On to Mobile, and Turner's Marina, 11-15-2012

November 15, Saturday

The day dawned sunny with little wind.  We got ourselves going.  What a difference a day makes.

We heard from our friends on Brisa and Eclipse…they were looking forward to seeing us at Turner’s Marine and Supply in Mobile.  The day was pretty normal, and then we hit the port of Mobile.

What a busy place it was.  It is a shallow bay, one of the many reasons Tim thought it wise not to attempt it in high winds yesterday. And how right he was.The winds kick up high waves when the water is that shallow. As we went through, the water was calm.

We made Mobile Bay at Mile Marker 0.0 at 11:28 AM.  What an accomplishment!

Mobile from the bay

It is a busy port, with huge boats that made our sailboat seem tiny.

Container boat in the Port of Mobile

We still had about 10 miles to go to get to the marina.  Our friends had taken a quick list of grocery items, and promised to have them waiting for us. 

And both the crew of Brisa and Eclipse were watching for us. Kathy’s phone started beeping with text messages saying “We see you!  We see you”.

Closely following the guide book directions to get into the channel to get to the marinas, we found ourselves way outside the channel in a sea of crab pot and in very shallow water.  Tim navigated our way out of the 3 ft water and we made it back to the channel!

As Turners has neither fuel, nor a pumpout, we headed first to Dog River Marina to fill one tank, and empty the other.  It was low tide, and we almost got stuck in the muck going into the entrance to Turner's, but Tim's excellent skills once again got us course.

And sure enough, the crew of Eclipse met us at our dock, and helped us in.  They fed us soup, and we had sandwiches for dinner. Long day, but we were in our slip way before sunset. And were glad to be at our home of a few weeks.