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.
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