MORE ADVENTURES circumnavigating Mobile Bay

Today we cycled onto an expressway for the first time in our bicycling lives- you gotta trust the tourism- where they send us, we go- up and over a steep bridge to a toll booth- really? the guys said, is this for real, are we allowed? The booth attendant waved us through and said, “You’re free!” No shoulder- 55 MPH – it was an experince for 18 miles or so.’

We went to a little local museum in a tiny church run by a family of seamen- they fished all their lives- long lined- and it seemed nearly half the stuff in the museum came from the family, stuff they pulled up and caught including what EXPLODED out of 450 pound grouper fish. When they are pulled up quickly, the fish get the bends and their “stomachs and eyes explode” our docent said…everything they ate and swallowed came out whole. She told us stories of local fishermen who got thus ferocious C hook accidently implanted in their hands.as their long line was being reeled out and suddenly found themselves 2-3 miles under the surface, trying to take their knives and cut the hook out. Or not. She hadall kinds of exciting shark attack stories. “The only good shark is a dead shark” this fisherman wife/docent said. We weren’t going to argue.  sWe could have listened for hours, but we had miles to go. 32 in total today, including a very cool 2 hour kayak paddle in a winding tributary that empties out onto Wolf Bay. The wind is still fericous with long rollers which Bryce went out to PLAY in while we took a break on a point and busted his paddle in two. Luckily, our guide had a spare. We sat in our boats and watched a show of 6 pelicans dive bomb fishing right in front of us, so close they startled us as they dropped out of the sky only a few yards away . So after 32 miles of cycling, miles of sea kayaing, four museum visits, I decided on grouper fish for dinner and as I ate his avacado-encrusted flesh smothering baked risotto, I wondered what he might have had in his gut at the moment of death….only two days left until we reach the head of the bay and complete our circle, and by the way, we’re all prettily taned, besides already quite smart about the Alabama Gulf coast/.Mobile Bay

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