Before we left this morning we met a family in a 45 Carver.  Husband, wife and two younger boys.  They had taken a year off work and had done the loop in their boat.  They were on their last leg and actually returning to their home in Chattanooga TN.  One of the boys, the older one, maybe about 12 was on the side of the deck after just shoving off from the dock.  No Life Jacket!  The mom, who was transporting the car, was still on the dock taking pictures of them leaving.  She yelled “L I F E   J A C K E T!”.  The kid got down.  You’d think after living aboard for a year it would be ingrained in their minds but I guess kids will be kids and I’m sure he knew better than his parents as all kids of that age do :).

We shoved off around 7:30.  36 degrees but it was a beautiful sunny day.  But the tide was at it’s lowest point.  We were hoping we wouldn’t have too much trouble going back out their narrow and shallow passage way.  Whew! We made it out and the low water alarm only went off a couple of times 🙂

There were a couple REALLY large boats in the shipping channel that morning, some commercial fishermen and a few barges other than that, not too busy.  We traveled down the shipping channel to where we needed to cut across.  We got some tips last year from a few people as to where to cross Mobile Bay without having to go all the way down to where the ICW (Inter Coastal Waterway) comes into Mobile bay.  This short cut shaves off quite a bit of time.

I have seen more dolphins on this trip than any of our other trips.  They were practically swim right under our bow.  Cool!  Our trip this time, once we hopped on the short cut, was a little rougher than before.  The water was hitting us on our port side causing a little rocking and rolling.  No one pukes though, not even the cat, that is good :).  It calmed down the further we got.  Gary was worried it might have been too rough for me.  I told him, when I put my life jacket on and start saying the rosary, you’ll know it is too rough.

As we entered the ICW and start traveling it, we see where someone has hit one of the piling markers, I bet that must have hurt.  The marker is practically level with the water.

Someone hit the Pile marker

The Coasties are out there replacing the buoy with a little floating one.

Coasties to the rescue

Now the ICW narrows down and we have land close by on both sides.  We go by The Warf,

The Warf

see the pretty 49 DeFever?

Pretty Defever

Can you tell I’m driving and Gary is taking pictures?

Then we come along an area where they are dredging or something.  Look at this cool floating digger thingie

Floating Dredger

Another sunken boat.  I think he didn’t see the corner, hee hee

What the heck???

As we get closer to Orange Beach the water got very clear

Clear water in Orange Beach

And the beaches are as white as ever

White Beach

This is a boat yard called Sanders.  I’ve heard they do very good work.  You should have seen our AIS light up with all the boats they are working on.  Even a Pirate Ship

Pirate Ship

AAARRRRGGG!

We make it to our final destination……Orange Beach Marina

Our Winter Home

We even get our same spot again.  Right across from the gas dock.  We are doing our happy dance and are very happy to be back at Orange Beach.  Now we’ll have to think about getting our car back!