Dog River Marina may not have been quite consistent with the marketing campaign they ran at the Rendezvous but it was adequate and we got the t-shirts they promised us. After collecting said shirts, however, we were ready to get on across Mobile Bay. You know, magnolia leaves, warm rolling seas, and sweet Rosalie. (Since we’re homeless and happily would drink a toast to Flagstaff, we can identify with The Possum and the Hag.)
Very surreal to be back in salt water again. The Bay was flat and blessedly stress-free, which we badly needed after a long string of decidedly-opposite-of-stress-free days covering 499.8 nm. We’re ready for something more than Little Debbie Nutty Bars for breakfast. And about that, we don’t at all approve of Little Debbie changing the name to Nutty Buddies. Nutty Buddies are those stale ice cream cones that you get from the freezer at Circle K. These are Nutty Bars. We actually—and quite agitatedly—complained to a McKee Foods corporate officer not only about this atrocity but also the decision to stop making the chocolate pies that Dana just discovered and already has come to love. Doesn’t seem to have made a difference.
After the mini-crossing—not to be confused with The Crossing (Gulf of Mexico) we face in a few weeks—we reached our entrance into the ICW. Very exciting. Maybe not exciting to read about, but very exciting for us to reach a new part of our Loop.
Speaking of Jimmy Buffett, his sister Lucy has a restaurant right on the ICW. We called to see if we could stop for lunch. Lucy needs better help.
They weren’t too interested in us using their dock so we passed on by. Lucy’s loss.
On to the Wharf. Brent and Karen talked up the joint all summer so we had high expectations.
Expectations met. There are real restaurants and shops. Excellent floating docks. Everything we need. They even put us in a slip right next to Second Wave for what surely will be the last time.
Brent and Karen cleaned out Second Wave for prospective buyers. We got one last meal with them before they headed back to Texas this morning. Note the minivan. They were snobs about minivans before we convinced them.
Anyway, the Wharf is pretty cool.
That’s a good thing, because we’ll be docked here for a month. During that time we’ll be traveling some—by car not boat—so probably no more blog posts until we head back out in December. Nobody wants to read about standard old car trips, as in “Today we stopped at The Home Depot to pick up some zip ties after a nice sandwich at Goldstein’s Deli.”
In the meantime, here’s another sunset.
And here’s another heron.
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* CCR was the soundtrack for Lake Michigan, but we’re back in Jimmy Buffett country now.
It seems that minivans and boating go hand in hand. I’m not sure we would be able to handle all of our stuff without the Pacifica (tools, sails, and outboard etc.)