Mobile to Panama City Beach
It has been a long time since I updated the blog. We have had some great times, but we have also gone through some very scary adventures that changed our course. I have attempted to go back through my pictures and Facebook posts to put together a timeline for the blog. Though I haven’t been keeping up with the blog lately, I have been posting on our Miss Tenn~A~Sea Facebook group. We have live videos, photos and other videos on there that I won’t be able to upload to the blog. If you want to see the videos and photos, just request to join our group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/286588983450147
The last blog entry was from January 16th when we were at Demopolis (Kingfisher Marina.). We left Demopolis on January 15th at 6:30 am and made it to Bobby’s Fish Camp in Silas Alabama by 3:30 p.m. James talked to the Lock Master at Coffeeville Lock and was told we will be locking through at first light on the 16th. Shelia and I rescheduled our airline tickets so we could fly home on the 24th.
Demopolis Lock
Railroad Bridge
Bobby's Fish Camp
On January 16th, we locked through the Coffeeville Lock with no problems. We saw the boat that had been pulled out of the water. Such a scary thought…going down inside the locks! We were now traveling alone, as our friend Tracy had stopped at an anchorage between Demopolis and Bobby’s Fish Camp. We anchored at the Tensaw River anchorage for the night. We had a great night and our boat didn’t swing at all. The windlass started working a little and it was much easier to get the anchor up that morning. We had very low cell signal on both the Verizon and AT&T phone, so we didn’t get to text or talk much that night.
On January 17th, we left our anchorage around 7:00 am and headed to Dog River Marina in Mobile Alabama. We did a live video feed of the Mobile Bay Industrial area. Getting into Dog River was a challenge. The tide was low and it was very very shallow. We were stirring up a lot of sand as we made our way through the channel. We were at Dog River Marina for 10 long days. Shelia and I flew home for a few days to see our grandbabies. I rented a cabin in the mountains and spent the entire time with my kids. I hated it that James was left to tend to the boat, but he needed to be there to make sure everything went okay. Our friend Tracy caught up to us at Dog River so he had company while Shelia and I were gone. We had some issues with getting the prescheduled maintenance at Dog River. We were already five days behind schedule due to the boat sinking in the Coffeeville Lock. Dog River Marina was behind schedule when we arrived as well. Middleton Marine was able to go ahead and do the oil change and service to our boat with it still in the water, but we have waited over a week for Dog River to pull the boat out for the other work. They finally got to our boat on the 26th and pulled it out to fix our cutlass bearings. The boat was only out of the water for 2 hours. We still had to wait for a part to come in the next morning and then we were on our way!
Mobile Bay and Haul Out at Dog River Marina
Flying home to our grandbabies!
We left Dog River on January 27th and found a beautiful anchorage (Ingram Bayou) in Orange Beach. We had a beautiful day cruising the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway) and got several photos along the way, including the famous Lulu's (Jimmy Buffett's sister), The Wharf and Tacky Jack's. We made it to Ingram Bayou before dark and had no trouble anchoring for the night. We found out our friends (Rand & Cheryl) from our home marina were just down from us that night as well! I included a photo of their boat at a marina nearby. We had the most magnificent sunset! James captured the best photo of our boat with the sunset with his drone.
Dog River to the ICW
Lulu's, The Wharf, Tacky Jack's, Ingram Bayou Anchorage
Our friends Rand and Cheryl's boat
We traveled from Orange Beach to Fort Walton Beach on January 28th. We stayed at the Fort Walton City Dock that night. It is a free dock but does not have any electricity or water. James and I walked to Whataburger for dinner that evening. We awoke the next morning to 33 degrees!! Hard to believe it was that cold in the south, but it was! And it felt like 22 degrees! It was a beautiful sunny day though and I think it actually made it to 49 degrees that day. We had a beautiful day of cruising and even had some dolphins surfing our wake. We even had a deer swim across the water in front of us! We anchored just outside the jetties at Shell Island at Panama City Beach that night. We were making our preparations for the big crossing the next day. We had been studying the weather apps and it appeared that January 30th was the best window for crossing the Gulf. The plan was to leave around 7 am (8 EST) for a 20 – 26 hour crossing (no stops). We knew we would not have cell service or even radio signal for most of the way. We had purchased a satellite transmitter to be able to stay in touch with our kids and give them updates along the way. We had a beautiful sunset that night and were excited about the next day.
Orange Beach to Fort Walton Beach
Panama City Beach Sunset
And this is where it all went wrong. Please check out the next post to read about our harrowing experience with the Gulf Crossing!