Lady V - Great Loop Voyage: DAY 54 - BOBBY’S FISH CAMP TO GRAND MARINER MARINA (168.1 mi.)

Monday, January 2, 2017 - We have one final lock to go through, Coffeeville Lock and Dam and they are ready for us at 7:15 am. We exited the lock at 7:45 and are now in salt and tidal waters. Today we are not fighting fog but all of the debris in the Black Warrior Tombigbee Waterway caused by the rain yesterday. We are only going 10 kt. It is totally overcast. By 10:45 we had gone only 42 miles. We are now getting ‘Severe Weather Warnings’ for our area on the GPS. We have to sheltered places to go so we weather out the storm from 11:20 am until 12:00 noon. After the storm moves north of us we start to motor at 20 knots. At 1:30 pm we still have 40 miles to go and the weather clouds are forming again. We are booting it and arrive in Mobile Bay at 3:30 pm with dark skies, rain and more GPS weather warnings. The 10 miles in the bay to the marina were pretty choppy but we were lucky to get docked just as the skies opened up. It pelted rain together with thunder and lightening for three solid hours. We could not even venture out for supper even though they had a restaurant on the premises.