Small-craft facilities on the E side of South Fork Channel and at the town of Bon Secour can provide berths, gasoline, diesel fuel, water, ice, marine supplies, launching ramps, storage, and hull and engine repairs. The largest marine railway, at a boatyard on the E side of the arm leading to Oyster Bay, about 0.4 mile N of the fixed highway bridge, can handle craft to 80 feet. A channel marked by private stakes, with a reported depth of 7 feet in 1982, leads to the boatyard.
Navigation:
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Bon Secour Bay extends about 14 miles E of Mobile Bay entrance. Oyster beds are very extensive along the NE shore of the bay. The bay is the route of the Intracoastal Waterway, which crosses Mobile Bay Channel at a point 2.6 miles N of the latter’s entrance.
The Bon Secour River empties into the E part of Bon Secour Bay. A dredged channel leads from the Intracoastal Waterway through Bon Secour Bay and into Bon Secour River, a total distance of 3.9 miles. There are two turning basins on the S side of the river at miles 1.6 and 2.5 respectively. In 2011, the controlling depth was 6.5 feet to Daybeacon 30, thence 4.5 feet to the head of the project, thence a depth of 6 feet was available in both turning basins. The channel is marked by a light and daybeacons. In 1982, it was reported that a depth of 4 feet could be carried for about 1.3 miles above the dredged channel.
South Fork Channel leads S from about 1 mile above the mouth of Bon Secour River for about 1.1 miles to shallow Oyster Bay. A fixed highway bridge crossing South Fork Channel limits navigation into Oyster Bay to skiffs only. In 2010, the controlling depth in the channel was 6.0 feet (6.8 feet at midchannel).
The town of Bon Secour is on the N side of Bon Secour River about 1.5 miles above the mouth.
