Saturday, November 12 - Beginning the GICW (Gulf Intracoatal Waterway)

Both Danny and I have had some "duh" moments of this trip.  I will let him tell his own, but here iss my latest. We still had not been able to pump out (we found out after we pulled into the marina that theirs was broken), so didn't want to use the boat showers and add more water to the holding tank. So I go up the shower room, get all my stuff out of the bag, undress, and started to grab my towel before stepping in the shower.  No towel or washcloth!  I used my dirty t-shirt to dry my hair and my towel-turban to dry off.  I wasn't about to walk all the way to the boat and back again!

We set out from Fly Creek and entered Mobile Bay once again.  It wa a gorgeous day, bright sunshine, sparkling water.  There were SO many homes along the beautiful shore, but because of the shallow bay, we have to stay out too far from shore to get much detail.  We celebrated the completion of "Repair Week" and departure from Fairhope with Bloody Mary's.  Not as good as the ones Charles makes, but we enjoyed them immensely!

Toward the southern end of Mobile Bay, we headed east and looked for our first GICW markers.

There is a cut above Bob Secour Peninsula that connects with Oyster Bay and the waterway, so we didn't actually go out into the Gulf.  We will later, but at a point where the cut throughs are closer together.

The first section of the Waterway was pretty much what I had anticipated.  Older cabins, big new homes, condos, lush foliage, and fishing boats. I was so excited that I tried to see everything on both sides!  People had told us about Pirate's Cove Marina which has great hamburgers.  We called to see if we could pump out and maybe stay overnight, they didn't have room even for us to pull up for lunch.  We went on to Lulu's Restaurant and marina in Gulf Shores.

Since we had still not been able to pump out, we were delighted they offered that service.  We had been quoted a cost of $5.50, the bill was $11.00 - we have two holding tanks.  Still a bargain!  We had eaten at Lulu's last year with David and Linda, so decided to move on in search of a good hamburger!

After a few miles, we came to The Wharf Marina, a complex including condos, retail, dining, movie theaters, ND a marina.  Our Looper friends Carol and Jim had stayed and liked it. We pulled in,thinking surely they had a good hamburger place.  We checked in, found a hamburger place, and watched the Georgia - Auburn football game with 4 other Georgia fans, and lots of Alabama fans pulling for Georgia.  The fried pork skins were awesome, and Danny's chili burger was good.