Wednesday, May 16, 2012

We pulled anchor out of Ingram Bayou at 6:30 this morning.  "The Bar-B" stayed behind for about a half hour to give us time to stop for our last fill up of gasoline.  We did that at eight o'clock at Homeport Marina which is the site of LuLu's Restaurant in Orange Beach, Alabama.  It was close to perfect timing when we pulled away from the fuel dock with "The Bar-B" in sight, not too far back.  It gave us an excuse to go a little slower for a while to conserve this last full tank(s) of gasoline.  We are trying to calculate exactly how much we need to pull into Demopolis on empty since they will be converted to diesel tanks.  When we were heading north on Mobile Bay we could see an official boat coming towards us, so we figured here we go again.  This time it was U.S. Customs and Border Patrol with a German Shepard on board.  They took a good bit of time behind us, so I thought they were going to leave us alone.  I was bummed because I wanted to see the dog.  I guess they heard me because they did finally approach us.  We slowed it down enough that we just answered their questions without them boarding us.  Of course we mentioned that we had just been boarded by the Alabama Marine Police two days prior.  Back up to speed after that incident, we pulled into Eastern Shore Marina in Fairhope, Alabama around 1:30 p.m. to pull into the same covered slip we have been in the other two times we have been here.  This was "The Bar-B"s first time however.  It took us about an hour to get settled, pay our dockage which was cheaper than they quoted, get some ice, and take off for town in the courtesy van.  Linda and Barbara stopped at one store on the way to the Gumbo Shack (as seen on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives) while the guys went ahead.  We each had a cup of gumbo or jambalaya, which was huge for a cup and delicious to hold us over.  The girls continued shopping until disappointingly, most of the stores closed at 5:00 p.m.  We made our way to the grocery store, then to the Fly Creek Cafe, which is right across the creek from our boats, but it is two miles to get there by road.  Dinner there was somewhat disappointing, so we all decided right then an there to stay another night since it was so cheap to dock, the girls can shop at the stores they missed, and go back and get some more of the delicious food at the Gumbo Shack, plus they have all you can eat craw fish on Thursdays for $5.00!

2 comments:

  1. What a great ideal to have a blog! Love hearing about your adventures and. If you come back to Chattanooga give us a call. Dale retired in April and is very happy ! Ha.

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    1. So does that mean you are miserable? Ha! Ha! Just saw a sign in a store yesterday that said "HELP ME! My husband just retired!"

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