By the time we fueled up and pumped out at Dog River, we didn’t leave the marina till 9:00.  In most of the marinas we stopped at, they sell beer and wine at their ship store.  This place was no exception.  They had some little bottles of a margarita drink that you could buy in a 6 pack.  I figured what the heck, I am going to give it a shot and see if I like it.  So I put the 6 pack on the counter, filled out the forms he needed and paid for the gas and the margarita.  When we were 1/2 down the channel heading back to the shipping channel I realized I forgot my margaritas.  Poop!  Oh well, we are definitely not heading back just for that. Darn.

As we pulled out into the shipping channel we saw a tow with about 12 barges heading the same way we were.  We made it to the shipping channel before he was too close to us so we just kept an eye on him in case he needed to pass us.  In the distance I could see this REALLY big ship coming up the channel, Gary figured it was about 700 feet long

Big boat coming up channel

Now we had another boat to keep an eye on.  While we were making our way slowly along the shipping channel, Gary’s phone rang.  It was Dog River Marina.  The guy there realized I had forgotten my Margarita and was wondering what he should do or if he should give me a credit.  I thanked him for calling and just told him to give it to someone who liked them.  I was surprised he called, I would have just drank them.  Like finding money on the side walk, finders keepers.  We’ll be stopping there next spring, I should of told him to hang on to them till we got back in April 🙂

As we were driving along, trying to figure out the markers and whether or not they were a mile apart or not, that big boat just kept gaining on us and the tow boat was falling further behind.

He’s gaining on us.

We knew he was going to catch up to us.  Look at all the water he was pushing.  See that white strip in the picture above?  That is water that he is pushing.  Here is a close up

Big boat pushing water

As he kept gaining on us it was apparent he was going to go between us and our port side.  As we had been traveling down the shipping channel I noticed a few boats that were fishing very close to the edge of the channel.  They were dragging a net behind them, I assume it was gathering fish in it.  At the time the big boat was getting really close to us, one of those fishing boats was also on our port side, close to the edge of the channel.  I watched with shock because it looked like the big boat was going to run over that fishing boat.  That fishing boat wasn’t moving to get out of the big guys way…at all!

Big boat bow

I should of taken some pictures but I was so sure the big boat was either going to hit the fishing boat or swamp it that I just watch what was happening.  Luckily, they missed each other.  You can see how close the big boat came to us

Big Boat close to us

You can see the side of our boat and how far away the big boat was.  That was scary.  I wasn’t sure what to expect from his waves but they weren’t bad.  First time for me on such a big body of water.  Everything is new and exciting and different.  So different from river traveling.  See this bridge here (see the dark spot on the picture?  I apparently have something on the lens of my camera.  Poop.  I tried wiping off the lens but it doesn’t seem to make any difference.  Any suggestions from anyone as to how to get rid of this???)

Bridge

Gary figured it was about 25 miles away but you can’t even see the land on either side of it.  As we would look at the boats in front of us, we had that curvature of the earth thing going on again.  There would be a gap between the boat and the water, the boat would look like it was floating in thin air.  We saw a few oil rigs in the bay, a “crew” boat that was driving between the rigs.  You could tell he knew his way around the bay :).  We also saw this house

House in Bay

That is a real get away!  I wonder what his mailing address is?

Well it was further than we thought to Orange Beach so we ended up stopping at Homeport Marina.  This marina has a restaurant, gift shop, a sandy area, and some other things connects to the marina called Lulu’s.

Lulu’s

They have floating docks there so we didn’t have to worry about the tide.  Their dockage was steep though.   The dockage was $100 a night but they gave us $25 BoatUS discount but after they added taxes, an electric charge and a hotel tax of about $10, the bottom line was $94.20.  Most we’ve paid yet.  We did see dolphins in the marina, Gary was able to get a few shots

Dolphin going

Gone

I got a camera that takes multiple shots as long as you hold down the button, without that, we never would have gotten these shots.  Those dolphins are quick 🙂

Here is the boat at Homeport, pretty ain’t she?

Touch of Class at Homeport Marina

At least the bay was relatively flat today.  We should make it to Orange Beach by tomorrow so TTFN and it’s Friday night so a little wine is calling my name!