The Ferry from Dauphin Island to Fort Morgan AL (Tuesday, April 8, 2014)

Good Morning

Boarding the Ferry - Dauphin Island

Good Bye Dauphin Island

Natural Gas Rigs - Mobile Bay

We love ferries, and this one was no exception.  We were scheduled to take the Ferry and travel to Fort Pickens near Pensacola Florida on Monday.  However, torrential rains on Monday morning flooded and closed the road into Fort Pickens and also closed the Ferry off of Dauphin Island.  So, we stayed on Dauphin Island another day.  As if we had a choice.  But, what a great place to be stranded.

Tuesday morning we were able to take the Ferry.   The trip across took about 30 minutes.  On the crossing we passed two of the many natural gas drilling rigs in Mobile Bay.  They say there is 30 years of natural gas under Mobile Bay. We've seen many oil and gas drilling rigs along the coast of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.  They have a big impact on the local economy.  

Fort Morgan is a long, quiet peninsula.  After the peace of Dauphin Island and Fort Morgan, the commercial development of Gulf Shores, AL and Pensacola FL was almost a shock.   We moved through it to Fort Pickens Campground, part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore.  More about Fort Pickens in another post.

Here are our pictures from the ferry ride.

Getting Arty

Welcoming Committee Fort Morgan

Tiki Says Hi

The Estuarium, Dauphin Island Sea Lab AL (April 5, 2014)

The Place

When we are at the beach, we like to save an indoor activity for the inevitable rainy day.  On Saturday it rained, so we went to visit the Estuarium, part of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab.  The Dauphin Island Sea Lab, located next door to our campground, is Alabama’s marine education and research center.

The Adventure

The Estuarium tells the story of the very diverse Mobile Bay Estuary.  It starts in the Delta where the Mobile and Tensaw Rivers converge creating marsh areas and bringing huge quantities of water from the watershed that covers all of Alabama and pieces of surrounding states.  The Mobile Bay Estuary is the 4^th largest estuary in the US by volume of water that flows out of it.  This fresh water then travels through Mobile Bay itself, past the Barrier Islands and into the Gulf of Mexico.  Each of the 4 regions has unique eco-systems and creatures.  The Estuarium has tanks of fish and other animals and interesting displays telling the story of the regions.  I didn’t know there were sea horses in Mobile Bay, but there are.  Go figure.

There is a touch tank where you can touch Rays, Sharks and a Horseshoe Crab.  We saw the Horseshoe Crab swimming backstroke, which we’ve never seen before, though we’ve seen lots of the animals in the Chesapeake Bay.  We asked their caretaker and she said that it is unique to this individual animal, and it may be because the crab feels safe from predators in the tank.  We caught a picture of this unusual event.

We learned about the “Fertile Crescent” in the Gulf of Mexico, an area with unusually high seafood production because of the nutrients in the waters from the Mobile Bay and Mississippi watersheds. Currents in the Gulf move this water from east to west, forming the “Fertile Crescent”.  There was also an exhibit about the BP oil spill, which affected Dauphin Island, and which took place in this “Fertile Crescent”.  The exhibit describes some of the research being done by Sea Lab scientists to study the impact of the oil spill on this wildlife.

If you visit the Estuarium, bring your credit card because the gift shop is better than usual!

The West End of Dauphin Island AL (April 3, 2014)

The Place 

Dauphin Island is a long skinny barrier island running East and West.  You enter the island by bridge from the mainland about 2/3 of the way along the island.  The area to the East of that bridge is called the East End and is about 2 miles long.  The West End is about 5 miles long.  There is an additional 7 miles beyond the West End that used to be part of Dauphin Island that were separated from the island during Hurricane Katrina, creating a waterway that is known as the Katrina Cut. 

Up until now we’ve spent all of our time in the East End, so we decided to see what the West End was about.  Besides, Dana needed a haircut and we heard that there was a place somewhere on the West End.

The Adventure

It was another beautiful 80 degree day in Paradise.  We took our bicycles and peddled along the bike trail.  The West End has two tall buildings;  8 story tall condominiums right on an enormously wide public beach.  The Dauphin Island Pier is there as well.  We have seen pictures when it extended out as a fishing pier into the water.  It is now surrounded by sand as part of this incredibly wide beach.  The Dauphin Island website says that this happened recently when the sand from nearby Pelican Island migrated toward Dauphin Island and joined the beach.  An example of the constantly shifting sands on barrier islands, I guess.

 

By the way, Dauphin Island Elementary School is nestled in the dunes next to the pier.  Anyone want to change jobs?

 

This part of town has the island’s one hotel, some restaurants and shops, a private RV campground (no shade) and Beauty on the Beach.  Dana got an appointment for an hour later, so we peddled further down into the residential area to the west.  We never made it all the way to the end of the island, we turned back with just 1 more mile to go so Dana could get her hair cut.

The residential area at the West End was flat and rather unlovely.  After seeing the pretty houses on the shores of the East End we were struck by how blah the West End looked.  Unusually, there were houses between the water and the dunes.  We learned later that in a big hurricane, a whole row of houses in front of those houses had been washed away as well as any landscaping around the remaining houses.  Very precarious.

 
After the haircut, we went to The Islanders Restaurant for lunch – shrimp po-boy for her, oyster po-boy for him.  As we peddled back to the campground we stopped at Skinners to pick up fresh seafood for the next few dinners (tuna, shrimp, crawfish), and the Lighthouse Bakery to pick up a loaf of freshly baked French bread.  We asked Skinners to pack our purchases in extra ice because we still had a ways yet to peddle.  Russ enjoyed the cool ice against his back in his backpack.  The folks at the bakery had to cut the loaf in half so it would fit into Dana’s backpack.  Yes, we are eating well on this trip!

Kayaking at Dauphin Island AL (March 31 - April 2, 2014)

The Place

It seems that a lot of the people who stay here every winter (for the past 4-10 years) currently have or have had kayaks in the past.  So we asked them, where do you put in, where do you paddle?  Some of the spots were too far away for us, because we don’t have a car with us.  But, one of the spots was right across the street from our campground. 

So, we blew up the kayaks, loaded them on their carts, and took them to a small sandy beach right next to the ferry dock.  That beach leads to a waterway between Dauphin Island and Little Dauphin Island.  Little Dauphin Island is a narrow spit of sand with some scrub on it, salt marshes surrounding it in some places and waterfowl perched on top of it.  It is a wildlife sanctuary and you aren’t allowed to land and walk around on it.

We had beautiful, sunny 80 degree weather, so we were able to go on a bunch of kayak explorations.

The Adventures

Trip 1.  On Monday, we headed out alongside Little Dauphin Island.  It was a breezy day.  The wind was behind us and the current was with us, so we fairly sped our way up the island.  Those of you who boat will have already guessed, when we returned we were into the wind and against the current.  The trip back was a lot more difficult. 





Notable from that trip, we saw two American Oystercatcher birds.  We’ve not seen them here before, with their distinctive red bill.

Trip 2.  On Tuesday, there was a bit more breeze.  We decided to head into the wind this time, so we could work hard on the trip out, and coast on the way back.  We turned right and headed out into Mobile Bay with the intention of going around the end of Dauphin Island and into the Gulf of Mexico. 

On the way out we passed the Ferry, a small commercial dock, and the Sea Lab dock with its research vessels.  As soon as we got out of the more sheltered waters, we hit chop and rolling waves.  Guess it was windier than we thought.  We made it around to the end at Fort Gaines before turning back.  (The picture from that trip was included as part of the post about Fort Gaines.)  Yes, the ride back was a lot speedier than the paddle out.

Trip 3.  On Wednesday, the breeze had changed direction.  We decided to go back along the passage between the two islands, but this time we would hug the shore by Dauphin Island, explore the little inlets, and look at the nice houses.   The houses were pretty and varied.  Most of them are on stilts or a pedestal in case of flooding.  All of them had docks and sea walls.  Only 1 or 2 had tiny sand beaches.   

We also spent some time in a salt marsh near the beach where we put in.

We talked to one couple fishing off their dock about the heron that was standing watch waiting for a handout as they fished.  He comes every day.  However, on that day he had been late and another bird had gotten the handout.  He was expectant anyway.  As we were gliding along in another inlet we passed close by what we thought was a statue of a heron, until he turned his head and looked at us.  We also saw the now familiar sight of pelicans on dock pilings.