Twelve Mile Island to Dog River

It's Thursday Morning.....

When we awoke on Thursday morning and we were fogged in. The anchor held us well all night long and we had a slight current to keep this from swinging.

We decided to continue exploring by making a big loop back to Mobile Bay. From our big picture view of the map, it appeared we could do a loop back to Mobile. Well...we where almost back to the Mobile bay and we zoomed-in on the map for the name of our next bridge, to our surprise the bridge  was a FIXED bridge. Having just navagated many many miles on the intercoastal waterway we had come to expect that every bridge would open if we called them on the radio. The two bridges that blocked our path to Mobile would not be opening, they were fixed bridges. So we did a 180 and headed back down the return path.  

 

As you can see this area is quite remote. This little fishing camp can only be accessed by water. The water color is indicative of the amount of rain that has occurred in the south the spring. As we were making our crossing from Tarpon Springs we heard the news that Pensacola Florida have had 24 inches of rain dumped on the city. It caused major flooding and even some building collapses. Their jail had a major issue because of the flooding with a wall collapsing and killing two inmates.

This towboat is heading south towards mobile day. The mobile river is the southern most part of the Tennessee Tombigbee waterway. We will take the TennTom north as we take QC home.

With Viv at the helm I decide to relax on the foredeck as we head back towards Dog River. The river was as rough as we ever see it at home and QC was as soomth as glass. Wow, what a difference weight and a good hull design makes!!

Through the busy commercial area.

With tugs and tows going about their workday.

With all the congestion Viv wants me to again take the helm. You will notice no wheel in use. QC is controlled by wire via the Simrad AP-20 Follow-up/Auto Pilot system. 

Serious material handling....

Ships are here from far away!

Coal is being loaded here for export.

Once we are back in the mobile ships channel we were hailed on the radio by this large ocean going vessel. The captain noticed our name "Quiet Company". He asked if we had a connection to Northwestern Mutual which we obviously do. Most people that don't know us personally don't know the connection between the name "Quiet Company" and my 40 year career with Northwestern Mutual. Northwestern in the past was know as the Quiet Company since the company did so little advertising (we work by referral from client to client). But this ships captain suspected the connection. He told us his father is a 35 year Northwestern Mutual Advisor in New Orleans and his brother is in process of taking over his father's practice.  It's certainly a small world.

From here it's straight back to the dock at Dog River Marina. Tomorrow is Friday and we will spend the day getting QC ready to stay at the dock until we can return. We have several items on the boat that need attention before we can leave as well as it being cleaned up readied, fueled and secured.

 Unfortunately from here to the end on this leg I did not shoot any more pictures...just kind of spaced it with all there was to do before we flew out at 6:30am Saturday Morning. I will shoot pictures of the marina and QC at the dock when we return......