Integrity Cruise

Day 226: - Still In Fairhope, AL

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Day 226: Thursday, December 8th: Well the weather this morning was cold, windy and rainy, and predicted to get worse so we decided to stay put here at Eastern Shore Marine. We've almost become fixtures. Several other Loopers are here now - Wings (arrived this morning), Miss Happ, WyLaWay, Kismet and veteran Loopers on Black Dog.

Every day we have been here Integrity was ignominiously resting on the mud bottom at low tide so we had asked to move to another slip. Yesterday, we attempted the move…Bill started the engine and disconnected the power cords…:

…and there it ended! We were stuck on the bottom! Not much, but enough:

We had waited too long and the tide was out again. Bummer!

However, this morning we tried again earlier and managed to get off the bottom and move around next to Miss Happ in a deeper spot.

We were getting pretty bored since we had caught up on errands and were tired of reading, so while Bill sent more pictures and logs for the website to Webmaster Chaz, Ruth wandered around and took a few pictures. Here is the marina office; not much to look at but it's the heart of the entire operation:

These photographs of the Katrina destruction from a few months ago were posted by the front door. If you have zoom capability, try to get a closer look at the destruction at the marina. The battleship USS Alabama, moored in a park at the north end of Mobile Bay, actually has about an eight degree port list after the hurricane. Note its picture in the lower right. The sailboat in front of the battleship blew north some 35 miles from our marina and went on the bank in the park:

This is what the marina parking lot looks like today. That's Mobile Bay in the distance:

Then Ruth walked out to the beach on the bay shore and turned north to the first residences on the bank of Mobile Bay. This is an example of the surge impact on the shore. The tree is perhaps 150 years old:

A little further along the bank it was evident earlier attempts to stabilize the banks had failed under the severe surge of Katrina:

Next to the property with the failed wall a new effort was underway:

But at the next lot north the reconstruction effort ended. Between insurance delays and labor shortages lies the reason all these properties aren't being re built. For our money, we would buy inland a little way:

These are the piers in front of the landslides that used to host lovely sunset parties. Today, they are so much trash; it's very sad:

Later in the afternoon we borrowed the marina's courtesy car and drove around to the south side of the harbor. The Fairhope Yacht Club had suffered major damage in Katrina:

Their pier and gazebo hadn't made out much better:

This is the scene back across the harbor to Eastern Shore Marine. When Katrina hit, many of the boats at the Fairhope Yacht Club broke loose and were stacked on the marina's docks and bank. In this picture, Wings is on the left, Miss Happ is on the far right with Integrity to the left of her. The other boats are residents:

We want to move on, but the weather prediction for tomorrow is for more bad weather. If it is REALLY bad, we will hole up here for day number eight.

Position tonight: N30 32.564 W087 54.160

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