Dog River Marina, Mobile

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 195 - October 12,. 2017

Cecil and Danny  left the Alabama River Cutoff at 6:45 a.m. on Desperado, and Rico on Ossaze was not far behind at 7:00 a.m.  We didn't dawdle but we didn't hurry, either.  Baxter duty, one cup of coffee and toast, put kayak up, pull the anchor, and we were off at 7:30 a.,m. 

The river becomes the Mobile River downstream of the Alabama River junction. The run from the Alabama River Cutoff to Mobile, we knew from Skipper Bob, affords not one single place for a boat  to stop. The shoreline was uniformly marshy and inhospitable, at least to humans!

Mobile River shoreline - great for wildlife, not so much for people!

We eventually overtook Rico.  A few miles later, he phoned to tell us that his chartplotter had stopped working and he did not know the way to the marina, so we told him we would wait for him so he could just follow us.  We came to a fork in the river, to the left was the Big Bayou Canot channel, and the main river channel to the right.  It was about lunch time, so we stopped and just bobbed in the channel until Rico caught up. I was surprised to see tows coming out of the other channel, but when we zoomed Garmin Blue Chart Mobile out quite a ways, it was obvious that the Big Bayou Canot channel rejoined the main channel, and apparently it was preferred by the tows for some reason.

From the point where the main channel and the Big Bayou Canot channel rejoined, we saw steadily increasing tow activity. As we approached Mobile, the Mobile River became a complete zoo, with dozens, scores or maybe hundreds of barges and tows lining the shores and coming and going both directions. This would have literally overwhelmed the AIS, which I had not turned on anyway!  I picked my way through them on visual flight rules! 

Pretty soon we were on the other side of most of the tow activity and adjacent to downtown. There were quite a few cargo ships along the shore, but very few tows in the river. The most interesting sight was passing that Austal Shipyard, where we saw this ship, which is a "littoral combat ship." According to Wikipedia, the littoral combat ship (LCS) is a class of relatively small surface vessels intended for operations in the littoral zone (close to shore) by the United States Navy. It was "envisioned to be a networked, agile, stealthy surface combatant capable of defeating anti-access and asymmetric threats in the littorals."

New LCS class Navy ship at Austal Shipyard in Mobile

As we passed downtown, we passed the Carnival Fantasy cruise ship and the downtown skyline. A long time ago, we used to enjoy cruise ships, but we were more the Royal Caribbean type than the Carnival type!

Carnival Fantasy cruise ship in Mobile 

Downtown Mobile skyline

 It was quite a ways farther on the river out to Mobile Bay than we were expecting. The significance of reaching Mobile Bay was that the "Chicago to Mobile" river leg of our Loop is  over, and we are officially starting the Gulf Coast leg! We have traveled 1,307 miles from the Chicago lock to Mobile Bay on the Chicago, Illinois, Mississippi, Ohio, Cumberland, Tennessee, Tenn-Tom, Tombigbee, Black Warrior -. Tombigbee, and Mobile rivers, and transited Barkley Lake, Kentucky Lake and Lake Pickwick along the way!

Our destination was the Dog River Marina, which I had called on the way, and was assured there was plenty of room. Turns out that was an understatement! This marina was hit hard by Hurricane Nate, and they had just re-opened. The fuel dock had just resumed operations a few days earlier. We fueled at the fuel dock, and were delighted to see that they were still giving one night's free moorage to Loopers with a fuel fill.  Rico pulled in behind us at the fuel dock. Since he is not a Looper, he had to pay for his moorage, but the rate was only $1.00 a foot. Unfortunately for us and Rico, the restrooms and showers are not yet functional.

We asked for a recommendation for a restaurant from the Dog River Marina staff, and they pointed us to the Dog River Yacht Club restaurant that was across the street, We had a very nice meal out with Rico, and a lot of good conversation!

We have now done a few calculations on our cruise from Demopolis to Dog River Marina in Mobile. We had run 234 miles, 31 engine hours and on fill took 46.2 gallons of gas. This computes to 5.06 SMPG and 1.48 GPH average. Almost all of this trip we were running 2,200 - 2,400 RPMs, probably split about 50-50, so that would suggest 1 GPH at 2,200 RPMs and 2 GPH at 2,400 RPMs. 

Tomorrow on to the Gulf Coast ICW and back to Florida! We will visit Bob and Marie Austin in Pensacola for a few days. We are really looking forward to showers and a real bed!