"Ain't been no shrimpin' for 'bout a week now, oyster'n neither" is the response to my question asked at Buddy Grass' shrimp and oyster "shop" that is just around the corner from the Dog River Marina. I thought I might get lucky and get a half bag of oysters before the fisheries shut it down. These two pictures were taken a couple years ago, actually, as I remember.... just before we got the call that my Mother was failing fast and we needed to turn around and go back to Mobile so we could fly back to Madison. Mother was a very interesting person, not afraid to try new things, she really enjoyed Veda L, and we took her for a Mississippi 2 wk cruise when she was 85. Always wanting to have her breakfast with a newspaper to read, she starts eating her breakfast the 2nd day out and says "I can hardly enjoy my breakfast without a paper" I went to my cleaning cabinet and took out a newspaper from 2 years earlier from somewhere in Tennessee and handed it to her; her response "Well, I guess it's news to me!" Every morning we would do a "dumpster dive" into my cleaning supplies for some old news, but she was happy!

These two photos show a shrimp boat above and an oyster boat below; all the times we have left Mobile to either go north or south, I have never seen a prettier sight, I believe a bit of haze made these photos unique.

We are on our way to Bates Lake for the night, it will be about a 7 hour day so will take turns at the wheel. We hope that the entrance to Bates Lake is not silted in so we can make it through the cut. We got in last fall due to high water, but if we can't get into Bates we will spend the night in the Alabama cut-off, or as I call it....The Dismal Swamp. The picture of the floating fish shack is in Bates Lake and has a sign above the window IRA LEWIS. Reminds me of the old song "Drunken Ira Hayes..." Probably some whiskey has been drunk on this front porch I would guess....

Another photo taken in Bates Lake; we put the canoe in and took a little paddle into the back waters, that was until we saw a huge alligator basking in the sun lit water a few yards away, being he was almost as big as the canoe I thought it might be a good idea not to get close enough to get a good picture.

Right now we are going through Mobile Bay, then through the port of Mobile where we see ships from every foreign land docked alongside the channel, always makes us feel very small!

Once docked at Dog River Marina we enjoyed watching the shrimpers come into the river from Mobile Bay, the booms are out to catch any oil that might be drifing out in the bay, but so far it seems like the water here is oil free. We have been watching the coast guard and other huge boats with pumpers on them staging for cleanup when needed in the area from Panama City to Mobile, booms (long bumper type floatations) have been anchored around protected environmental areas to attempt to keep them safe from harm should the oil drift this way.

This was a fun scene to watch while coming into Dog River as we crossed Mobile Bay, Coast Guard helicopter doing airlift drills, amazing how the helicopter kept so completely still in one spot during the excercise. They would lower a diver into the water, turn him loose, then hoist another diver down "to save him" and hoist them both back up to the chopper.

Coming home through the tunnel last night after a dinner with the in-laws! We had seafood at Felix's on the causeway between Mobile and Dauphin Island where Rachael's parents live and of course I had to snap a picture going through the tunnel on our way home!

Good Morning from Dog River! I awoke at 5:13 to get my camera and tripod across the street overlooking Mobile Bay, of course I almost got the courtesy car stuck in the sand as I was more intent on my photo op that my parking spot! We are having Veda L hauled today as we believe we may have barnacles in our water intake which showed up as some AC problems. If you have to have a problem, this is a great place to deal with it! Tomorrow we hope to anchor in Bates Lake, then on our way to Demopolis and on to our final destination of Columbus, Mississippi........ Life is Swell on Veda L!

A Gulf of Mexico crossing is never complete without Dolphins coming along for playtime in your wake, this time a pod of Dolphins chose to glide along in our bow wake, switching from port to starboard as I crawled across the bow with my camera clicking away, this is a Mother and child, I see this quite a bit, and it is always touching as the Mom keeps her baby close to her within a fin's touch! We had a dreamy smooth crossing, never even used our stabilizers or had to alter course. Still a 24 hr crossing wears you out, so Apalachicola and their oysters were a welcome sight at lunch time when we arrived.

This picture was taken a couple of years ago during a Gulf of Mexico crossing, but I have yet to witness anything even close to it; I was in the pilot house and saw a dolphin leap high in the air, "Holy $@%!" and I ran for my camera, never thinking that I would get a repeat performance, not only did one jump but THREE dolphins jumped up, and they did it TWICE! The splash that followed was incredible as well. I did not have my camera set properly, and used the full telephoto, so it is not the clearest of photos, but what an experience to witness and capture! My comment was "did a dolphin show escape from Sea World during a hurricane?"

This was today! We were on our way from Apalachicola to Clearwater with a tummy full of oysters, we always see Dolphins in this area near Allanton in Wetappo Creek, and marked it as such on our chart; so I went out and started slapping the side of our hull with my hand to draw their attention to our boat, sure enough a pod of dolphins came along, and just when I thought that they were only going to glide alongside of us and depart, this one decided to give me a show! It is so exciting to capture the playfulness, and you can hear their chirping as they communicate. By the way, for every dolphin picture I get I miss 10 or more! Tough job being a dolphin photographer, almost as hard as taking pictures of sharks! (as you are fleeing!)

McKenzies! Always our first stop after leaving Compass Cay and arriving in Nassau, a short walk to Potters Cay for McKenzies conch salad, we have tried them all and they are the best! No sky juice today for Bob (or me), it is only $6.00 which seems like a real deal for the quantity you get...it comes in a very large cup, but is a mixture of coconut water, sweetened condensed milk and gin. Potters Cay is located under the bridge which leads from Nassau's downtown district to Atlantis on Paradise Island. As you walk along the waterfront it is amazing to see the half sunken boats and such on the Nassau side with the gleaming "Emerald City" type structure of Atlantis in the background.

As we left Nassau, passing all the cruise ships, and lastly the lighthouse on the point, we looked forward to a safe crossing over to Dinner Key Marina in Coconut Grove, just south of Miami proper. We were out in the Tongue of The Ocean during sunset, we cruised until about 2am at which time we were near Gun Cay and Cat Cay, we attempted to anchor in an area called Honeymoon Harbor which was not what we had in mind for a honeymoon....bad anchorage, hard bottom, as tired as we were we just wanted to get that anchor set and it refused to do it three times...finally on the fourth try we got it set. Thank God. Having all of your attention focused on what is in front of you in the dark and on the radar screen tires you out and we just needed sleep, gone on the days when we stay up past midnight! We crawled into bed at 3:30 and got up at 7am to start our crossing over to Dinner Key, some 4-5' seas as we passed through the cut between Gun and Cat, but then settled into a comfortable 3' the rest of the trip.

Stiltsville, I should google this to see who owns these, if they are Park Service owned or private. How they survive the hurricanes is beyond me, but are a welcome sight as we approach Key Biscayne, we know we are close to our destination.

Finally on May 6 we leave Miami...again. We left on May 5 but had a hose break and had to limp back to Dinner Key for repair. We had a beautiful ride past downtown Miami with the calm waters reflecting the tall buildings. Was early morning so we saw lots of joggers in the parks and trails surrounding the city. We saw a very old turtle pop his head up along the way to Pensacola, he was encrusted with barnacles and only peeked at us before descending into the waters.