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