We're about two weeks into our month-long Orange Beach, Alabama stay and a month into our trip overall. Obviously, we've had a few dramatic moments along the way, but lately we've been having too much fun for me to take the time to write about it. I guess that bodes well for the trip!

After leaving Biloxi and the snapping shrimp festival, we headed over to Dauphin Island for another go at an overnight anchorage. After a nice day of sailing (minus Scott's attempt to see how far he could put the rail in the water before I turned six shades of green), we anchored without incident, hopped in the dingy, and headed ashore. Our time spent on Dauphin Island has been my favorite so far. There's nothing quite like having a few miles of beautiful beach to yourself for the day. It's one of life's little pleasures that everyone should experience at least once.

The beaches on Dauphin Island are as clean as the manicured private sands of Florida. The sand there is patchy, alternating between fine white, coarser brown, and a smooth, soft, beautiful black (no, not oil, lava rock and quite cool). The water is still murky, but this is where the color begins a distinct change from chocolate milk brown to cloudy green - a definite improvement! Our day on the island was very mellow, Scott threw out a few fishing lines, Riley spent his time herding hermit crabs, and I got a chance to play around with my camera.

After a while, Scott decided we were having Spam, not fish, for dinner, so the three of us took a long walk on the beach. There are thousands of hermit crabs on the island; Riley actually got frustrated because he desperately wanted to take home one of the large, whole seashells, but he couldn't find one without a hermit crab inside! We stumbled across a baby fish gulping for air on the sand during our walk. It was a strange looking thing, so Scott picked it up. It was a dark brown, with very bumpy, uneven skin, its eyes were bright green, it had two horns on top of its head, and the fins looked as though they may also be used for walking. I wish I hadn't left my camera near the dingy, because I've never seen anything this strange, even on our SCUBA dives. Scott carried it back into the water, but I can't imagine the little guy made it very far. (My post-beach research indicated that this was the highly poisonous stonefish, so I guess if Scott starts seizing up, I should remember to tell the ER doctor about his fishy play date...)

Our night on the hook at Dauphin Island was too rough for me. Again. The rocking started to make me seasick. I tried everything I could think of to get comfortable, but eventually I had to leave our v-berth to try to get some sleep in the salon. Why do all of the pictures of anchorages in my books show water as smooth as glass? Where are these places? I want to sleep there...

We sailed through Mobile Bay, down the ICW, and into The Wharf Marina in Orange Beach the next day. So far, we've spent our non-work, non-school time here hanging out on the beach, at the pool, or being lazy on the boat. Our current location is much more touristy than Scott would like, but we have family coming in to visit while we're here, so we're looking forward to seeing a few familiar faces before moving on to Florida.