John's Journal...
Entry
98, Day 2
How Caribiana Island Cruises Began
EDITOR'S
NOTE: Former T.V. producer Joanne McDonough and her videographer husband
Lynn Rabren of Orange Beach, Alabama, live their dreams by conducting
private nature tours for visitors to the Gulf Shores area and by selling
their custom-built Caribiana boats as fast as they can build them. This
week, we'll talk to Joanne and learn how they've started their businesses,
why they've chosen to design and build their own boats, and what passengers
can expect to see and do on their island cruises.
Question: Are you a naturalist?
Answer: I'm a naturalist in training. I've always loved nature
and exploring the outdoors. I don't have all the answers, but I learn
something new every day.
Question: You've produced some nature segments
for T.V.?
Answer: Yes, I was a contributor to "CBS Sunday Morning with Charles
Kuralt" and "CBS Evening News with Dan Rather" for many years. I contributed
the pieces at the end of the show, which focused on particular areas or
species in nature.
Question:
How did Caribiana Island Cruises start?
Answer: My husband, Lynn Rabren, is originally from Columbiana
in central Alabama, and he first introduced me to the Orange Beach area.
I immediately fell in love with it. About 10 years ago, we moved to the
Gulf Coast and built a home on Bear Point. Once we settled down, we went
out on our sailboat a lot and realized the vast diversity of the marine
environment in the area. However, we couldn't go into some of the creeks
and the bayous that we were interested in seeing because of our sailboat's
design. So we looked around the market for a boat that had a plastic hull.
We wanted something seaworthy that wouldn't draw a whole lot of water
and that we could beach since we had many sand islands, bayous and creeks
to explore. We'd seen the type of hull we wanted all over the world and
really fell in love with the version in the Caribbean. Fortunately, since
Orange Beach was and still is a traditional boat-building community, we
gathered together some experienced boat builders and decided to make our
own boat. Word of mouth spread around the community about our Caribiana
boats, and before we knew it, our first buyer was a marine biologist at
the Dauphin Island Sea lab. Our second buyer was a friend, and the third
was someone who had heard about us. Then we sold our fourth hull to Morley
Safer of the TV show "60 Minutes."
Question: How long have you been in business?
Answer: We incorporated in 1995.
Question:
Where are your boats sold now?
Answer: Right now we retail them out of Orange Beach. But you also
can buy them on the coasts of Texas, Maine and Connecticut and in Palm
Beach, Tennessee and Indiana.
Question: Have you received any overseas orders?
Answer: Recently we got a call from a man in London, England. The
gentleman saw us mentioned in an article and found us on the internet.
He commutes from Greenwich, Connecticut, to London and ordered a boat
from us yesterday.
For
more information about Caribiana, visit the website at www.caribiana.com,
or, call (888) 203-4883 or (334) 981-4442.
To learn more about the Gulf Shores/Orange Beach area
-- restaurants, attractions, birding opportunities, hotels, condos, fishing
captains -- call the Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau
(AGCCVB) at (800) 745-7263, or visit the website at www.gulfshores.com.
TOMORROW: The Caribiana Boats
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