11/11/14 - 11/15/14 Orange Beach, Alabama - Orange Beach Marina

Welcome to Orange Beach Marina

The marina was back of a secluded cove with canals lined with lovely homes and "Big" fishing boats. Not to many trawlers in the area except for those that are transient.  

The marina did not have any sailboats.

When I say "Big" fishing boats I mean HUGE!

This is what a 99' fishing boat looks like!  Josh made a great observation... they don't have anchors!  Go figure.

Josh and Lexi are bonding :-) 

Orange Beach was a great location.  We were able to dinghy and bike around everywhere.  And Teak and Lexi had lots of grass to "enjoy".

Carving on a dead tree trunk of turtles and birds that we saw on a bike ride to Tacky Jacks for lunch.

This is Tacky Jacks from the water side.  The hamburgers were really good!

We took dingy tours around a couple of times and were able to walk the beach and enjoy the secluded white sandy beach and beautiful water.  

Gassing up!

Let's go exploring!

Josh and Barb leading the way.

Dragging our dinghy's out of the water

We left our dinghies and walked the beach.

\This is the size of "Henry's" footprint.  There was a large heron at Palafox that wandered around the docks...folks named it Henry.  So every time we see one we call it Henry.  They are REALLY big.

Al and I were strolling down the beach and decided we would take a selfie.  This was our first one!

It might be too cold to swim, but we did "get our feet wet"

Al noticed a tree.  Right there at the water's edge.  He insisted someone just stuck it in the ground.

Josh and Barb tried to push it down.... If it is just buried there someone did a really good job.

 Beautiful seashore and beautiful sky.

 Josh and Barb taking a stroll

There was a service dog for a blind woman who was enjoying the beach.  She had never been on a beach before and was having a ball romping around and "digging" for crabs.  She had herself dug in all the way to her shoulders.  They lady told us that she pulled one out and went crazy when the claws came out.

Wading in the water's edge

 We have our turn at running aground!

Dolphins were everywhere.  The were playing all around our dinghy

The Tiki Bar and Restaurant at The Sportsman Marina.  

We never ate here but we were told it was very good.

Al and I stopped to pose for a king of the hill moment... atop the boulders on the beach.

The boat shed is taller than the house to accommodate the fishing boat's tuna tower!

Sunset from our bow.

Ron and Linda did not make it to Orange Beach because they were still in Houston when we left Palafox.  But they returned and still had a car so when we all wanted to do Prime Rib Wednesday at Ginny Lane's at The Wharf , Ron and Linda came by and took us four over to the The Wharf to have dinner with Beth and Randy and Susan and Jerry Grooms.. both of which are already moved there. We enjoyed our dinner!  And had a great time with everyone.  Randy took us and the Wallach's back to Orange Beach.

                                         The "Prime Rib"  - $14 Wednesday special

Orange Beach is also a great place for biking.  We biked over to Hwy. 98 where there are several stores, restaurants and more beach to ride to.  It was a bit cold on the bikes but we were able to comfortably bundle up and take a bike ride both days.

Besides Winn-Dixie, Publix and Walmart, there is Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Seafood and Steaks, and  Bar-B-Q.  The Italian "Rolotos" and Bar-B-Q "Moes" are both really good!  Hopefully we will have a chance to test the others sometimes.

Our power started acting really crazy going off and on and the "Reverse Polarity" lights came on the panel and really shook us up.  So, we shut things down, turned on the generator and called the office.  They sent someone out and ended up replacing the power pedestal. Which was good.  The bad part was that it blew out our TV in the salon....  Fortunately for us, Rand and Beth have their car and we talked them into taking us to Walmart to get a new one.... Walmart trip turned into several other stops like Lowes for water hoses and fittings for our water filter.. designed by Josh.  Then a stop at Blue Water Marine... you know we could not go anywhere without stopping by a boat store.

When we got back, the gang came over to our boat for drinks and snacks and we all watched "and helped Al put together and set up our new TV.

After being here for 5 nights... after our bike ride and bar-b-que on Saturday we loaded up and headed over to The Wharf.  We decided that with the weather that was coming in it would well be the latter part of next week before we would have good weather to move.  But we will definitely be back.