We had been out to eat in Fairhope on Friday night.  I had wanted to get down to the Fairhope pier in time to see the sunset, because watching the sunset over Mobile Bay is one of my favorite things to do when visiting Ann, but by the time we left the restaurant, it was just dark.  It was still hot, and strangely airless, because there is usually a breeze, no matter how slight, off the bay.  Ann drove Jane, Mike and me down to the pier, which was crowded with even more people than usual.   Many people were netting and fishing.  Even out on the pier it was airless, except occasionally there would be just a breath of breeze. The water was glassy. We starting noticing that the fishers and netters were catching a lot, and then started noticing that shrimp and crab, along with eels, were swimming near the surface.  We were so ignorant that we didn't realize that it was a jubilee, until someone told Mike that it was the beginning of one.  As I understand it, the locals don't consider it a true jubilee until the flounder come to the surface, which is after the tide turns.  Tide turn would not be until around midnight, two or three hours from then.  One lady was netting for shrimp, and was perturbed that she was getting so many crab, too.  Other people were catching crab with fishing gear.  Jane, Mike and I were tired, having just driven down that day, and the heat and airlessness were oppressive, so we went on back to Ann's apartment.  It turned out to be a true Jubilee, we heard later, with the flounder rising to the surface. 

A "Jubilee" is when shrimp, crab, and other sea-dwellers come to the surface, or even ashore by the thousands. There is nothing wrong with them, they are perfectly edible.  Jubilees only happen in Mobile Bay.

Saturday evening, we went down to the Daphne pier, this time before sunset. The weather was much the same as the night before.  As we parked, we noticed a horde of seagulls, hundreds, maybe thousands flying at the end of the pier.  As we walked out on the pier, they ignored us and everyone else there, which is unusual, because the gulls there live in hope that people will feed them.  As we stood at the end of the pier, we could see that they were flying in a limited area, from the end of the pier to maybe 150 yards out, and possibly 200 yards to the south.  We couldn't see the northern limit, but we could see gulls returning from it.  We kept watching them (as well as the sunset) and I said that it appeared that they were looking for something or waiting for something.  As the sun set, the gulls started diving to the water. They were catching eels.  As each caught one, it would fly away, with other gulls tying to snatch the eel from it.  For some time, there was a frenzy of swooping and squabbling gulls, but as more and more flew away with an eel dangling from their beaks, it got quieter and quieter and then they were all gone.  As we looked at the water around the pier, we could see eel swimming near the surface.  As we watched, shrimp began to surface, and then crab.  Another Jubilee.  What amazes me the most was that the gulls knew that it was coming, and knew where it was going to happen, long before it started.  Again, we did not wait to see the flounder rise.  So-called "jubilee weather" may be great for jubilees, but it is uncomfortably enervating.

I am glad to have seen not one but two jubilees before Ann left the Mobile Bay area.