - and it was in the 30's Sunday night!  Brrr . . . we aren't used to cold weather!  By Monday, the wind had died down and we were back in the low 60's.  The weather forecast will continue to get warmer every day.  We heard about all the snow in the midwest and are glad we aren't there!

                                        Sunset from Palifox Pier Marina - beautiful!

A highlight of our visit to Pensacola was meeting up with Nancy's brother and sister-in-law, Charles and Carol.  Charles and Carol live in the nearby town of Milton.  They picked us up for breakfast at a local restaurant, then took us on a driving tour of Pensacola.  It was great to see them!
 
On Monday, Carey took a taxi to the National Naval Aviation Museum and Nancy stayed behind and took a walking tour of Historic Pensacola.  Unfortunately, Historic Pensacola is closed on Monday so it was not possible to go inside all the old homes.  But, it was a beautiful day to walk around.

                                        Old church in Historic Pensacola.

Tomorrow we plan to cruise to Fort Walton Beach where we will try to tie up to a free dock. After that we head to Panama City for Thanksgiving.   We will once again be traveling with Mazel Tug.

Carey's Reflections on the Loop . . .

The first phase of our Great Loop Adventure – the river system -- is complete.  Depending on where you start the Loop, the river section could appear anywhere along the journey.  Since we started in Racine, Wisconsin, we were tasked with doing the rivers first.  Here are some statistics and observations on our trip so far:

Miles travelled by boat (Racine, WI to Mobile AL:  1879 miles (By car, much less.  As the crow flies, even less.)

River systems we traveled on:

1.  Chicago River

2.  Chicago Sanitary Ship Canal

3.  Des Plaines River

4.  Illinois River

5.  Mississippi River

6.  Ohio River

7.  Cumberland River

8.  Tennessee River (to Chattanooga and back)

9.  Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway

10.  Tombigbee River

11. Black Warrior River

12. Mobile River

Number of Locks we passed through:  30 (four locks twice)

1.  Eight up

2.  Twenty two down (easier since less turbulence)

3.  Lowest change:  15 feet

4.  Highest change (Wilson) 98 feet

Some observations about the rivers:

Most of the time we were traveling down river; with the current.  That typically added one to one and a half miles per hour to our speed.  And it helped with fuel economy since you could run the engine at a lower RPM to get the speed you wanted.

The rivers were peaceful and clean (no human generated trash).  Except for the Mississippi which was a wide ride because of the current.

There was lots of wildlife.  Too many herons to count, pelicans, and a fair number of bald eagles.  And a few turtles.  Haven't seen any alligators yet, but we've been told we will.

Anchoring proved to be easier than we thought and quite enjoyable.  We are slowly changing all our light bulbs to LED to reduce battery drain while at anchor.

Some observations about where we stayed:

Compared to our home port marina (Reef Point), the marinas along the rural river system are primitive.  People with larger boats use the heads on their boats because . . . well, just because.

Cell service and internet service has been much worse than expected.  I thought I would be able to stay in touch with work with greater success, but alas it was not to be.  That turned out to be a good thing actually.

Food and diesel has been less expensive than expected.  Especially diesel fuel (~$2.50 or less).

No recycling!  Do you know how many beer bottles we (mostly me) generate?

It’s easy to borrow the courtesy car to run into town.   Pretty much no questions asked re insurance and the like.  We have been told that there won’t be courtesy cars in Florida.

On the Way to Mobile Bay

Time to catch up!  It has been quite a week full of wonderful scenery and new experiences. 

Tuesday-Wednesday, November 10-11 - We traveled with Sum Escape and Mazel Tug and anchored out both nights in a couple of great anchorages.  We anchored along the river behind the bouys marking the shallow section of the river.  Both days we cruised long days, met a few tows/barges along the way, and stayed in the channel.  The lower part of the Tenn-Tom/Black Warrior Rivers took a lot of time because there were a lot of twists and turns as we followed the natural curves of the rivers.  We did see more Bald Eagles along the way - some with fish in their talons as they "fished for dinner" in the river around our boat.  It is a sight to see!  Both nights when we anchored we heard owls and coyotes in the distance at night.

Thursday, November 12 - The two other boats we were traveling with decided to leave our anchorage early so they could spend a long day cruising to get to Dog River Marina in Mobile, Alabama.  We wanted to anchor out one more night before we arrived in Mobile so we left a couple of hours later.  We found a great anchorage in the Tensas River.  We cruised up and down the shoreline of this river to find a good depth for us to anchor for the night.  We finally found a spot that was about 11 feet deep.  The good thing about this anchorage was that the river had a strong current so LeeLoo stayed straight and we didn't have to throw out a stern anchor.  It was a wonderful evening of listening to the owls and watching Mother Nature's show -- a beautiful night sky full of stars!

                                 LeeLoo anchored for the night along the Tenn-Tom.

Friday, November 13 - We woke up and luckily our boat had stayed straight in the current.  There were 2 other boats who anchored in the river for the night.  One boat was probably a 25 foot boat (and we thought LeeLoo was small!).  We left before the 25 foot boat and as we cruised by them, we realized that they had a tree that was longer than their boat wrapped around their boat.  The tree was caught in their anchor chain and the captain was on the bow trying to push the tree off his boat.  The current was so strong that it pushed the tree along and it caught on this small boat!  We circled back to see if the captain and his admiral needed assistance, but they were finally able to dislodge the tree.  Now that's not something you see everyday!

As we cruised down the river towards Mobile, the landscape changed quite a bit.  The first sign was that we started seeing trees with Spanish Moss.

                           Spanish Moss in the trees - notice how muddy the river is.

We also cruised under a fairly new railroad bridge with a 7 foot clearance when it is closed.  After radioing the bridge master, the bridge was raised so we could go under it.  What we found interesting about this bridge was that it looked to be in really good shape.  Most of the other railroad bridges we have gone under have looked very old and in need of some upkeep.

                               Cruising under a railroad bridge on a beautiful day!

We were so used to dealing with tows pushing huge barges on the Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee Rivers, but once we were on the Tenn-Tom, the barges were few and far between.  Below is a picture of the last tow/barge we passed.  

As we traveled down the river towards Mobile (we are now at sea level), the shoreline became more swampy and the water shallow.  We heard reports from other Loopers who had gone before us that they had spotted alligators, but we did not see any.  We did see more Pelicans and other water birds.  

                       Shoreline along the river as we approached Mobile, Alabama.

Once we reached Mobile, the river opened up into a huge shipping channel!  There were ocean going barges and ships everywhere.  We felt so small on LeeLoo as we cruised by them.  There is also a Navy shipyard there and we saw some of the ships they are building.  The pictures probably do no do justice as to how huge these ships were.

As we cruised passed Mobile and all the huge ships, we did notice the skyline of the city.  The city was beautiful against the blue sky!

Now, the fun began!  We had spent 2 months cruising on the (for the most part) peaceful rivers.  We now found ourselves on Mobile Bay, which seemed like an ocean of water before us!  Our destination was Turner Marine Services in Dog River where we would spend several days.  Suddenly, we had waves (something we had not seen since Lake Michigan) and not much depth to the water (skinny water).  Navigating on Mobile Bay was a challenge since we had to stay in the channel or be in very shallow water.  The channel is marked by green and red markers and you have to stay between them.  As we rocked and rolled along, Carey steered while Nancy used the stabilized binoculars to find the next set of markers.  Someone later asked if we had seen any dolphins in the bay.  Needless to say, we had no time to look for dolphins!  As we finally approached Turner Marine, we called on the radio for our slip assignment and we couldn't get anyone to answer us (sadly, that's not uncommon).  We finally called on our cell phone and talked to someone who gave us directions.  It was very frustrating after a challenging day.

                                                      Fishing boat in Mobile Bay.
 
Saturday and Sunday, November 14-15 - One of the reasons we came to Turner Marine Services was to have some repair work done on LeeLoo.  We had a raw-water pump that was leaking and needed rebuilding, a couple of fans we wanted installed, and the shaft seal inspected and reseated.  Unfortunately, Turner Marine Services does not do repairs on the weekend, so we had to wait until Monday.  So, we rented a car and did some sightseeing instead!

Our first stop was to the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park.  This was a short drive away along Mobile Bay.  The battleship was a WWII-era battleship that was built in February, 1940.  The battleship is now a museum and visitors are allowed to tour the entire ship from top to bottom.  There were self guided tours through the ship with lots of information available.  The battleship was huge and its history fascinating.   There were other planes, tanks, and a submarine on the grounds of the memorial park.  

 Pictures from the USS Alabama.  The last picture is of Carey in the engine room.  

Monday-Wednesday, November 16-18 - Repairs on LeeLoo are taking longer than expected.  On top of that, a bad storm is moving through the area and Mobile Bay is very rough.  The water forecast we get is choppy, moderately choppy, very choppy and rough.  We have a hard time translating that into what we had on Lake Michigan since everything was measured in wave height.  We are hoping that the repairs get done so we can leave on Thursday for Orange Beach.  Time to move on - we've been here almost a week!