Daily Log

Day 6 Saturday January 14, 2023 Bobby’s Fish Camp (Coffeeville, AL) to Fairhope Docks Marina on the east shore of Mobile Bay.

Big day Saturday our last day on the TomBigBee River system, our last lock out of 12 locks and open Water across the bay thank the heavens for Navionics. Unbeknownst to us we now believe that Navionics took us through a shortcut through the mouth of the Bay avoiding most of the commercial traffic. It felt a bit dicey several times (water showing 2-3 feet on depth for our 4′ draft boat but we never touched bottom and trusted the Navionics. We did get to Fairhope Safe Saturday afternoon about 3:30 fueled up safely, then first time “Bow first” to our slip at the harbor masters instructions due to low water at the front of the slip.

Our 50 Amp Power cord is deployed from our stern which could have made our shore power hook up impossible with our 50′ shore power cord but Mike and I had this scenario on our mind in our planning months ago and purchased a 25′ shore power cord extension and have it on Board. We bought it for what we thought were going to be docking in windy high seas and not being able to back into a slip safely. Not considering that it could be a needed for some routine docking instructions at some Marina’s. Good for us for good planning ahead.

We really pushed our speeds Saturday doin 24-25 kts for 4-5 hours to shorten our day at sea as we covered 123 NM Saturday big travel Day.

Sunrise Saturday Morning heading to Lock.
Last lock (Coffeeville) shared the lock with “Saphire C” they were planning to run the day at 30kts. They unfortunately lost one engine and we passed them later in the day after hailing them to be sure they were safe and if we could provide any assistance. Interesting we passed a second Looper Boat Seeker II as well and hailed them just as a friendly hello and they too had lost an engine. We offered assistance but they radioed all was OK and they would be fine on the single engine. They ended up here at the dock across from us here at Fairhope. They are tied up at the Yacht Club.

Our first rail bridge (Mile marker 13.1) this was in down position (closed) when we approached we had to do some training recall. Rail bridges are typically always in up position unless a train is approaching. Well no train so we refreshed our training and with our binoculars read the instructions posted on the bridge. Bridge could be raised by using VHF channel 13 which we executed and the bridge was raised.
Saturday, our first site of City of Mobile, Alabama. From the shortcut????

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