MOVING ON

Port of Mobile, June 2, 2010

We were without wi-fi service yesterday, so now you get two days worth.

The fuel dock at Dog River Marina opens at 7:00 A.M. We were there and ready at 6:50 A.M. on Wednesday, June 2, 2010. After getting fuel, we pulled away from the dock at 7:30 A.M. The day was cloudy and humid.

Mobile Harbor is like a ghost town. When we came through in the fall, there were so many large ships and towboats moving around in all directions. It made us feel small and insignificant. On this trip there were only three tugboats moving and three ships docked. The docked ships were not being loaded or unloaded. They were just sitting there idle. It's really sad to think of all the people the oil spill has put out of work. Three nights ago, as we were having happy hour on the back of our boat, we saw a Carnival cruise ship leaving Mobile. We wonder if the passengers will have to make alternate return transportation.

We had a thunderstorm just like every day for the last 10 days or so. We only passed about 4 pleasure boats all day. I really thought we would see a fair amount of boats our size trying to head north away from the spill. Most likely, they got an earlier start than we did.

We stopped Wednesday at Bates Lake This is a lovely anchorage. We tied up differently this time since there is very little current and no wind. One of us is pointing upstream and the other is pointing downstream and we both have our anchors deployed. So we're thinking this is the same as having a front and rear anchor out. We arrived at 5:00 P.M. just in time for happy hour. All in all, it's been a great day!

Today, Thursday, June 3, 2010, we left our cozy anchorage at 7:15 A.M. We called Demopolis Yacht Basin to ask if we could have a refrigerator delivered there. Ours is running 65 degrees. We had to pitch a bunch of food and move the rest to the coolers.

We were held up briefly by barges that were scattered across the river. We think that towboat captain wasn't paying attention and ran his barges up on shore and they scattered across the river.

We stopped for the day at Bobby's Fish Camp. Bobby Dahlberg, the owner, passed away in February and his daughter is now running the place. We ate catfish at the restaurant. It was really good and a lot of food. We also had fried pickles. I don 't like pickles, but I discovered I like fried pickles. We arrived here at 5:00 P.M. Bobby's doesn't have electric service and our generator isn't working. It's 90 degrees in the boat. Welcome to the joys of boat ownership. It's always something.