Tag: Dauphin Island

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Dauphin Island and Southern Alabama

Dauphin Island was a three hour unexpected surprise. When we got onto the island, we really had no idea what it was that we were looking for.  We drove around, looked for any signage but didn’t see anything that was significant to Project Kinect.  Then, once we were in line for the fairy, we found something of interest.  The ferry pick up spot was also the location for the Saw Grass Point Marsh Shoreline and Habitat Restoration.  Not only are they attempting to make precautions to save the shoreline, but they are also setting up cement barriers to slow down waves as well as help prevent and destruction from possible oil spills in the future.

These pictures are of the Shoreline and Habitat Restoration as well as Dauphin Island and the surrounding area.  As you see, all the houses are on stilts in attempts to battle any future hurricanes.  While we were driving through the area, we couldn’t help to notice how many homes were up for sale.  In the last several years, this area has been hit by many hard storms as well as suffering from last year’s oil spill.  With that and the economy, it makes for a bad equation.  The residents that have been around for many years though are diehards and have no plans of moving anytime soon.

**All three links are different and have additional information to what is happening in this area.  Please check them all out if you’re interested.

To get off of the island and get back on track of our journey toward Saint Petersburg, we took the Dauphin Ferry across to the eastern shoreline of Alabama.  It really looks like an untouched part of the country that I’m afraid, because of the low cost of real-estate, will soon be developed and the natural beauty will be history.  The final pictures are of this shoreline.  I absolutely fell in love with this part of the country.  I look forward to getting back there at some point soon after my journey.

 

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Shopping Cart Heaven

As we were on our trip from New Orleans to Saint Petersburg, we thought that we would take a detour to Mobile, AL to get a look at how the recovery of the BP oil spill was really coming along.  We could all see the propaganda of “Thank You BP” but we wanted to get a better look of what clean-up has happened and what still may have to be taken care of. 

Well, everyone was taking a nap and since I was driving without a navigator, I thought that I would make some executive decisions before waking them.  I decided that I was going to go to Dauphin Island because I figured, it being off the coast of Mobile, it must have taken some hard hits from not only the oil spill, but also Katrina and the other Hurricanes that have hit the gulf over the last seven years.

On our way out to Dauphin Island, we had to cross St. Charles Island and what we claimed to be the place where shopping carts came to die.  With hundreds of shopping carts stacked and lined up on this island so far from any obvious place for a shopping cart, we thought we should stop and check it out.

What this place turned out to be was a place for fisherman to fish without having to fight for a place on a pier or bank somewhere.  There was plenty of room on the shore and if they cared to, they could pay a small fee and go out onto one of the three piers and fish. It was a small business that an ex-fisherman started to give more people the opportunity to fish.  The shopping carts come into play by being karts for the men and women fishing to get all of their gear from their car to the place the fishing is happening.  It turns out that this man running the business found a great way to recycle these carts that would otherwise be found in a landfill somewhere.

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