09/26/2011 - Gaillard Island

Launch: Home
Destination: Gaillard Island.
Distance: 26 miles (round trip).
Time Pedaling: 6-1/4 hours
Trip Rating: Difficult due to distance and open waters.
Weather: Sunny, temperature about 82-85 degrees, winds out of the southwest at 10-15 mph. Neap tides. Current to 1 mph. Waves less than 1 foot on the trip over to Gaillard Island and 1-2 feet on the way back. Water temp 84 degrees.

Header Image. Birds patiently await for the lull in shrimp boat activity to end. A few birds will squeal the alarm call when food is present and then they all fly over to the shrimp boat.

Didn't expect to see much of a sunrise this morning.

This was a pleasant surprise that caused me to stop and watch.

Ahhhh, deep breaths and total relaxation. What a show!

Decided to do a training trip today - a loop around Gaillard Island because it is a rather long trip and I love kayaking around Gaillard Island. The Phatwater Kayak Race is a rather long race - 42 miles, hence the long training trip. Weather pending, I'll be doing Phatwater in two weeks.

I slowed way down while pedaling around Gaillard Island - home of beaucoup pelicans.

Beaucoup of pelicans meaning a lot of them!

Pelicans are enjoyable to watch and if you go to Gaillard Island, you'll see plenty of flying pelicans.

A shrimp boat called Lady of Fatima was working the shipping channel area so I pedaled on over to take some photos. I'm not sure what they do on the shrimp boats, but at certain intervals the gulls, pelicans, and terns go wild. Wow, it is an experience to be near such a feathered frenzy.

Soon as I rounded the southeast tip of Gaillard Island, the wave size increased from 4 inches to 2 feet. You shouldn't paddle to Gaillard Island without expecting to deal with at least 2 foot waves some of which will slap the side of the kayak. You should be comfortable paddling in even higher seas if venturing out into Mobile Bay.

The nice looking sailboat Liza of Fairhope had just came out of Dog River and was heading into Mobile Bay.

07/02/2011 - Gaillard Island

Header image. What a surreal place to fish, eh?

1) A cruise ship was heading into port as I was making the pre-dawn crossing to Gaillard Island. The shipping channel passes about 1/4 mile east of Gaillard Island.

2) Paddling to Gaillard Island requires crossing several miles of open water, so make sure you are up to the challenge if you decide to paddle there. Summer time thunderstorms can generate serious winds, hail, and lightning. I got lucky today as the winds produced by this quick forming thunderstorm came from behind, so, I got to surf some waves on the way over to Gaillard Island.

3) Sunrise as seen from near the north end of Gaillard Island. The eastern shore, about 7 miles away, is faintly visible on the horizon.

4) Gaillard Island has an unbelievable number of pelicans. Paddle conditions improved once I got out of the wind behind the island.

5) I like to take a trip out to Gaillard Island near the end of June or beginning of July because there are usually baby pelicans being tended to.

6) Not sure whether this was parental discipline, feeding, or a french kiss.

7) If you have never paddled around Gaillard Island, you are missing an awesome experience. Gaillard is the breeding ground for thousands of pelicans and other shore birds and the sights, smells, and sounds are amplified.

8) The entire island perimeter is protected by rocks. There are a couple of places where you can land a kayak at high tide, but you probably will be eaten alive by flies and mosquitoes before you have time to get out of the kayak.

9) I tried to get out to the ship channel to see this ship (Strait of Dover) up close, but it was moving too fast. I got side tracked watching some dolphin.

10) I did make it out in time to view a passing tug boat. This tug boat left a quarter mile long series of 3 foot rolling waves which were moving about 7-8 mph. It was so much fun riding those waves, but it did wear me out.

11) Here is a short video clip adding the sense of sound, although, adult pelicans are mostly silent...so what you hear are sea gulls except for the end of the video where there is audio of a clucking pelican chick courtesy of a Fish and Wildlife web site.

05/18/2011 - Sunset and Moonrise Trip

Header photo - Northside of Gaillard Island on the left and the arching lights of Dog River Bridge on the right.

1) Image on the side of a houseboat docked at a marina on Dog River. They are selling a River Cities condo concept. Spend about $250,000 for the condo and pay about $20,000 a year for home owners association fees and you too can live on and roll up and down the big rivers while having plenty of amenities.

2) Or, for the price of a kayak, you can quietly glide up on waterfowl and see nature up close and personal rather than squinting at it from a distance city on water.

3) I had planned on doing a moonlight loop around Gaillard Island but the offshore conditions were a bit too bouncy for me - bad combo of tide and wind created a small chop big enough to keep soaking me on the sit-on-top pedal kayak. The buildings on the horizon are at the Theodore Industrial Canal and the haze in the sky is from a big fire somewhere in south Mobile County sending a plume of smoke northward.

4) Sunset on Mobile Bay as seen from the north side of Gaillard Island.

5) I came back to inland Dog River to calmer waters to watch the moonrise. The smaller lights are on Dog River Bridge.

6) Quote: "I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day." - Vincent Van Gogh. That was the case on this kayak trip. With a red glow from a fire on the horizon, a big moon, and a smoke colored sky softly brightened by the city lights, the reflections on the glassy waters of Dog River were spectacular.

05/23/2010 - Mobile Bay Double Crosser

Launch: McNally Park
Destination: Across Mobile Bay to Fairhope and back.
Weather: Ideal conditions.
To see or download the track of this trip, Click Here.
Caution: I would not advise undertaking this trip unless you have plenty of open water experience and are capable of 20+ mile kayak trips. It is 10.4 miles crossing (one way) from McNally Park to Fairhope Pier.

Header Image

1) Water temperatures are good, tides were good, forecast was good and I felt like burning some calories while listening to Sunday morning Jazz.

2) On the water at sunrise. Nice!

3) Had to slow down for a barge in the ship channel on the way over to Fairhope. Interesting name for the tugboat.

4) Got to see another ship on the way back as it was heading up the ship channel toward Mobile (the city skyline barely visible on the horizon).

5) The slick waters on the bay made for a wonderful mesmerizing trip over to Fairhope as the clouds were flowingly distorted on the water's surface.

6) On the way back across the bay the winds were 0 mph. Open water kayaking conditions just do not get any better than this.

7) Cute little family of geese by the Fairhope Pier. Oil booms can be seen in the background. There were no booms near the Fairhope beach.

8) A seagull up close.

9) The trip conditions were so nice that I decided to drop down on the return crossing and loop around Gaillard Island. It meant more mileage, but when you are in kayaking nirvana, life is better than good. Birds galore as usual around Gaillard Island.

10) Brown and white pelicans, terns, herons, ibis, ruddy turnstones, egrets, gulls, and more can be seen around Gaillard Island. It is a birder's paradise.

11) On the south side of Gaillard Island crews were putting out oil booms. Someone on this lead boat hollered at me so I headed over. He said the boom was solid all the way to the southwest corner with no way to get around it because it was tied off to the shore.

12) I asked if I could just paddle over it and he no problem, so to the right I went. It was easy to paddle over the oil boom.

10/01/2009 - Gaillard Island, TIC

Launch: Hoppes

Went to Gaillard Island and due to high waters in the Bay, found there was very little sand to beach on. Within 60 seconds, mosquitoes began to swarm and they were biting fiercely. Had to get out of there immediately.

1) Dog River Bridge at the entrance to Mobile Bay.

2) Technip's Deep Blue steel pipe laying ship berthed at Theodore Industrial Canal is a marvel of technology.

3) The fisherman on the right had a big fish on the line which fought and fought and eventually won by breaking the line.

09/10/2006 – McNally Park

Launch: McNally Park boat ramp. Launch Cost: Free. Route: Southwest to the northern end of Gaillard Island, then south along the west side of the island to the southwest corner, about the only place where you can get out of the kayak and stretch the legs. Then west to the Theodore Industrial Canal, then back up to McNally Park. Distance: 23.7 miles. Average Speed: 3.6 mph. Time: Approx 7 hrs. Pace: Moderate. Weather: Cloudy, waves choppy out of the southeast, current was minimal. The weather looked threatening at the beginning and the end, but it never rained.

(1) Above left. Herons like to eat a crab in one gulp. This crab was a little too big for one bite. (2) Above right. Pelicans are the typical residents of Gaillard Island where there are thousands of them.

(3) Above left. Note the detail on this rather interesting flower known as the Fen Rose, aka Kosteletzkya virginica. (4) Above right. The sulfur butterflies took a liking to the fen roses.

(5) Above left. These silos along the Theodore Industrial Canal are part of the Holcim plant I think and they are rather massive when kayaking next to them. (6) Above right. The largest water fall in the area can be found in the Theodore Industrial Canal. It is definitely not kayaker friendly if you are thinking about doing a little white water kayaking.

(7) Above left. This is the first year I’ve seen these huge walking sticks and there are a bunch of them around. I didn’t realize there was such a size difference between the male and female. (8) Above right. Had to take a photo of these nice green seeds that had pointed texture.

(9) Above left. Purple berries on a sumac plant. (10) Above right. The clouds started to look threatening again and there was lightning off in the distance. This caused me to pick up the pace substantially. Made it back before the storm. This was a nice trip.