Dauphin Island

Wednesday morning we left Ship Island and sailed for a short piece to Biloxi to top off our fuel tank. From there we motored out to deep water and then sailed for several hours. At some point during the afternoon the wind got pretty strong and we were moving right along.  We only saw two porpoise that day but we saw our first sea turtle. He didn't seem as excited to see us as we were to see him. He was swimming along, stuck his head up, saw us and immediately dove under water.

With our late start and stop for fuel we were really running late to make Dauphin Island, which is a barrier island just offshore from Mobile, Alabama. With the wind as it was we chose to sail around the north side, all the way around the island to anchor on the southeast corner. After we rounded the end of the island we motor sailed (used both the motor and the sail) and were hitting 8.6 kts at times. That's the fastest Good Morning Vietnam has ever gone with us onboard. A bit later is where we ran into a little trouble. One set of charts said the depth was 2 feet, another said 8 to 10. The sun was already setting and we decided to go for it. Fortunately we had plenty of water and we slowly motored into a calm and peaceful cove between Dauphin Island and Pelican Island. Only thing is, those two islands are now one. Still it makes for a great anchorage with water as deep as 12 feet very close to the beach.

We liked it here so much we decided to stay another night. We dinghied to shore and walked around for a while, until it got hot. We came back to the boat and had lunch, swam a bit and did a couple of chores including making plans for tomorrow. Of course we watched the sunset from the bow and wished Soli well until we see him again tomorrow.

Tomorrow we're going to head towards Pensacola on the GIWW. We wanted to stay outside and sail but there are going to be small craft advisories between here and Destin tomorrow so we'll go the conservative route, We should be able to make Pensacola tomorrow but we've decided to plan on getting where we're going by 2:30 each day. No more dropping anchor after sunset,  We want to allow enough time that if we're delayed we still have plenty of light. I have to keep telling myself we're not in a hurry.

There are four different aids we are using for our planning, besides the charts that are loaded into the chart plotter at the helm. Skipper Bob  - Cruising the Gulf Coast, Southern 2015 Waterway Guide, activecaptain.com and an iPad app iNavx.  At some point, each one of them has been more helpful than the others combined. If you pressed me on it, I'd say activecaptain and iNavx have been the most help. All that being said, I wish we had paper charts and we will the next time I'm somewhere like West Marine where we can get them.

That's all for tonight. I'll leave you with a picture of Good Morning Vietnam that Susan took today when we were in the dinghy coming back from shore.

Take care.
Brian