Sunning on the beaches of Fort Morgan, I feel my body coming back to life. Oil tankers slowly pass by as migratory birds dance along the water’s edge. Life is good today in Alabama.

~Recently my friend, and Okee’s vet, Dr. Cristina Maldonado, taught me a new vocabulary word: “Apricity…” the warmth of the sun in winter.

Such a wonderful word! I find myself thinking about it all the time.

Since continuing our 6000 mile American Great Loop adventure, Ed and I have gone through two significant snowstorms. Once on January 12 in Iuka, Mississippi, and again on January 21 in Mobile, Alabama.

We were in such a hurry leaving Kingfisher at Demopolis, where the Tombigbee River leads into the Mobile River, we forgot to fill Finito up with water. Six days later, we arrived in Mobile Bay to fierce winds, closing marinas, and shut-off water lines due to the coming freeze.

Finito’s water reserves were so low Ed wouldn’t allow me use water from the sink to boil spaghetti for dinner. We ended up putting snow in buckets to “make” water.

As the storm enveloped us I was surprised to see common loons, cormorants, coots, gulls, and both white and brown pelicans diving and hunting  for fish. It was snowing and 15 degrees. I watched in awe, wondering how they could stay warm; I told our cat, Okee, she was lucky she was not a bird.

~Below Ed filling  buckets of snow to melt for water.

After a few days, the weather warmed to 35 degrees and marinas reopened. Ed and I motored across Mobile Bay to Fairhope, a precious town where entertainer Jimmy Buffet lived in his youth. The late musician often said that his experiences on Alabama’s Gulf Coast influenced his music. My late father loved Jimmy Buffet and my mind was flooded with childhood memories of singing “Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude” out loud while driving with my dad in car warmed by Florida sunshine.

In 1894, Fairhope was founded as a utopian “Single-Tax” district; they pooled their funds to purchase land. The structure has evolved, but Fairhope continues to have a sense of community and land protections, something you don’t see everywhere around here. Large oak trees and winding roads lead to this fair city.

At Fairhope Docks we watched stunning sunsets alongside pine forests, high bluffs, and a  colony of brown pelicans that our tour guide, Bob, told us were descendants of just one pair from Louisiana reared on nearby Gaillard Island.

“Mobile Bay was so industrially polluted and DDT had compromised all the birds. In the 1970s a program was started and was a success. Every brown pelican you see today on these waters is a decendent of the Gaillard pair.” 

When we arrived these pelicans were sunning  on a rock jetty still full of snow. Every day they flew low over the waters of the marina and then out into Mobile Bay. The freeze caused a massive fish kill and mullet floated down the bay as far as the eye could see. Nonetheless, the pelicans flew high into the air diving for live food.

By January 27 Ed and I were on the Gulf Intercostal Waterway docked at The Warf in Orange Beach, Alabama. The Warf is the new beachside Alabama, very built up – lots of high-rises.  We learned this morning that the forest of slash pine trees I’ve been admiring across the way is on schedule to be replaced with a Margaritaville Resort.

“Yeah, anything they can do to destroy nature…” said a young man fixing our boat. I wondered what Jimmy Buffet would think about it all…

Presently, Ed and I are waiting for Finito’s radar system to be repaired so we can make a  safe 18 hour overnight passage across the Gulf of Mexico. We’ll shoot for Tarpon Springs and then make our way back along Florida’s west coast and across Lake Okeechobee to Stuart. Anything could happen, but it certainly shouldn’t snow!

For me, the most educational Mobile Bay side trip has been Africatown three miles north of the port city of Mobile alongside the Mobile River.

In 1860, the last U.S. slave ship, the Clotilda, brought 110 West Africans illegally into Mobile Bay. After the end of the Civil War in 1865 survivors pooled their earnings to purchase land and build “Africatown” apparently naming it such because they wanted a return to Africa. Although they never did return, they prevailed. Africatown was very successful with self constructed, well made homes and overflowing gardens. The remarkable determination of its community and its growth over time is inspiring.

Of course times were very difficult. Not only did they deal with slavery and its aftermath, Timothy Meaher, who organized their voyage and owned most of the surrounding acerage sold the waterfront lands that abutted their community to U.S. Paper Corporation and other seriously polluting industries. They may have gotten jobs but according to my conversations many also got cancer. They also lost access to the waters of Mobile Bay. Generations of children never saw the shoreline and the wildlife moved away.

Then something wonderful happened, Africatown leaders had a vision “aimed at reconnecting their community to the water.” They sung: “Take me to the River” and a BLUEWAY along Three Mile Creek, the Mobile River, and Chickasaw Creek was created. All these area are being cleaned up and signage erected telling the Africatown story.  This Blueway can be accessed by canoe or kayak.

In 2019 the Clotilda slave ship was unearthed at nearby Twelve Mile Island -that Ed and I passed on Finito.-  Its remains have been  studied by archeologists and others from all over the world.  Zora Neale Hurston’s book Baracoon, The Story of the Last Black Cargo is based on interviews with beloved Cudjoe Lewis “the last survivor,” who was nineteen when he was captured and brought to Mobile Bay. He became a leader of the community, and sexton of the Union Missionary Baptist Church founded by the former slaves.

Hurston’s book, although completed in 1931, was not printed until 2018, eighty-seven years later. Interestingly, Hurston, one of the most famous African American authors of all time, died at 69 years old in Stuart’s neighboring community of Fort Pierce, Florida.

It was a moving experience to visit the museum and meet the people of Africatown. It’s been a wonderful experience  to learn about Mobile, Alabama. So I have been cold and I have been warmed — by the waters and the stories of Mobile Bay.