We got off to an early start today, and left our marina by 8am. We pulled out of the channel and made our way farther south toward the Intracoastal Waterway. Mobile Bay is shallow, as I’ve mentioned, and the water depths are between eight to ten feet, with it more shallow closer to shore. We made our way south to get to the channel which is the Intracoastal Waterway. This is kept at a minimum of ten feet deep by the Army Corp of Engineers and runs from Texas to Florida. When we left, I noticed another boat leaving around the same time behind us. It turns out to be people we’ve met before, and they caught up to us about an hour into our trip. We spoke on the VHF and they said they were going to Lulu’s too, and then anchoring in the same spot we had picked. This was cool with us, as its nice to have someone to travel with sometimes. We made it to the channel and were now in more protected waters. We continued for a few hours and soon came to our first stop: Lulu’s. Lulu is Jimmy Buffett’s sister, and she has a couple of restaurant locations, which are similar to Margaritaville, but with her own twist. Our friends ahead of us had reached the destination first, and came out to assist us with docking. We arrived right around noon, so it was starting to get busy but there were no other boats except the two of us. Once docked, we went inside to see if the Cleveland Browns were on one of their TV’s. They were not, but we sat at the bar anyway and had lunch, while watching the game on our phone. The food was good and the Browns were winning, so it was a good day. We finished up and prepared to depart after walking around the gift shop and grounds for a bit. Our friends had already left before us, so we took our time before heading out.
We left Lulu’s and continued east on the Intracoastal. We didn’t have too far to go, so we made it to the anchorage in a couple of hours. As we pulled in, there were a few other boats anchored already, and we worked our way slowly past them to get a little deeper into the bayou. We anchored in about ten feet of water with about five other boats spread around. There was plenty of room, so we didn’t feel like we were close to anyone else. I took Frank into shore on the dinghy and returned to relax for the night and watch the sunset and the dolphins playing around us. We made dinner and researched our next stop. Tomorrow we will enter Florida! We are excited about this as it is a milestone to get here under our own power and finally be in Florida! Hopefully the weather will start to warm up…