Demopolis - Orange Beach, AL - Oct 23-28

"Captain I hate snakes" saw his first snake while pumping out the boat. A 5 foot snake swam along side the boat with a 10 inch fish in his jaws! The captain sprayed him with the water hose. Good thing he didn't have the gas hose in his hand at that point!

Thursday morning we took the courtesy car into Demopolis for supplies for our final leg on the river system. More loopers continued to arrive throughout the day. A few of us hung out at the Marina pool for a few hours in the afternoon. At night went to town for pizza with the folks from Priorities, Perfect Balance, Blue Angel and Just Us.

Friday morning we were back on the river by 7am to begin our 215 mile - no marina- trek to Mobile Bay. We locked through the Dempolis Lock and Dam with seven other boats. We anchored at Bashi Creek with Jim and Connie from Patriot and Mark and Vicki from Blue Willow. (Jim and Connie are from Ludington and have doors in their condo from West Michigan Cabinet Suppy - small world!)

Saturday we covered 106 miles! We got the Pura Vida up on plane and cruised at 23mph.

This was the first time on plane since Steve replaced the distrutor caps and rotors. She ran better than ever!  Today we passed through our last lock of the river system. (No more locks until we hit the east coast next year!)  Even though we are still 116 miles from the Mobile Bay, the river is getting salty and we will start to see the effects of tides. We anchored out alone at the Tensaw River. Saw a beautiful sunset while grilling out.

We woke up Sunday to find that the water level had risen 1 1/2 feet as expected.  It was another beautiful morning for cruising. We were able to stream a Woodhaven sermon while cruising. 

We spotted our first alligator ( a rather large one) sunning himself on the river bank! 

Around noon we passed through Mobile Harbor which is a busy commercial port. We safely dodged large container ships, freighters and Navy stealth vessels. Whew! Shortly after entering into Mobile 

Bay, we saw our first dolphins!!  The first mate will no longer focus on ship related responsibilities.

Argh! We headed south in the international shipping channel a few miles and followed a cut into 

Dog River where we stayed at Dog River Marina. We had a ball watching pelicans dive bomb for fish. Very entertaining! We took a dinghy ride late in the day and stopped for dinner across the river. 

Monday morning Patriot and the Pura Vida traveled out to the shipping lane and headed south 20 miles. It was a beautiful calm morning which we were thankful for as we understand the bay can get quite rough. What a fun ride passing cargo ships, tows, oil platforms and fishing boats. The best part however was watching the many dolphins, some of which danced in our bow wake! Awesome!

A few miles short of the Gulf of Mexico, we turned to the port to follow the Inter Coastal Waterway (ICW) to Gulf Shores. We stopped to spend the night at Homeport Marina which in next to LuLu's, a restaurant complex which it owned by Jimmy Buffett's sister! Fun place with palm trees and beach sand! This is a few miles from The Wharf Marina in Orange Beach where we will go tomorrow and spend several weeks.

We are so thankful for the sunny, awesome weather we had on this long stretch. What a blessing!

 Waterfall view exiting the lock

 Dolly Parton Bridge

 We made it to Mobile!

 Navy stealth ship. Can you see it?

 Container ship from Monrovia.

 Looks like the Gulf!

 Patriot being chased by a barge.

 Dolphins!

 Oil drilling platform.

 First mate watching dolphins.