Sunday, November 1, 2009

We didn’t want to leave too early today because our boat insurance policy required us to be north of 31° north latitude until noon on November 1st (hurricane clause) and we were very close to the line. Based on our estimated cruising speed and the number of miles we had to go, we thought it would take about three hours to get to the line so we waited until 9 am to pull the anchor. The morning was shaping up to be a very nice one with calm winds and sunny skies. The temperature was about 50°F and forecast to rise into the mid-70’s.



At 12:02 pm we crossed the 31st parallel at mile 28.8 and congratulated ourselves for having timed our trip so well. At 3:30 pm we entered Mobile Bay and found ourselves in a very busy industrial center. We also encountered a lot of floating debris in the form of branches, logs and trees. Maureen stepped out on the bow to keep a lookout as Gale maneuvered around any potential problems. We continued our journey in the shipping channel until we found the turn to Dog River Marina and our slip for the next couple of nights.



At the marina, we fueled up and secured Blue Heron in her slip. While in the marina store, we noticed that the clocks showed the time an hour earlier than we thought. The time changed from daylight savings to standard this morning! I guess we weren’t as sharp as we thought we were when we crossed the 31st parallel at what we thought was noon. Fortunately, we didn’t have any claims to make to the insurance company.

As soon as we were ready, we took one of the courtesy vehicles into the city to find a Best Buy store. Over the last few months we had discussed how nice it would be if we had access to two computers because our time on the internet was often limited making it difficult for both of us to get our computer business done. With the computer still inoperable and awaiting its hard drive, we picked up a little Toshiba notebook.