Monday 11 January 2021 Dog
River Marina, Mobile
Despite the impending rough
overnight weather forecast we spent a restful night at anchor (using my
Fortress FX37 on mud setting) in the Tensaw River about a mile from the 40-mile
mark of the Tombigbee Waterway which at that point is actually in the Mobile
River. Confused? There was sufficient current to keep us
steady with no yawing, and winds were light all night despite rain starting at
0200.
The generator was shut down at
bedtime for several reasons including potential for general mayhem like fire
and dealing with carbon monoxide alarms going off. The unit itself is very quiet despite the
fact that it is directly under the bed, but even this one displays the common disquieting
(at least to me) loading/unloading noises as the air condition systems start
and stop. The temperature outside was
39F and 51F inside at 0500 when I got up and started it to warm the interior
preparatory to rousting Mary out of her warm nest of quilts.
We were underway in the pre-dawn
rain and general grungy weather and entered to Mobile River to head to that
fair city by dawn, although you couldn’t tell much difference in the
gloom. We overtook or passed several
tows on the way south, and with only 54 miles to run, we kept the RPMs to 1800
running at 10.2 MPH with the current and sticked the tanks at a one-hour
interval to find we were burning 10-12 gallons of gas an hour.
We briefly reversed course into
the current to get an understanding of our “still water” speed, which turned
out to be about 8.6 MPH. With a
theoretical hull speed of 10.06 MPH computed at 1.32 times the square root of
the hull length in feet times 1.15 to convert to MPH, this might seem a bit
slower than the hull would economically support, but some would say that a more
conservative 1.0 times the square root of the hull length in feet (resulting in
7.6 MPH), is a better option. So we were
running is a sweet spot between the two options for hull speed, and the boat
and engine combination is very quiet at this speed. The boat is very quiet underway as a result
of the engines being all the way aft.
This was the first day we did not have one of our three carbon monoxide
detectors sound off while underway.
The winds continued to build from
the north as we headed south, and by the time we exited the close confines of
the harbor area, the following seas were beginning to build. The boat rode the 2-3 foot wind waves well
enough, but seven miles south of the harbor, where the seas were pretty well
built up, we had to turn 90 degree to starboard presenting our beam to the seas
giving us quite a jostling. We had
prepared for this by taping the refrigerator doors closed and removing all
loose items to safe locations.
Eventually I discovered a higher power setting for the engines which
somewhat moderated the rolling motions.
We arrived at the Dog River
Marina dock with 78 gallons of our 240-gallon capacity remaining after 131
miles of travel. With gale force winds
predicted for tonight, we were happy to be offered a slip inside the basin
rather than the normal transient dock along the Dog River.
The plan for tomorrow is to await the forecasted easing of conditions on Mobile Bay so we can run the mostly southeasterly 24-mile run across the Bay in the afternoon. Then we enter the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and travel a few miles to Homeport Marina where Lulu’s (Jimmy Buffet’s sister) Restaurant is located. There we will clean up the boat, collect most of our possessions, and hand over the boat to Frank when he arrives on Friday afternoon, and drive his car back home to Southport to await his arrival on the boat on Sunday.
