I was up at 0500 this morning to check the weather forecast for Mobile Bay. It had not changed, and forecast calm winds and seas through early afternoon, then 5-10 knots after. I wanted to have the anchor up by 0700 so we could get to the bay by 0900.
I had to wait for first light to take Duke for his last dinghy ride to shore for this trip. I prefer to hoist the dink when crossing the bay. Just in case. As the sun came up I could see that we had dense fog. Pea soup fog. I could not even see the other boats here, or the shoreline. I pulled the dink up to the swim platform and Duke eagerly jumped in. Off to his favorite spot on shore and he wasted no time in taking care of business. Almost as though he knew we were waiting on him so we could leave, he did not play around or roll in the sand, but came straight back to the dink.
While I was getting Duke in our dink, I could hear the engines from the big Hatteras start up. He obviously wanted to get an early start, too. I could hear them leaving by the time Duke and I got back from the beach.
It was 0710 by the time I got the engines started. While waiting for them to warm up Paula and I hoisted the dink. The bottom was already covered in thousands of tiny barnacles! Wow, these things grow fast!
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| Thousands of tiny barnacles covered the entire bottom and lower motor. |
By the time we got the dink hoisted and secured, and the anchor up, it was 0735 before we were heading out of Ingram Bayou. We turned west and headed for the bay.
Since it was early, foggy, and a weekday, we were blessed with a very quiet morning. We saw only a small handful of boats about. An hour later, as we approached Lulu's restaurant, we saw the big Hatteras (name was Princess Grace) at the fuel dock there. I can only imagine how much fuel he took on in an hours time. He pulled away from the fuel dock as soon we passed, and fell in behind us. He was initially about 1/4 mile behind us. I started tracking him on radar, and could see he was doing 8.9 knots, while we were only doing 6.5. He was going to catch up and pass us in no time. I hailed them and got an instant response. I requested that he let me know when he was ready to overtake me and I would slow to idle speed so he could come by without throwing a big wake. The captain replied that he was in no hurry, and would just hang behind us. That lasted all of about 5 minutes!
As I watched his radar target, he continued to gain on me, never slowing. He eased to port so he could get around me. I kept waiting for him to call to say he was ready for me to slow down, but he never did. I could that big wake rolling along just behind us. I called again on the radio, and in no uncertain terms (while mentioning the name of his boat), demanded that he pull back so as to not wake me. This time he apologized and throttled back, and I did the same. He eased by and I called to say thanks. He complimented us on Microship, then as his stern move past our bow, opened it back up again.
By this time we were nearing Mobile Bay, and could see that this was going to be a fine day to cross. It was as calm as it gets, and we even lucked out to have the current give us a nice push all the way across, until just past Dauphin Island.
Since it was such a beautiful day, we decided to push on to Horn Island. This would result in a 9-hour run, but it would mean only a 6-hour run to get home tomorrow. Since the wind was forecast to pick up out of the north Saturday night, I did not want to take any chances on that forecast getting moved up to earlier in the day.
As we cleared the west end of Dauphin Island, the wind started building. It was supposed to come up some, but in no time was blowing 20 mph out of the west. It started getting choppy as we passed north of Petit Bois Island. By the time we reached our desired anchorage, it was 1630 and we were more than ready to stop.
The anchorage we chose only had marginal protection from a west wind, but it was the best the island had to offer. The wind really kicked up overnight and it got bouncy, but not uncomfortable. Called it a night by 2000 so we could get an early start tomorrow.
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