Historic navigational landmarks

Even with the advent of GPS, boaters familiar with their home waters still use landmarks to guide them to their homeports and those new to an area find them to be crucial. Throughout the Gulf Coast, the region is sprinkled with historic lighthouses many of which are still functioning, and some of these lights have guided sailors home to safety for more than two centuries and have the history to prove it. While there are far too many to mention here, the following list is a good start for your explorations.

Alabama

Mobile Bay—In the shallows of Mobile Bay, the Middle Bay Light has stood since 1885 and marks the dogleg in the primary shipping channel. Placed on the National Historic Registry in 1975, this lighthouse has withstood many a hurricane and still serves as a navigational tool.

Florida

Cape San Blas—Originally constructed in 1848, the Cape San Blas Lighthouse marked the elbow in the cape extruding into the Gulf of Mexico that forms St. Joseph’s Bay on the Florida Panhandle. In 2014, the lighthouse was decommissioned and moved to a bayside park in the town of Port St. Joe and now includes a museum.

Seahorse Key—On a pristine and undeveloped section of Florida’s west coast lies a chain of keys near the entrance to the Suwannee River. In 1854, the first lighthouse was built on the Cedar Keys, and today the lighthouse is home to the University of Florida’s Seahorse Key Marine Laboratory.

Pensacola—Located on Santa Rosa Island near Fort Barrancas, the Pensacola Lighthouse went operational in 1824 and is still visible when entering the Pensacola Lighthouse. Today, it houses a lighthouse museum and is located on the grounds of the Naval Air Station.

Louisiana

New Canal—Nearly destroyed during Hurricane Katrina in 2015, the New Canal Lighthouse was originally constructed in 1839 and guided barges and schooners from Lake Pontchartrain into one of the shipping canals leading to downtown New Orleans. The lighthouse was fully restored after the hurricane, is operational and home to the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation.

Tchefuncte River Lighthouse—Erected in 1837 at the entrance of the large Tchefuncte River into Lake Pontchartrain, the lighthouse has been guiding boaters to the quaint resort town of Madisonville for their popular Wooden Boat Festival on the lake’s north shore.

Mississippi

Round Island—The lighthouse was constructed in 1833 to guide mariners into the port of Pascagoula from the Mississippi Sound. Hurricane Katrina destroyed it as it was undergoing restoration, and the salvaged remains were shipped by barge and relocated in Pascagoula from the barrier island. The lighthouse was relighted in 2015.

By Troy Gilbert – Southern Boating Magazine, February 2016

Dauphin Island Race tragedy

More than 100 sailboats headed south in Mobile Bay for the 57^th running of the Dauphin Island Regatta on April 25^th. The race—hosted by a syndicate of the Fairhope, Mobile and Buccaneer Yacht Clubs—is a tradition in South Alabama and is considered to be more of a fun and less serious regatta. As such, the 17 nautical mile race sailing south to overnight parties and events on Alabama’s barrier island not only draws experienced racing crew from the region but also skippers and teams that may only take their boats out once a year. In the regatta’s heyday in the 80s and 90s, upwards of 400 boats would participate.

Under no weather warnings or watches, the regatta started about an hour and a half late due to miscommunication and a very common general recall for one of the starts. While there was a storm front moving toward Mobile Bay, the very weather-aware boaters and the Race Committee sailed in a steady 15-16 knots of breeze under overcast, yet non-threatening skies.

Three and a half hours after the race started a supercell thunderstorm exploded and slammed the fleet of boats that was spread throughout the bay racing, returning to home port or tying up at the giant raft-up on Dauphin Island. The storm moved over the fleet at 60 knots with an initial windblast of 70 knots and caught many of the vessels in open waters. For more than 30 minutes the crews battled a sustained breeze of 50 knots and seas that kicked up in only minutes to 8 feet in the shallow bay. Docked vessels were ripped from their moorings.

In the aftermath, 10 sailboats from 20 to 27 feet in length were sunk bringing a total of 40 souls into the water. Most were rescued by their fellow competitors, who, along with the U.S. Coast Guard and multiple other agencies, patrolled the bay for hours in what became an exhaustive search. A local fisherman who was on the bay, along with many others, was also lost and brought the death toll to six.

U.S. Sailing Olympic Team Boatwright Donnie Brennan, who has sailed in this regatta for more than 20 years, was racing with friends that day when they were caught returning home among many of the slower keelboats still finishing the race. “Mother Nature keeps preaching to us over and over again this same lesson and I don’t know why we have to keep relearning it. Safety is always first. Always have life jackets on or nearby, take down the sails and close the hatches because in that first gulp of water, 250 gallons go into the boat, and in the second it’s 400 gallons. For the third gulp, the boat goes to the bottom,” Brennan said, who along with his fellow crewmembers pulled two people from the water that afternoon. One was wearing a lifejacket and the other, in severe distress, was not.

By Troy Gilbert, Southern Boating Magazine, August 2015

Fairhope, Alabama

A Welcome Respite

Beneath sprawling moss-draped oaks with their seconds standing by as witness, two sailors from New Orleans marched off fifteen paces between each other and fired. The men were settling an “Affaire d’Honneur” from a perceived slight towards a young lady the previous evening at a post regatta ball on the grounds of the Grand Hotel at Point Clear. The year was 1852, and as the smoke from their black-powder pistols joined the early morning mist, both sailors were left standing and they agreed the affair was settled. The men then returned to their schooners anchored on the eastern shores of Mobile Bay long a destination for cruisers and racers, and today the arts colony of Fairhope is a jewel on those bluffs rising on the Alabama coast.

A welcome respite or starting point for cruisers traversing the Tombigbee River and the Great Loop, Fairhope is well known to “Loopers,” and the town is well appointed to serve transients. Easily located from the water by the historic Ecor Rouge or “Red Bluff” outcropping on the bay, this red clay cliff is the highest coastal point between Maine and Mexico and has been used by mariners as a navigational point since the first Spanish explorers plied these waters in the 1500s. Due south of Ecor Rouge is the channel to the entrance of the full-service Eastern Shore and Fly Creek marinas, as well as the Fairhope Yacht Club.

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Mobile Bay itself is quite shallow with an average depth of around 10 feet, yet sandy and shifting shoals abound, and it’s best to stick to the maintained channels. Fairhope Yacht Club is full of Southern charm and with proper advance notice, quite welcoming and accustomed to transients. Located about a mile from Fairhope’s bustling town center, scooters and bicycles are recommended, however, the adjacent Eastern Shore Marina offers a courtesy car to transients. Otherwise, a short dinghy ride to the municipal pier will leave you only a few blocks’ walk into town.

Fairhope was founded in 1894 and has a unique history as a “Single Tax Colony,” where a large portion of the land is owned by a managing authority that leases out the individual parcels—although the majority of the town has grown outside of those initial boundaries. Downtown Fairhope—a walking town—and her surrounding old Southern neighborhoods are stunning in their quiet allure, with beautifully landscaped streets and quaint antique shops, art galleries and boutique clothing stores.

Fairhope is, perhaps, best known for the legendary Page & Palette bookstore that draws in any writer worth their salt for book signings—large crowds have become old hat to the locals. The old Fly Creek bar on the marina was notorious as a Gulf Coast literary watering hole with writers such as John Grisham, Rick Bragg and Winston Groom frequenting to drink, smoke cigars and enjoy the sunset over the bay with the local shrimpers and oystermen. Fairhope today has that same feel, something akin to New Orleans, Ocean Springs and Apalachicola—that strange mix of coastal waters and the Deep South that feeds pages of novels.

Downtown Fairhope is growing as a culinary destination with the fertile estuaries of Bon Secour and Bayou La Batre located only an hour’s sail away along with their incredibly fresh catches. Gentrified buildings converted to host white tablecloth dining are popping up at places like Camellia Cafe where the Executive Chef is re-introducing Black Drum to the locals. Thyme, located on the bluff overlooking the bay, has become a destination for the “ladies-who-lunch” crowd in a quaint Gulf Coast house surrounded by towering oaks. Old school restaurants such as the Dragonfly and the Washhouse are legendary on the Alabama Coast. Right in the heart of downtown is Panini Pete’s, Pete Blohme’s flagship restaurant for his budding food empire. Regularly spotlighted and featured on the Food Network (and a Culinary Institute of America graduate), Pete is also branching out to reopen the aforementioned Fly Creek restaurant at the marina whose closing is long lamented by the old-school locals.

Only a few miles down the coast is Point Clear and the Grand Hotel, constructed in 1847. Part of a trend of waterfront destinations throughout the northern Gulf Coast in the 1800s, these resorts served the wealthy plantation owners, bankers and cotton brokers from New Orleans and Mobile. The Grand Hotel is one of the few that has survived nearly 200 years. Today, the resort is full of modern amenities and a world-class golf course. The Grand Hotel at Point Clear also holds great docking and slip facilities for transient cruisers.

Timing your visit with the migration of the Loopers will add to the camaraderie on the piers, but Fairhope in the spring is unmatched. With the azaleas and dogwood in bloom, the town comes alive. The 63rd Annual Arts & Crafts Festival will run in March of 2015. Like many towns on the northern Gulf Coast, Fairhope has an amazing legacy of coastal artists and the festival attracts over 250,000 visitors—pay special attention to the “found metal” sculptors and the potters who utilize the unique clay of southern Alabama.

The Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay also has a direct tie to the three-centuries-old Mardi Gras celebrations that reach back to the first French explorers bouncing along the northern Gulf Coast in 1699. Across the bay, Mobile hosts a celebration that is only surpassed by New Orleans, and Fairhope puts on her own show with three parades running through her downtown in February of 2015.

A bit further to the east along the coast lie perfect Gulf Coast beaches starting in Fort Morgan, with Orange Beach and Gulf Shores stealing the show. The Alabama coast also has great destination marinas such as Jimmy Buffett’s sister’s place, Lulu’s on the ICW, as well as The Wharf in Orange Beach. Nearby, Saunder’s Yachtworks is a world-class boatyard with state-of-the-art facilities.

The eastern shores of Mobile Bay have long been a cruising destination since schooners plied these waters two centuries ago. The bluffs shrouded in pines, oaks and azaleas hide quiet cruising destinations just miles away from the sugar sand beaches and emerald waters of Alabama’s barrier islands. Local artists, chefs and residents are waiting for you and will define what southern hospitality truly means as you drop those lines and tie up in Mobile Bay.

By Troy Gilbert, Southern Boating August 2014

Classic Vessels Steal the Show

Many unique, historic classes of boats evoke the culture and lifestyle of particular regions in the U.S. simply from their appearance. From old Chris Craft runabouts with perfectly maintained brightwork on the waters of Newport to the Biloxi Schooners that plied the shallows of the Mississippi Sound for oysters and shrimp; an entire boating sub-culture dedicated to the preservation of these boats is flourishing—including festivals and events that celebrate them.

The Gulf Coast is home to several classes of boats (both sail and power) that are truly unique, although possibly not widely known. The Luggers were shallow, long trawling vessels converted to rustic, if not stately, yachts for cruising the shallows of the northern Gulf Coast. The Lafitte Skiff is another commercial fishing vessel that was transformed over the years into a smaller recreational fishing runabout. And while not unique to the Gulf Coast, the Fish Class dinghies were actively raced throughout the Gulf Yachting Association for decades. A determined few still actively race them in races such as the Fish Class World Championship on Mobile Bay at Buccaneer Yacht Club this month.

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These are just a few examples of the famous classes of wooden boats that are celebrated throughout the U.S. The National Sailing Hall of Fame in Annapolis, Maryland, for example, hosts an annual regatta of wooden-hulled sailboats over 65′ in length, and clubs such as the venerable New York Yacht Club still hold races for the Sandbaggers that were raced in the 1800s throughout the East and Gulf Coasts. Wooden boat festivals that celebrate our country’s unique nautical legacy take place in every region, but one of the largest takes place October 11-12 in the small, picturesque town of Madisonville, Louisiana, at the mouth of the deep-water Tchefuncte River on Lake Pontchartrain. Home to several large marinas and an historic town that directly fronts the river, Madisonville’s lighthouse and maritime museum are celebrating the 25^th anniversary of their Wooden Boat Festival.

Madisonville is a popular cruising destination and recognized for its impressive collection of Biloxi Luggers that arrive from the Mississippi Coast, cruising clubs from throughout the lake and the coast’s yacht clubs. Live music plays along Water Street with pirogue and other wooden boatbuilding demonstrations onshore—although the real showcase is on the piers with a stunning showcase of wooden boats from throughout history. Madisonville is a true cruiser’s town, and every October it becomes an essential visit for lovers of stunning and perfectly maintained historic boats with a celebration to match.

By Troy Gilbert, Southern Boating October 2014