Underway Day 91:

At 0830 we pulled off the dock and backed off, releasing around 150 square feet of water hyacinth and logs that the river current had collected between our bows. We called ahead to the Coffeeville Lock and we only had to wait a few minutes before he opened the gates. He let us float in the Chamber which is always easier, but few of the lock masters allow it.

It was another beauty day on the Black Warrior-Tombigbee. As we approached Mobile, Alabama, the water became brackish and we were running through the bayou. It was nice to be in fresh water for so long, but we will be salty dogs again from now on. One of the railway bridges was down and we had to lower all the antennas to pass under the 10 foot clearance. There were quite a few channel marker buoys off station and along the shoreline. I’m not sure if this is due to a lack of maintenance funding, or tow operators struggling to turn their barges around these winding turns. With a little caution and common sense, this didn’t present a problem for us.

Mobile is one of the largest commercial seaports on the Gulf Coast, and we encountered heavy commercial traffic, including oil tankers, tows with barges, cargo ships and the like. There were lots of shrimp boats dragging nets in the harbor channel as well. The highlight of the day was to see the Navy’s newest destroyer being constructed in dry dock on the shore. It is known as an LCS or Littoral Combat ship. Littoral means close to shore. These Trimaran style ships a fast, stealthy, and just mean looking. They can also be networked together to combat a wide variety of threats, including anti-submarine, minesweeping and special operations. They are made of ballistic aluminum. It was really cool to cruise by and check them out up close at 28 knots.

Mobile Bay is very shallow outside the channel. There are many spoil areas, so we stayed in the channel and ran down south of the city, up into Dog River. I gave the boat a nice scrub and shine and did a few small projects. After so many nights sleeping in the tent, we were ready for a nice hotel, and our friend Maggie Smith hooked us up with an awesome discount at the Admiral Hotel downtown. Admiral Newman was very happy about this.

I watched the ND game at the bar, where the Lamb lollipops were amazing. We then hopped in an Uber and headed down to the Belle Fontaine Sand Bar to see our friends Albert Simpson and John Kulinich again. They played to a packed local crowd. The music was excellent, and we had a nice time getting to know the bar owners Michael and Marie. They are planning to do the great loop some day and we were happy to tell them about our trip and celebrate the one year anniversary of their bar opening. It was another fun filled day of dodging logs and massive ships in the in the bayou, with great football, food and music for the finish.