“HAPPY THANKSGIVING”  to all my family, friends,and blog readers! I hope you have a wonderful one! Steve and I slept in got up at 8 and started getting ready to go eat Thanksgiving Dinner at Turner Marine with Linda and Pete. I went to take a shower and come back to boat to get things ready to go. We went to their boat which is out of the water for a bottom job and some other maintenance. You have to repaint and recoat the bottom of your boat every several years depending upon amount of time in salt or fresh water. I got a tour of their beautiful boat and was surprised at how much room it has it is awesome, and beautifully decorated. We drove to Turner marine and due to miscommunication the dinner had been yesterday. We got to meet some new people at this marina and learn about some great charts and more tips on where we are going. Boating people offer some wonderful tips and advice on what to do when on the water. One couple was from Canada and very friendly. Well needless to say we were all hungry and needed food. So we went back to Fairhope (the only place that had a restaurant open on Thanksgiving Day! The restaurant was called Tamaras, they had a buffet and endless champagne.Not a big champagne drinker i had the endless unsweet tea. The buffet was great all the food was wonderful. We felt like that family in christmas story waiting on the waiters to come out and sing “deck the halls with boughs of horry fa ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra” lol (even though it wasn’t Chinese food) After we ate we made it back to the marina where Linda and I left the guys and went to find the Rave theater and watch “Breaking Dawn Part II”. We loved it!  I am now sitting in the laundry room waiting on the slow dryer to finish my clothes then i am going to bed. I hope everyone had a day as wonderful as ours! Stay tuned!! 🙂

Woke up in Mobile in the middle of the shipping harbor of Mobile AL. It was about 6am when we woke up to the sounds of barges and ships going by. Our boat rocked and rolled all night to the wake of barges tugs, and huge ships. I couldn’t fall asleep until about 1 AM, due to the fact that i had some good caffeinated tea with my BLT. We shoved off about 8:00 out into Mobile Bay/ The Gulf with no idea what we were doing. There were different markers in the channel and weird little balls in the water (found out in just a few they were crab pots). Luckily we had the number to our new found friends and they helped us right out. We also called the Marina to get directions and was told to go to channel marker 62 turn East and stay at 90 degrees until we reached the marina. The marina personnel did not realize that marker 62 was no longer there(something about a hurricane). We just turned east between channel markers 64 and 60 stayed at 90 degrees and went right into marina, but not after dragging our keel over soft bottom several times, WHEW! Our first experience with channel markers and no landmarks. We put up the mainsail and motorsailed straight to the marina. We stayed heeled over some to our port side until we got there. It was a wonderful ride! Loving the warm weather too. Unlike other marinas no one was there to help us get into our slip and only poles to tie to, no cleats (which is great practice for the bahamas). Two really nice sailors assisted us with our tying up and gave us some great advice on sailing open water.  Once we were secured we checked out the marina. They have a really friendly staff, a courtesy car, clean showers and restrooms, internet access, cable tv,  and one washer and dryer. The marinas here are so close together you can hardly tell where one ends and one begins, except for the fact we are next to a fine yacht club you would think it was all one marina. The yacht club has tons of sailboats! We met our boating friend Pete from Midway Marina at the dock, Linda was running errands. Steve and I decided to go into town and get something to eat. We went to get the courtesy car, where you have to leave a 10 dollar deposit to get key.” Stylin” in our ford caravan we went to the town of Fairhope and found a neat place called Bucks Diner. They had some wonderful food, it was GREAT! Sweet potato casserole, potato salad, mac and cheese and baked chicken all homemade no frozen crap here! This was our pre thanksgiving dinner. The only thing i wished we had tried was the homemade banana pudding, we probably couldn’t have walked if we did hehe. If you are ever in Fairhope which is so close to Orange beach try out Bucks Diner and if you have more expensive taste try Tamaras. After lunch we settled down for a rest when Pete and  Linda called and asked if we needed anything from West Marine. We said yes and went with them to get some life jackets that inflate when you fall in water and some charts. We have several more things to acquire before hitting the Gulf stream. Oh and try out the Mega Walmart in Fairhope, it is at least 300000 square feet and looks like a resort. This was one of our most enjoyable days cant wait for more.

CAPTANS LOG: Saw some dolphins following the crab boats, they came up behind us once. We logged 14 miles today and got to read our first open water/ bay markers.

Started from MM 67.3  Well I am glad a gator didnt try to get Steve as he pulled up our stern anchor, i would have hated to kill a gator that early in the morning! We motored down the BWTB we made it all the way to Mobile. We went through swamps passed several more bargs and saw a lot more industry on the sides of the BWTB. (Black Warrior Tom Bigbee). We did not see any more gators but started to see a ton of palmettos and increased number of pelicans and egrets. We came into a wondrous industrial sight at Mobile. It thought Steves eyes would pop out at all the mechanical wonders around us. His smile was HUGE. We saw some massive military vehicles on the side of the bay. We tied the thingamajig to a free dock at the convention center on the across from the military ship factory. There is a reason that dock is free. lol the wake off the massive ships coming in and out of the harbor was a rocking experience, although we did not get any boat damage we tied off great!! We decided to walk into downtown Mobile to find something to eat. Well we took off through the almost empty parking lot at the convention center, crossed the railroad tracks, took our lives in our hands crossing a busy street even with the crossing light! Man downtown Mobile the old part was so much fun just seeing the old buildings, all the restaurants, the center square with fountain, and the pretty christmas decorations. We walked until we decided that it was getting dark and we were getting into a not so nice area it appeared so we walked back and couldnt find a place to eat. We asked a guy walking buy where you could get a great hamburger and he directed us to a place we had just passed! They had a half pound angus burger, I had a BLT with sweet potato fries and Steve had burger and fries. Great place for a hamburger! It was called Hereos i think. After that we swiftly walked back to the boat, but on the way a guy stopped and started telling Steve football jokes about Alabama’s Bear Bryant. When Steve asked the guy who Bear Bryant was i thought the guy was gonna pass out. He continued to try to tell Steve about football as Steve was telling him he didnt care he didnt watch football. The guy was still talking as we walked swiftly away. Back at the boat we rocked all night to the tune of barges, tugboats and the smallest wake came from the huge cargo ships. When i say huge i mean the same size as the largest cruise ships. But they were amazing to watch. We watched as they filled one up from Panama with grain.(we think). Well Good night, keep reading our blog.

CAPTAINS LOG: We made app 67 miles today. Don’t tie up to a dock at mobile bay unless you have to, like us.

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I have tried to insert some random slide shows for you guys today.

MM 187.7  Woke up at 6AM couldnt move the boat due to visibility on the tn tom (its called the black warrior tin tom where we are now). Cooked our Sunday morning breakfast of pancakes with OJ, At around 7:50 fog was clearing do we took off down the waterway. After cruising for a few i heard Steve call from the bridge so i went out to see what he wanted and to our port side there was a gray fox hanging out at the waters edge, he saw us so he slowly started to climb the bank looking back at us as he climbed. He was so pretty with his fluffy tail and small body.  We have passed many barges today usually you know what side you will pass on its obvious but other times you have to call and ask them what side they want you on and they say “see you on the 1” or “see you on the 2”. We have learned a lot of water traffic lingo on our way down the tn tom. Some guys say “see you on the 2 whistle” or “see you on the one whistle”.  We get a kick out of that one. I did get a kick out of Steve trying to understand the cajun captain from LA. Of course i could barely understand too! The weather is nice and cold today but clear and beautiful. The waterway banks are in bushes, grass and trees. I have seen some beautiful egrets today and i saw one white beautiful bird with long legs and a long beak, i think its a snowy egret but im not sure. It had beautiful feathers blowing out in the wind like silk strands. We finally anchored out at MM 123.5 on the outside of a slew entrance to a national park i think. After we anchored a boat full of guys came by in a ski boat and stated they were scouting for a fish tournament and asked where we were headed. Steve started to tell them we were there for the fishing tournament but we let them know we were headed south for warm weather. After that another bass boat came by in the dark. We cooked ravioli mac and cheese and corn on the cob. I watched Twilight Breaking Dawn part one while Steve fished and caught the crew up on what we have done so far and how we are doing. I am trying to load pictures in a slide show but wordpress will not give me that option it did once now i cant get it to load a slideshow. i will try again today. Thank you guys for checking out our blog and keep watching we will be in mobile in three days!

CAPTAINS LOG:  Good anchorage point at 123.5 stay to south side of opening and travel back into slew app 200 feet.The water was shallow so  we didnt want to go in any further so we stayed outside close to the south side entrance with no issues. Logged 64.2 miles.

Got OOB at 630 am pulled our anchors and leave finding that the front anchor did not want to leave, so i quickly learned how to reverse forward and neutral that boat to try to get that anchor loose. Swinging the boat to the right while in reverse did it! Whew were we relieved.  It was another quick learning experience. Love those. We took off down the river kickin it at 7.5 mph, I was in cabin and all of a sudden we slowed down fast. I thought oh no whats up now! To my relief i saw Steve with his fishing rod trolling for fish, he said, “i saw a bunch of fish on fish finder”. (By the way you fisherman on the waterway that was MM 269).  I laughed glad that it wasnt a huge barge headed for us. If you have ever been close to one of those barges pushing 6. They are massive, if one barely clipped us we are done the undercurrent that they create will throw your boat around and can suck your vessel into the waterway. We radio them when we see them and they slow and let us know the best side to pass them on. Its close on this waterway. It is a thrill to drive past them,  just the magnitude of the barges with that tugger pushing them. Well we kept on down the waterway and i have noticed that there is not a lot of wildlife along the banks like i have seen upstream.We are going to try to make it to Demopolis Yacht Basin in Demopolis Alabama. It will be the only marina to stop at for app a hundred more miles,  in which that is Bobbys Fish Camp in the middle of an islolated Tn Tom area. We will erfuel here.Once again we come in at dark with me and a flashlight on the bow/deck looking for markers and finally! YEAH!! I finally get to wash clothes. We noticed a huge Tugger and huge pilons so that they can refuel there. We went around the tugger into a narrow channel and tied up outside a big dock. The attendent there (Wayne) was very helpful and gave us lots of information on where to eat breakffast and all the marina amenities availiable. We ate at the resturaunt there and decided we would have been better off eating Ravioli back at the boat. This place was mostly a beer drinking pool playing area. They had a seperate eating dining room but it had a pool table off to the side looked like a Karioke stage. Must be for when the large crowds hit! I was told it was not crowded due to the Fri Night ballgames.