MS State Games

Mississippi State Games Kayak Races were held in Bernard Bayou in the far upper end of Biloxi Bay. Hot and humid today.

Participants launched on a sandy beach at The Dock Gulfport. 

There had to have been more Stand Up Paddlers (SUPs) racing than kayakers.

I raced in the 1-mile sprint and the longer 6-mile race winning both in my division. Here are the nice medal ribbon awards.

How can I race a kayak in the Mississippi State Games even though I live in Alabama? Alabama State Games has no kayak races so Mississippi allows people from Alabama to participate in their State Game kayak races. Alabama Sucks.

Gilliard Island Rookery

Gilliard Island is a dredge spoil site about 6 miles around that is home to a high number of birds. These are some Terns and Black Skimmers.

This island that is off limits to the public, is actually great place to kayak around in June bcause Thousands of Brown Pelicans are nesting.

All the spots in the shoreline shrubbery are the heads of nesting pelicans.

This was an Oil Rig being towed in the Theodore Industrial Canal Ship Channel that runs along the southwest side of Gilliard Island.

Mobile River Loop

Forecast for the day was choppy conditions in Mobile Bay. Sometimes wrong forecasts are good.

As always, dredging Mobile River to keep it deep enough for ships is a never ending process.

Mobile Skyline.

Mobile Convention Center.

Nor Goliath, an offshore servicing rig for the oil industry capable of lifting about 2000 Tons. That would be about 4 million pounds.

BW Pioneer is a FPSO ship. FPSO stands for: Floating Production, Storage, Offloading vessel. This ship, capable of processing 80,000 barrels of oil per day, had been working off Lousiana at a depth of about 2600 meters (1.6 miles) making it the deepest water operation of any FPSO in the world. 

http://www.tparkerhost.com/not-average-vessel-bw-pioneer-fpso/

Memorial Day Weekend and the USS Alabama go well together. The historic battleship had a lot of visitors this weekend.

Interstate I-10.