11 days to the Saenger. In the meantime, Bacchus opened a dock-to-table on Bayou Bernard.

Good morning from The Seawall.

The Coast came back from a long weekend with some catching up to do.

Bacchus on the Bluff opened on Bayou Bernard in March — in the old Flamingo Landing building, on the Cowan-Lorraine corridor in Gulfport — and we haven't written it up yet. That's on us. Jourdan Nicaud opened his third Bacchus here, and the pitch is exactly what the building always deserved: arrive by road, or tie up at the dock and have your to-go order handed down to the boat. There's an upstairs dining room with views over the bayou, and a downstairs bar called The Cove where the ceiling is lower and the vibe is easier. The famous pork chop made the trip from his other locations. So did the live music — Fridays and Saturdays — and a kids' play area in the corner so the table with a toddler can stay as long as the table without one.

That's the spotlight this week. Also: mortgage rates jumped their biggest weekly move in months — 30-year fixed is back at 6.51% — the Saenger opens in 11 days, and The Downtowner quietly updated its website to say "summer 2026." Robert St. John's downtown Gulfport diner is still coming. It's just not coming in May.

And we found a house. It's across the street from the Walter Anderson Museum, it was built in 1855, and it is technically a duplex. More below.

Tuesday: Partly sunny, high near 84°F. South wind 5–15 mph. Humidity building through the afternoon.

Wednesday: Showers and thunderstorms likely. High near 82°F. Southwest wind 5–10 mph. 70%+ chance of rain — marginal risk of excessive rainfall on the NWS forecast.

Thursday: Showers possible, mainly in the morning. High near 83°F. Winds shift south 5–10 mph.

No marine advisories as of Sunday evening. Wednesday is the day to move indoor plans. Thursday clears heading into the weekend.

SPONSOR

SudsyCo Rentals makes washer and dryer rentals easy on the Coast — simple monthly pricing, quick delivery, and no giant upfront appliance bill. If you need a washer, a dryer, or both, this is the easiest way to get set up without the usual hassle.

If last week was about introducing ourselves, this week is more about getting into rhythm.

And the rhythm right now looks pretty Coast-like: a little activity, a little local color, and a few reasons to leave the house before the weekend gets away from you.

There is a stretch of bayou off Cowan Road in Gulfport where Flamingo Landing used to sit — a waterfront address with a parking lot full of promise that never quite cashed the check the location was writing. The building went through a few tries.

Now it's Bacchus.

Jourdan Nicaud opened his third Bacchus Restaurant & Bar in the old Flamingo Landing space at 8813 Lorraine Road in March, and the concept is well-suited to this particular piece of bayou. The main dining room lives upstairs — Gulf views, white tablecloths when the moment calls for it, the menu that made the other two locations famous (the famous pork chop among them, alongside seafood and steaks done in the Louisiana coastal register). Below that is The Cove, a downstairs bar where the energy is looser, the ceiling is lower, and the Friday-and-Saturday live music has more room to breathe.

The boat dock is the part that makes this location different from either of the originals. You can arrive by road or by water — tie up at the dock, put in a to-go order, have it handed down from the dock. A Coast restaurant with actual boat access is not a novelty in theory, but Bacchus on the Bluff is making good on the promise. There's a dedicated kids' play area near The Cove so that the table with a six-year-old can stay for another round. The Cowan-Lorraine corridor has grown fast in the last few years as new housing and retail push east from downtown; Bacchus is the dining anchor that stretch of Gulfport has been waiting for.

Where: 8813 Lorraine Road, Gulfport (Bayou Bernard waterfront, off Cowan Road).

Hours: Check eatbacchus.com for current schedule — live music Friday and Saturday.

Why we picked it: Old building finally in the right hands. Boat access. The pork chop.

This is the midweek look-ahead. Thursday's issue handles the full weekend.

Harrison — 🏊 Serengeti Springs opens for its 3rd summer. The D'Iberville waterpark kicked off its third season this Memorial Day weekend — now open through summer. Slides, pools, lazy river. Good first-of-summer option for families this week. Check serengetisprings.com for hours and pricing.

Harrison — 🚢 Ship Island Excursions — daily from Gulfport. Ferry departs Gulfport Harbor (1040 23rd Ave) at 9 AM and noon daily. Round trip: Adult $30 · Child $20 · Senior/Military $28. First post-holiday week to go without the crowd. Gulf Islands National Seashore: white sand, Fort Massachusetts, clear water. Dolphin watching cruise Wed–Fri at 4:30 PM. Book at msshipisland.com.

Jackson — 🐢 The turtle with wheels, Mississippi Aquarium. A double-amputee box turtle at the Mississippi Aquarium in Biloxi got a custom 3D-printed wheelchair after a car strike left him unable to survive in the wild. He is doing fine. He is rolling around. If you haven't taken the kids to the Aquarium since winter, this is your reason.

Jackson — Ocean Springs named USA TODAY 10BEST Small-Town Cultural Scene. Ocean Springs earned a spot in the 2026 USA TODAY 10BEST Readers' Choice Awards for Best Small-Town Cultural Scene — a nationwide reader vote. Following a weekend when WAMA closed out the Ke Francis exhibition and The Hiding Place opened at the Mary C., the timing is not coincidental. The city is on a run.

Hancock + Harrison — 🚙 Jeepin' the Coast kicks off Wednesday. One of the largest Jeep gatherings in the country arrives on the Coast. Wed 5/27: Registration pick-up at 506 Jeff Davis Ave, Long Beach, 3–7 PM, then the Kick-Off Party at Bacchus, 111 West Scenic Drive, Pass Christian — 5–8 PM, live entertainment by Autumn Risen. Free to spectators. Full weekend guide in Thursday's issue.

Harrison — 🎨 Gulf Coast Art Association centennial exhibit, Gulfport Museum of History. The GCAA is 100 years old this year. Centennial exhibition is up now, honoring past members including local artist Josephine Alfonso. Free to visit — worth an hour if you're in downtown Gulfport this week.

If you’ve got something happening in Jackson, Harrison, or Hancock that should be on the radar next week, send it over. The goal is to make this sharper every issue.

On May 19, twelve entrepreneurs took the stage at the StartUP Gulf Coast Pitch Competition — the 2nd annual event, held as part of Innovation Week Gulf Coast. The room was full of adults with pitch decks. One of the finalists wasn't.

An Ocean Springs teenager placed third in the competition. The Gulf Blue and StartUP programs are doing the unglamorous work of rebuilding the Coast's economic identity from the ground up — one founder at a time, some of them still in high school. An Ocean Springs kid finishing in the top three against adult entrepreneurs is the kind of result that quietly raises the ceiling for the next one.

Know someone making a difference on the Coast? Send them our way.

Freddie Mac PMMS — week ending May 21, 2026:

That's the biggest single-week jump in the 30-year in months. The brief dip from the week ending May 14 (6.36%) turned out to be a head-fake — rates came back hard. The year-over-year picture still looks friendlier than it did a year ago, but buyers who were watching the May dip as a sign of trend should recalibrate.

The other number to watch: June 1 is this Sunday. Hurricane season opens, and most coastal carriers stop binding new wind and flood policies 5 to 10 days before a named storm enters the Gulf. If you're closing on a Coast property in June, confirm your wind/hail coverage is bound before the season heats up. Call your agent this week, not next.

Short answer: still a fair window — just not for the reasons most people think.

Three things worth knowing. One: a +15 bps move on the 30-year (6.36% → 6.51%) is the biggest single-week jump in months, but it's not a regime change — on a $300,000 loan, the difference is roughly $30 a month in payment. Not nothing, but not a dealbreaker. Two: Coast inventory is sitting at a multi-year spring high right now, which gives buyers room to negotiate rate-driven cost back down on price. You have more leverage on the ask than you did six months ago. Three — and this is the one nobody talks about — hurricane season opens June 1. Insurance binders on coastal properties start tightening the moment a named storm enters the Gulf, and a closing that runs into that window can stall for weeks while underwriters wait it out. If you're under contract or close to it, confirm your wind/hail coverage is bound before the season heats up. That's the real clock right now — not the rate.

Got a Coast real-estate question? Reply to this email — we'll answer one a week.

Downtown Ocean Springs living doesn't come up often at this price point. 1209 Calhoun Street sits on a corner lot in the heart of the Old Ocean Springs downtown district — golf cart to WAMA, a five-minute walk to Front Beach, and within easy reach of every restaurant and gallery on Washington Avenue.

The house is 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2,000 square feet — two stories with a front porch, a working fireplace in the living room, a recently remodeled kitchen with a gas stove, a bonus room, a detached two-car garage, and a fenced backyard. Walk Score 80/100 — the kind of number that means you actually can leave the car in the garage. The listing description is not shy about it: "TONS OF CHARM." That's the agent talking. We'd say: the corner lot, the porch, and the detached garage in a walkable downtown is a package that shows up once a year on the Gulf Coast.

The Calhoun Street block puts you on foot to all the reasons people move to Ocean Springs in the first place — the same Saturday farmers market, the same WAMA afternoon, the same oyster happy hour problem. You're also in the golf cart district, which is not nothing when it's 94 degrees and parking on a Friday night is what it is.

Where: 1209 Calhoun Street, Ocean Springs — downtown, golf cart district, corner lot.

His name is Lizard. He does not look like a lizard. He looks like a dog who has been waiting patiently for seven months and has made peace with the wait.

Lizard is a 2-year-old, 32-pound male Catahoula Leopard Dog mix — Louisiana’s state dog, born and bred for bayou country, and about as Gulf Coast a breed as you’ll find in a shelter. He came in as a stray in mid-October 2025. In the months since, the shelter staff have called him a favorite: gentle nature, happy spirit, knows “sit,” great with other dogs. He starts every morning with a burst of zoomies, gets it out of his system, and then settles into the calm, affectionate companion he actually is. The name is funnier than the dog.

Catahoulas are working dogs with marbled coats, glass-blue eyes, and a reputation for being smart, loyal, and deeply attached to their people. They want a yard, a family, some dogs to run with, and someone willing to take them seriously. In exchange, they’ll give you everything.

Lizard has been at HSSM for seven months. He is ready to go home.

🐾 Humane Society of South Mississippi

2615 25th Ave, Gulfport · (228) 822-3831 · hssm.org

Tue–Fri 10 AM–5 PM · Sat 10 AM–4 PM · Ask for Lizard by name.

LOW TIDE LAUGHS

A Coast newsletter should probably make room for at least one thing that doesn’t ask anything from you except a smirk.

So we are.

There are regulars at every great restaurant. Some of them have been coming since before the menu changed. Some of them have a preferred seat. This week's Low Tide Laughs finds one of them waiting.

SPONSOR

MapPulse Agency helps local businesses get found where it counts — Google, maps, search, reviews, and websites that actually help bring in customers. If your business needs stronger local visibility, they know the terrain.

A FEW LOCAL LINKS WORTH KEEPING HANDY

If you want to go deeper by county, keep these local sites handy:

Jackson County MS
https://www.jacksoncountyms.com

Harrison County MS
https://www.harrisoncountyms.com

Hancock County MS
https://www.hancockcountyms.com

That’s part of the larger idea here too. The Seawall shouldn’t just point at itself. It should help connect people to the broader local web that already exists across the Coast.

SPONSOR

Cornerstone Numismatics works with collectors and buyers looking for coins, currency, bullion, and real numismatic expertise. If you want trusted guidance in the coin world, this is a name worth knowing.

That's a Memorial Day recap, a new waterfront restaurant worth the drive, and a reminder that hurricane season starts Sunday. June's going to be something. See you Thursday with the weekend slate — and the Saenger is nine days out by then.

Short. Local. Useful.

— Rob
The Seawall