We left Dog River Marina mid-morning as we didn't have but 40 miles to travel today. After a pump-out and a last visit with the pink kitty that lived at the gas dock, we embarked out of the Dog River and into the channel that led us across Mobile Bay. As soon as we reached the main shipping channel, we ran into a parade of fishing and shrimping boats coming in from their day's work (as ours was beginning), some of them still trailing nets. That made us a bit nervous and we gave them a wide berth.

Mobile Bay is only about 10 miles wide across, but we had to traverse it diagonally for about 25 miles from the Dog River inlet to the Bon Secours Bay mouth of the eastern Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GICW). So for today for the first time since the Great Lakes we only saw hazy horizons losing sight of land in the fuzzy distance - and of course the first time since New York traveling any distance in salt water. The waters were calm but we had to go fairly slowly because of the newly repaired windshield caulking - we were warned not to "flex" the boat. So after making for the Middle Bay Lighthouse, a quirky 19th century screw-pile lighthouse, we turned southeast across the spoil area to the GICW.


Once in the narrow canal of the GICW with land on both sides, we progressed passed Gulf Shores, AL and past Lulu's Restaurant - where Jimmy Buffett's sister purveys burgers, fried fish and parrothead paraphernalia to boaters and land tourists. And after 3 more miles arrived at the The Wharf, which is part of a larger development of stores, restaurants, condos, a movie theater, Ferris Wheel and a whole lot else - all done up for Christmas.

It was a spectacularly clean and nice-looking place, but nearly bereft of signs of human life here in the off-season. The marina was solid - with new docks and protection from wind and waves.