Day 11 arrived in "the Big Easy"

     Wow, we had an unintentionally very long day! We left Houma, LA at 7:30 am and arrived at the Ponchartrain Landing Marina in New Orleans at 9:35 pm. Thus, the run time on the engines was 14+ hours, but we spent a lot of time just "waiting", but I digress...
     Shortly after leaving Houma, we went through a "classic" pontoon swing bridge. It was the kind with what amounts to a barge that pivots on one corner and is pulled open and closed by cables. There used to be many of these in Texas, but in recent years many of them have been replaced by high fixed bridges.

     Around mid day we went under this lift bridge as it went up.   It has a clearance of 35 feet, and we only need about 18 feet with the radar mast up. However, a tow coming in the opposite direction had requested a lift.

This is the barge that had the bridge go up.  I included the picture as a personal reminder of the differences in the traffic in the Intracoastal Waterway.  In Texas most of the commercial traffic is barges with various petroleum products as well as some with sand and gravel.  In Louisiana, we have also passed a lot more drilling barges, as well as oilfield service equipment (this picture). This is an indication of the active exploration and production in the coastal plain where we are travelling.

     The day continued with remote natural areas and the chart plotter kept telling us that we would arrive at our destination at 3:24 pm. As we approached New Orleans, we passed through a very new flood gate providing protection from flooding not from the Mississippi River but from the swamp to the West.

The flood gates (yellow, directly ahead) were open, and on the right there are pumps in the grey buildings to pump water out of the protected area (ahead) behind the dike. There is no lock here so when the flood gates are closed, all traffic on the Intracoastal will be stopped until the flood waters recede.

   As we approached the Harvey Lock where we would enter the Mississippi River, we passed under several high, fixed bridges.  When we were about 4 miles out, we called the Lock Master to "request a pass". He said to approach the lock and "hang out" until he could fit us into the mix. We went right up to the front while passing by 20 or more tows tied up and/or grounded on the sides of the channel. We tied up to the wall only a 100 yards from the lock entrance, and the wait began...  By law, pleasure craft cannot enter the lock with "red flagged" vessels, which means that they contain flammable or explosive cargoes. After a "short" four hour wait, we along with a shrimp boat were allowed to enter the lock with a tug that had no barges, and a half hour later we were clear of the lock, nearly 9 feet higher and in the Mississippi River! Then we began a "wild" ride down river through New Orleans. This is a picture of the chart plotter, and things to notice are:

1. Our normal cruising speed is about 8 mph and thanks to the river we are doing 13.3 mph in the swift current. Wow!

2. The water depth is shown as 115.2 feet plus add 4 feet for our draft (to bottom of boat). The depth got as deep as about 150 feet... The Intracoastal Waterway is supposed to be 12 feet deep so we are used to seeing much smaller numbers.

3. Notice that our estimated arrival time has gone from 3:25 up to 8:08 pm.

  We did get a nice view of New Orleans in the setting Sun.

After a (very) quick 6 mile ride down river, we exited on the East side into the Industrial Canal. This is where we began our next wait, which fortunately was only about 30 minutes plus 20 minutes to go down about 3 feet in the Industrial Lock. In order to actually enter the lock we also had to schedule a bridge lift to actually get into the lock. Anyway, the calculated arrival time at our destination had now gone up to 9:15 pm, but we were not done yet... There was one more (railroad) bridge. Railroad bridges are often left open and close only for train traffic. Just our luck. The bridge was down, and when we called the bridgemaster, he said "hang out for a few minutes". Sure enough, in a couple of minutes a train started to cross the bridge. By this time to stave off boredom and stay awake, I was counting the train cars.  Car #38 stopped just as it was about to finish crossing the bridge.  After a few minutes, the train backed up and exited the bridge just as it had entered... Finally, the bridge went up, and we were able to reach our marina in just a few minutes...  Well, once again it was an interesting, eventful and most importantly, safe day on the water.

     Just as a teaser for tomorrow's report, we did develop an issue with the steering system, which made the manuevering in and out of the two locks more than a little interesting.  Tomorrow, we solve the problem.