Day 49

The water is still a little choppy today so we decided to play it safe and stay here at the Marina. Grant wants to go visit the Marine West guy and get all the info that he can about anchorages and our trek across the gulf. We slept in and Grant left on bike for Marina West at about 2:30. This marina said on their advertisement that they had a courtesy car, however it seems like the employees here just lend you theirs. So Grant decided to bike to the store, up this huge hill/bridge and over the river. Tabbie wasn’t looking for that kind of challenge so she stayed home. It is better that way; Tabbie wasn’t about to endure 2 hours of manly boating talk. So Tabbie worked on the website some more, which she had been doing all morning. We only have Internet phone service, which is very slow, so posting a week worth of entries and pictures takes all day. We were low on groceries, so she decides to surprise Grant and go to the shopping, (it turns out that they do have a courtesy car after all, one of the employees just uses it), and on her way back she stops to see if Grant is still at West Marine. Low and behold he is, so she stops to ask if he might want a ride. He was just starting to check out. Good thing that she showed up when she did, because the one thing that he was supposed to get was anchor chain, and he forgot. Maybe because he didn’t want to haul it back on his bike or, maybe it was because Grant was too busy making friends with Richard, the West Marine salesperson. Richard gave us all the necessary info between Mobile Bay and Apalachicola; anchorages, shoaling spots, damaged waterways due to the hurricanes(s) and such… Richard also gave him pointers on making a Gulf crossing, and the best places to do so… However, we seem to be getting mixed signals on the best route. Grant is going to wait to decide the best plan once we get to Appalachia and talk with the experts that are able to see and talk with boaters that do it day in and day out. We are hoping to meet up with some other folks in Appalachia similar to in Demopolis that would let us follow them across. Better to travel in packs incase of any problems… We always seem to find the nicest people along the way who are more than willing to give us information and pointers.

The rest of the night we spent completing the website and organizing the boat. Tabbie made sugar cookies with frosting and sprinkles in honor of the holidays. We both made phone calls on our free minute time and Grant also washed down the boat. Wanted to be to bed early, but ended up working on the boat until about 12:00. Oh well, maybe we can leave a little later tomorrow morning…