Day 2

- September 29 -         

          Biloxi, Mississippi – Orange Beach, Alabama   (82 miles)

Ready, Set, Go.  Cup of coffee, walk the dog, start the engines.  Uh oh!  One of the engines won’t start.  We get a little worried after yesterday’s incident with the generator that wouldn’t start.  Jacob climbs into the engine room, fiddles with it a bit, and Viola! We are good to go.  Unplug shore power, start the generator, untie and push off.  Pulling out of the slip was nice and smooth today, but as we approached the concrete wall exit of the marina my heart started to race!  We were heading straight for it!  Jacob yelled, “I don’t have power.”  Oh my gosh!  Day 2 and we may crash!!  I ran to the bow with the kids prepping to push us away from it.  As I reached the front of the boat my panic peaked a bit more.  Jacob chuckled.  After he got the troubled engine started he forgot to turn back on the other one.  Hahahaha, amateurs.  With both engines working he easily maneuvered us out.

With a breeze in the air we crossed over the mouth of the Mississippi river.  A few moments later dolphins started jumping out of the water.  It was like they were saying farewell.  Because of the low tide we couldn’t take inter-coastal waters. There were so many no-wake zones and bridges that we were debating on taking them anyway. The weather was fabulous so the open ocean was nice and smooth.

Joie finished my henna tattoo, I did her hair wrap, Jacob captained and DJ’d the boat while Jayden slept.  The rocking of the boat makes him sleepy.  Multiple times dolphins raced and jumped beside our boat.  Especially near Dauphin Island.  At one point there were 8 dolphins around us.  Jacob and Joie saw a turtle and Jayden spotted a bunch of jellyfish as we approached Alabama waters.

We easily docked up at Orange Beach Marina even though it looked like it was gonna be tough.  It was another wood piling marina.  We are starting to understand why a boat hook is a handy tool.  Since we didn’t have a hook we had to lasso around the pole.  This marina was awesome! It even had a complementary car.  That’s super convenient for transient boaters so we went to the grocery store bought some groceries and dinner for the kids.  Then Jacob and I headed to the nearby state-border city Flora-bama.  We ate some delicious oysters, listened to live country music, and stuck our toes in the beautiful super fine white sugar sand beach.   Perfect way to end our day.