Ships, bigger ships, busy, busy, Mobile harbor

Well, I have to type in bold print to explain that everything in Mobile Harbor is gigantic.  Our boat seems to have shrunk into a peanut.  There are so many things to see as we cruised down the harbor.  Both of us were taking as many pictures as we could and still pilot our little boat.  Lucky for us, there was very little barge and tow traffic as we came in on Saturday which typically does not differ from the week days on the water.

This is the beginning approach of this harbor.  The smaller boat in the middle of the picture and to the left is actually 39 feet long.  This will give you viewers an idea of the size of the harbor and the ships.

The skyline is full of cranes of many types and sizes.  The cranes load and unload the ships. 

This is one of the huge buckets on a crane, if you look close you can see they are unloading coal and the bucket is dropping a large load of coal from the ship.

This is one of the smallest towboats we have seen.  As he approached our boat, we could not even see the tug, only the barge.  There are two workers on the bow of the barge communicating to the pilot where to move the barge!!!!

This is one of the dry docks for the larger ships to go in for repairs.

Can you imagine trying to assist a captain or piloting a ship into this tiny slot so the ship can be repaired???

This is one of the fleets of tugs that assist all of the large ships in the harbor.  They also escort the ships in from the ocean.  I loved the colors these tugs have chosen.

Here is an up close look at one of the tugboats.  I am trying to convince Erwin we should purchase a tug and convert it to a pleasure boat.  He explained that I would have to win the lottery or have a rich relative.  Hmm, neither of those options are very appealing to me.

Here is another fleet of tugs you can compare to the other fleet.

Here is one of the large ships that was in the harbor when we passed through.



This obviously is one of the many international ships in the harbor.


This is the view of the profile of the ship pictured above.

Here is a ship that some of you might be familiar with, the Carnival Cruise ship.  Check out the number of floors on this puppy.  I can not imagine being on the water and seeing this HUGE ship coming at your boat.

Here is one of the numerous cargo ships that we saw.  These giant cranes load these railroad cars.  Yes, those are railroad boxcars that they pick up and stack on the ship.  OMG, if the sea is rough at all I am told that a railroad car can roll off the top of the stack.  They actually float and become a hazard for the smaller boats as they float at the top of the water.  I feel this is a very good reason not to cruise overseas in the oceans.

We saw this crane pick up and load a boxcar in just a couple of minutes.  It does not even appear there is hardly any time between loading each railroad car.

Then after being fascinated with the back crane loading the boxcars, I realized that there were actually two cranes loading at the same time.  Check it out.

As we were leaving the harbor this shrimp boat was headed back in.  As you can see, the birds were well aware that the catch was good that day.

This ship was coming into the harbor down the channel as we were leaving the bay.  We were surprised that the ship did not have a tug as an escort as they typically do.  It maybe they actually had to get closer to the harbor before the tug assists.

Another type of ship, very different than the ships we have seen in the Great Lakes of the Sault Saint Marie locks.





Last of the river systems before the Gulf of Mexico

The last week and a few days we have been completing the last of the Black Warrior River between Dempolis and Mobile Bay.  We anchored for 9 nights straight.  Here are some of the memories and pictures of the last of the river systems.

 Again we post a picture of a tow with one barge.  As you can see only part of the barge has three full size cement trucks.  It is amazing what varying types of cargo is hauled on the river systems.

These are the pictures of the overflow from the Dam at the Coffeeville Lock.  It was a very foggy morning which was a first for this trip.  It was also our last lock for this leg of the journey.  We went through a total of 33 Locks so far.  The smallest in Chicago at 2 feet, the largest at Whitten which is 84 feet.

This was a daddy long legs spider that was sitting on the bollard at the Coffeeville Lock.  Remember the bollard is the moving post that we attach our lines to.  His antennas out if front were over 2 inches long.  The biggest daddy long legs either of us has seen.

These are two of the anchorages were stayed at.  There were few and far between places to anchor.  This were narrow cuts off the river and typically were about 40 to 45 feet wide.  Just enough room to turn our boat around.  We would drop two anchors, one at the front and one at the back (stern) of the boat.  Our friends would sometimes put the stern line on a tree instead of an anchor.  They were peaceful anchorages except for the owls at night.  Sometimes the screech owls were quite noisy, but only for short periods of time.

Here is my favorite guy at the anchorage, just checking to see if there were any fish.  No luck.

This is one of our dinghy rides which went back into one of the sloughs off the river.  Very isolated.

Here is one of my favorite types of wildlife.  Great sunny day to sit and get a little sun.   And then,-----------

Ready, set, and he jumped in the water as we had gotten too close.

These are the cypress trees with the spanish moss hanging on them.

Yikes, at the last anchorage as we approached we saw an alligator swimming along the shore.  No pictures as we thought it would be in Florida that we would encounter these guys.  However, my research tells me that they like the fresh water.   Hmmm, better be on the look out from now on.

The shoreline changes again as we are fairly close to Mobile Bay.  There is now some salt water and tides from the ocean.

These were a couple of the more industrial sites that started to appear as on the shore as we approached the Gulf of Mexico.

Here is the marsh along the river and yes, can you believe it?   That is a train going through it would appear the swampy area!

I kind of wonder if it ever floods this would definitely be a problem for the train.

End of the Tombigee and the Beautiful Black Warrior River - Very nice side trip

 At the end of the Tombigbee there is a section with the most beautiful high white cliffs.  It is called Epes and is at the 248 mile marker.  Here are some of the pictures from the area.  As you can see these are very high and breathtaking.

As you can see from the size of this railroad bridge, these cliffs are huge.

The water was very calm, but the wake of our boat made a lovely pattern on the water.

This was a bonus to our day.  After we had known by our charts and information that the Epes was on our way.  These cliffs were a total surprise, but just as gorgeous as the first ones.

Check out the size of the boulder, it is as big as a car!

We decided to take a side trip up the Black Warrior River.  It was a pleasant and scenic side trip.  There was not much written as a resource for us and not as many spots to anchor as we would like, but it was definitely worth the extra week we took to go up and back.  As you can see from the picture of our chart plotter.  It was a snake of a river.  It had a lot of bends and twists to it.  It was especially exciting if you met a tow with barges on the bends of the river.

Here are some of the high banks along the Black Warrior.

This was another interesting railroad bridge.  It was up and easy to clear on the way up the Black Warrior, but as you can see, we had to call the bridge tender when we returned.  That was quite a surprise when we headed around the bend.  The boat in the picture is our friends, Woody and Judy from Maine. 

Another new experience was this lock on the Black Warrior.  We shared the lock with the tow and barge.  This is rarely done as they separate the pleasure boaters from the commercial traffic.  We think they did this in part because they have had not had hardly any rain so there may be a shortage of water.  It takes millions of gallons to fill and/or empty a lock chamber.

This next picture is the steamer on the river.  Note the name is the BAMA Belle.  We are definitely in Alabama Country.  This is on the river at the campus of the University of Alabama.  There is a big game this weekend between Alabama and Ole Miss.  Wow, that is all a lot of folks talk about.  Needless to say this is football country and there are many, many, BAMA fans.

 Well one more side note.  Here are a couple of pictures of the water hyacinth.  it is a fascinating water plant.  We saw many of these on the Black Warrior.  It has lilac bloom that only last a day.  There are 6" spikes that have glossy green leaves that are bulbous.  Air pockets in the bulbous areas keep the plant afloat.  Black roots have feathery fingers on them.  Amazing.