Three options scribbled in my pocket book. Run north, back over the exposed causeway from Dauphin Island, through the city of Mobile and around Alabama Bay to Pensacola. Or wait for the winds to drop and the ferry across the mouth to start running once more. Reaching Pensacola the same day, or stopping short at Gulf Shores. Dependant on daylight.
Quick check with the ferry company ruled out the last two options. They’d not be running today. And the forecast didn’t bode well for the next day. Safer option was to head for Mobile. Night there, then on to Pensacola the following morning. Little shy of one hundred miles.
I’d pondered riding for Pensacola in a single day but decided against it. I’d struggle to complete in daylight, even if conditions were good. Which wasn’t the case. Winds of around twenty five miles per hour, compounded by being from West-South-West – perfect crosswinds on the causeway. If I needed to walk in places, so be it.
So I settled on two days around Alabama Bay and on to Pensacola. Forty miles or so to Mobile, then a further sixty the next day. A relatively short run north to Mobile had the advantage of a delayed departure from Dauphin Island and the chance to exploit the predicted afternoon drop in wind strength. It might not be much, but it could be just enough.
I reflected a while on the plan. It’d work of course. And it was the only realistic option. Kicking myself a little for not having headed for Mobile in the first place, rather than dropping down to Dauphin Island. But it’d seemed a sensible move at the time. Spilt milk. Costing me two days and consuming much of my margin for reaching Miami and a flight back to the UK. Felt comfortable I could stick to the schedule, but I’d need to be pretty slick with packing up my trusty steed and all the kit. Lots of strong coffee.
