ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — Two boats are tied up at the dock behind Skip Beebe's home in Orange Beach. One is more representative of his past life — it's a sporty, 48-foot sailboat. The other is more representative of his present life — it's a plain-looking, 48-passenger excursion boat.

Burdened by a bad back at age 54, Beebe is no longer capable of living the life he had from 1985 to 1995, when he made the sailboat his home. Now he's got a business, Sailaway Charters, that offers nature tours in the bays and bayous of Alabama's Gulf Coast.

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On a Saturday morning last month, Beebe strapped several velcro wraps around his back before he and his wife, Janet, took a group out for a tour on the excursion boat, named Miss Janet. Beebe needs the back support because the highlight of the tour is a shrimping haul. He throws out an 8-foot net and then pulls it back into the boat after it's been dragged along the bottom of Wolf Bay. There's no telling what all the net will trap, from a wide assortment of fish to a wide assortment of junk.

"It was a really great life," Beebe said, recalling the 10 years when he lived on his sailboat, Windy Ways. He likened the experience to living in an RV. Beebe sailed off to destinations such as Belize, Honduras and Guatemala.

He had been in the clock business in San Diego, and lifting grandfather clocks was what originally hurt his back.

"If you're driving on the freeway all the time, and you've been doing business without a vacation for 17 years ..." he said. "I just couldn't take it anymore. I had to leave.

"People talk about the traffic down here. You don't know what traffic is until you've lived in Southern California."

While he was in Guatemala in 1989, he met Janet. They've been together ever since. Janet lived with Skip on the sailboat for six years before they married and settled down on the Alabama Gulf Coast.

"Janet ended up falling in love with the area, and we never left," Skip said. "Janet's really happy with the lifestyle. This is the best of both worlds, because I get to do some sailing and we live on dry land."

With Skip as pilot and Janet doing narration, our group set out onto the Intracoastal Waterway and then explored Long Bayou and Wolf Bay, accompanied at various times by squadrons of egrets, osprey, herons and pelicans. Skip stopped at a spot in Long Bayou where Janet could use an oyster rake to scoop up some oysters for everyone to examine. At another spot, she pulled up a crab cage that had been submerged in the water, and everyone got a look at the crabs that had been trapped.

When Skip threw out the shrimp net, his passengers eagerly awaited the haul. After 18 minutes — a limit set by Alabama law — Skip dumped the thrashing contents into a fish tank. The catch included a couple of shrimp, but also a baby flounder, a baby blue crab, jellyfish, sardine and other fish, including hake and croaker, plus a stingray. Janet held up some of them for examination, including the stingray, before dumping them all back into the bay.

The only downer to the excursion was that we didn't see any dolphins. According to Skip, dolphins often put on a show.

"Everyone gets excited when you see dolphins," he said.

Excursions with Sailaway Charters last 1 1/2 hours. Rates are $20 for adults, $10 for children under 12 and free for ages 4 and under. For more information, call 1-251-974-5055 or go to www.geocities.com/sailorskip.

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(c) 2004, St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

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PHOTO (from KRT Photo Service, 202-383-6099):

TRAVEL UST-BEEBE

`AP-NY-05-03-04 0758EDT