Dauphin Island offers a stripped-down, laid-back experience

As beach towns go, Dauphin Island, Alabama, is relatively sleepy. Unlike nearby Gulf Shores or Panama City Beach, Florida, it has no water parks or mini-golf courses, and only two high-rise hotels. What it does have is Spanish moss in the trees and white sand and gentle waves on sparsely populated beaches. "If you like to be outside, this is a great place to be," says Mendel Graeber, a marine educator with the Dauphin Island Sea Lab.

Recognized by the American Bird Conservancy as a “globally important” place for migration, the island’s Audubon Bird Sanctuary includes 164 acres of maritime forests, salt marshes and sand dunes. Migratory sunbirds from the tropics are favorites among the more than 420 species that have been spotted on the island.

Surf Life

Alabama Aquarium is connected to the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, where 21 Alabama universities collaborate on aquatic research. “We do have some ‘charismatic megafauna’ — the typically bigger organisms that capture the imagination of the public, like an alligator and an octopus,” she says. “But we also try to represent a lot of the diversity of our area.”

Each July, the island hosts the Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo. Sea Lab students capture data on the local fish species caught during the rodeo, which was certified by Guinness World Records in 2011 as the largest fishing tournament in the world. Black drum, barracuda and red snapper are among the species reeled in during the competition.

History’s Footprint

“Damn the torpedoes … full speed!” The famous phrase — often mistakenly paraphrased — was spoken by Union Adm. David Farragut at the Battle of Mobile Bay. In 1864, ironclads in Farragut’s fleet outnumbered the South 6 to 1, and he leveraged his advantage to crush the Confederate Navy. After the battle, the South surrendered Fort Gaines, which still stands on Dauphin Island.

The fort is pretty much intact, says Machelle Steiner, assistant manager at Historic Fort Gaines. “We have our original cannons. We’ve got a nice museum (that includes) grapeshot, some weapons and a couple collections” gifted by former Dauphin Island residents.