When we arrived yesterday, I mentioned that there is a rather nice city park around the marina walls. There is even art on one of the large concrete bridge supports. The park was rather deserted when we left, but the fishermen had already started to take up their positions along the marina walls.
After the very long day yesterday, we departed Houma at the respectable time of 9:35 am. Wow, the sun was already up when I got up this morning, and we had a relaxed departure and trip through the city. The picture at the right shows the waterway as it passes the end of the city marina. As you can see, the waterway is narrow as it passes through Houma, and there are lots of homes as well as commercial areas in town. Thus, we had a no wake speed for the first few miles as we had most of the town to traverse before we could get up to cruising speed.
Our trip today was 38.4 miles to Morgan City, Louisiana in gorgeous weather. Our first and only lock for the day was after 35.6 miles so we settled in to enjoy the views. One of the most interesting places was a shipyard that seemed to be mass producing platforms. To my untrained eye, I can count about 9 small platforms in just this one picture. The small platforms are probably destined for shallow coastal areas, and they would be carried by barge to their final location.
The platform would then be lifted into position by a large barge mounted crane. Speaking of heavy lift cranes, we also passed several under construction. This one is probably bigger than the one necessary to lift the small platforms above into position.
We also passed through a lot of coastal wetlands today. Since we reached Mobile, I have mentioned seeing several familiar sights now that we are back on the Gulf Coast. I would also add Spanish Moss growing on Cypress trees to my list of old, familiar faces. We passed through quite a lot of this kind of cypress swamp today. However, the Admiral is still disappointed that she has not seen an alligator yet, and "yet" is the operative word here. They are around, but we just have not seen one yet...
Today could also be subtitled as "The Day of the Eagle". We definitely saw more than 15 Bald Eagles today. They must have been enjoying the weather (or were just plain hungry) since they were often flying over the waterway, and on several occasions we would see one swoop down to catch an unsuspecting fish. I am far from being an avid (official) bird watcher, but I really could spend hours watching these majestic creatures. This first picture shows a golden eagle flying just above the water.
I could go on and on with my own personal list of adjectives to describe these birds, but I will save you from that. So, here is one more of my favorites from today. Also, judging from the number of pictures that the Admiral took of the eagles, it would be very safe to say that she is a fan too. This picture shows a bald eagle soaring above.
We did have about a 30 minute wait at the Bayou Boeuf Lock. The locks in this portion of the waterway are to prevent salt water intrusion into large areas of fresh water swamp or wetlands. The waterway is large in cross sectional area compared to the many small streams that naturally drain these areas. Thus, incoming tides and storm surge could introduce large volumes of salt water. I presume that the salt water would disrupt the delicate ecosystem. Depending on the height of the salt water on one side relative to the fresh water, the gates may be open or only have a drop/rise of a foot or less. The Corps of Engineers posts the water levels several times a day so that with knowledge of the local tides you can plan ahead a little. When we arrived at the lock, there was a large, fully loaded tow just entering the lock. As soon as the gates were closed behind him, the other gates opened for him to exit. In our case, we were allowed to pass through with both gates open. Why the difference? The tows, especially when fully loaded, push a lot of water around as they pass. We can see this effect when we try to pass a tow. As soon as we pull out to pass, we start to slow down. We do not speed up again until we are more than a hundred feet past the tow. Thus, the gates were closed for the tow so that he did not push several lock volumes of water through the lock as he "pushed' through the lock. With our minuscule cross sectional area compared to the tow, we were simply allowed to pass through the open gates. Anyway, this whole process added only about 35 minutes to our trip.
The picture at the right was our vies as we turned up river to head to down town Morgan City at about 3:05 pm. We only had to pass through the first (railroad) bridge and fortunately it was in the up position. As we passed through the railroad bridge, our view off to the west (left) included this rather picturesque red lighthouse. The channel was fairly busy but quite wide. The downtown area is effectively hidden behind a high concrete flood barrier, but we managed to dock opposite a gate through the wall. It was Homecoming weekend, and there were several large family groups overflowing outside two restaurants so there was plenty of activity going on.
We headed off about 4:30 pm for a brief walking tour with the idea of ending up at the "Latin Corner" about two blocks from Lucky Us. Inside the restaurant, the scene was quite interesting. If you can imagine a Cuban restaurant preparing for their annual Halloween party, then you are on the right track. Otherwise, I am afraid that my vocabulary is far too limited to adequately describe the scene...
The picture at the left shows Lucky Us brightly lit by the lights at the city dock. There were no other pleasure craft there, but we did have five small (coastal) shrimp boats as neighbors. With full stomachs and still recovering from the long day yesterday, it was once again a night when the lights on Lucky Us were out quite early...
No comments:
Post a Comment