Lorelei IV: Our stay at Dog River Marina, west side of Mobile Bay

October 16-19, 2015

Hopefully, our port engine starter issue is fixed, but only time will really tell. The mechanics at Dog River Marina do good work and are very professional. We thought the starter might need to be replaced or rebuilt, but Sonny Middleton, the owner of the whole works, has worked with Hatteras Yachts for many many years, and he had a different solution for us. I’m not exactly sure itf this explanation is completely correct, but this is how I understood it. Since the current solenoid would start the engine unless it was really hot, instead of replacing it, the mechanics added a remote solenoid or a booster that would do the job if the other solenoid wasn’t working. Apparently the starter on the port engine is very hard to get to, so taking it off and rebuilding or replacing it would have been much more expensive. Since I am in the medical field, I understand that sometimes it is good to try a more conservative “treatment” first, but that you might need a more invasive and expensive one later.

Paint building ready for the next job

Lots of boat work in progress

Boats in covered slips

Since we were planning to stay for a few days, the mechanics suggested that we take the boat out to get the engine good and hot to test their fix. Unfortunately the winds picked up, and although many of the local people at the dock told us that the conditions on Mobile Bay would be better than the forecasts – because the forecasts are apparently really for the Gulf – we were nervous about it since we are pretty inexperienced. Other cruisers on the dock and even a shrimp boat captain said that the water could be fairly rough if the winds were above 20 mph. Finally on Tuesday, after a windy morning, we noticed that the wind died down around noon, and we decided to go out for a couple hours to see how the water was for ourselves.

The wind was out of the north, 5-7 mph in the marina and 10-15 mph once we got a little ways past the bridge which marks the entrance into Dog River. The Dog River channel, which had seemed so daunting on Thursday when we arrived at the marina, was no problem at all. Part of this was because we were used to the relatively shallow depth of it, and part of it was because we had talked to the locals about it. They encouraged us to stay in the channel as much as possible since we weren’t familiar with the area, but told us that we should have plenty of water if we should wander a short ways out of the markers inadvertently once we were past the first 3 sets. We had depths of 2.4-5 ft under our keel and it was near low tide.

We had dolphins escorting us out, so they provided a welcome distraction for our anxiety.

Dolphin escort

Playing in our wake

Once we got to the big ship channel, of course, the depths quickly dropped off to 40+ ft under the keel. The wind direction appeared to change to coming out of the southeast to southwest, but this meant that we were taking the waves nearly on the bow on the way out. We went south to Theodore Ship Channel and turned around near Daymarker 53. There is an island being filled with dredging from the Bay along part of the west side of the big ship channel, and once we got past it, we didn’t really notice much change in the wind or waves. The waves were choppy, and we didn’t think they were higher than 2-3 ft.

Lorelei IV performed well, and we didn’t think it was rough at all. Rob has experienced seasickness in the past, so he had been concerned that he might be incapacitated if the water was too rough. There was spray up on the deck from time to time, so we did have to be more careful since this made the deck more slippery. Sasha didn’t appear to notice much difference and wanted to play as usual. On our way back to the marina, the wind died down even more, and it became almost flat as we were approaching the bridge. We were sure glad that we decide to go out, because we felt more confident that our boat would do well even if the water was a little rougher.

As for the rest of our stay at Dog River Marina, we relaxed, did a few chores, and saw some sights. We took the scooter off of the roof and put about 150 miles on it with all of our running around. The marina has a couple of courtesy vehicles, but Rob likes having our own transportation so that we can come and go without having to worry about being back at a certain time.

Our sturdy little ride

On Saturday, we went to a flea market in the morning and then to the Battleship Alabama in the afternoon. It is so big that we got tired after completing just 2 of the 3 tour routes. It was very interesting to see how the crew lived and worked below decks and to try to imagine being in a battle situation.

Battleship Alabama

The rounds for the big guns are bigger than Naomi

The WWII submarine Drum was also available to tour, so we walked through that as well.

Rob wouldn't have liked working on the Drum

On Sunday, we mainly relaxed and took Sasha on several walks through the marina grounds to the Mobile Yacht Club nearby where there was a good Frisbee spot.

Lone fisherman on the Mobile Yacht Club pier at sunrise

On our way, we usually ran into Diesel and Chase (I think, please forgive me if I got his name wrong). Sonny said Diesel just showed up one day, so the marina adopted him. He is an imposing 160 lbs of muscle which hides the heart of a lapdog, and he does his job by barking to let you know he is watching. He loves to be petted and will lean hard against you if you stop. He wears a muzzle so that the marina doesn’t have to pay a fortune in insurance. Chase is more reserved with strangers but greets the office staff happily when they come into work.

Sasha wasn't sure about Diesel at first but soon was trying to get him to play

He really is a big lapdog wannabee (Sasha might be a little jealous)

Chase usually kept his distance while waiting for the office staff to arrive to let him in for inside security duty

On Monday, Rob put the Lorelei sticker on the back panel. Since the dinghy obscures the name on the hull, we felt that we should put the name and hailing port somewhere that it would be visible just in case someone close to us needs to get a hold of us on the radio.

Rob did a good job with putting to sticker on

We had a couple of shrimp boats that docked nearby, and Rob was lucky enough to catch one right when it came back in with the catch on Friday and again on Tuesday. He got 5 lbs of the biggest shrimp each time for $4 and $6 per pound, and they were delicious either grilled or boiled with Cajun seasoning.