An Ocean View

We were standing on a small sand beach, the canoe drug out of the water, looking out upon the open ocean and hoping David didn't decide to turn back, that he saw us pull over to shore.  He had been paddling for just under 4 months from the source of the Mississippi in Lake Itasca towards this point, this moment and I hoped he wouldn't turn around a quarter mile short.  Unfortunately we hadn't expected the mouth of the river to be full of islands blocking our view of ocean.  We had expected to be able to hit the mouth and see ocean, instead we had been paddling in salt water along shore for an hour longer than expected and just now found an open lane of view into the Gulf.  Greg and I had nearly given up a few minutes before but decided to continue just a bit longer, to go a bit further, unwilling to turn around after 3,300 miles of paddling from the source of the Missouri River without sight of the ocean we sought.

And finally here we stood, reflecting back on 120 days, a cold beer in hand, bottle of whisky sitting in the sand, puffing on a cigar unable to take our eyes off that lane of open ocean as David came paddling up breaking into our view from behind the foliage overhanging the bank.  We pulled his canoe up onto shore and he jumped out to admire the view which almost looked like an illusion, with islands on both sides and the air shimmering in the distance it could have been a Dakota lake the far shore out of sight in the distance. Two boats resting side by side one had traveled 2,400 miles from the source of the Mississippi and the other 3,340 from the source of the Missouri leaving on the nearly the same day in August and arriving here, at the ocean, on the same day in December.

We had been traveling with David off and on from Vicksburg, Mississippi where we had been introduced to him through Davey another paddler. Most nights we ended up camping with David and in the morning he munch down Pop-Tarts and a Little Debbie before jumping into his canoe and heading downstream.  About an hour later after a hot breakfast, two cups of coffee, and some quiet we would push off behind him.  In the afternoon about an hour before we'd start looking for a camp we'd overtake David, exchange hello's, and by the time we were pulling over to a nice little campsite he would be a distant speck upriver.  It wouldn't take him long though to pull in behind us and set up his hammock in a stand of trees and get a fire going to cook his modest dinner of mac and cheese or cheesy potatotoes.

He was a good kid, about 23 years old, who had been living in a hammock for nearly 2 years.  He's the one that brought the Atchafalaya River to our attention as an alternate route to the ocean.  We hadn't heard of it but it turns out to be the "True course of the Mississippi River" as a Greg's cousin and local Tug Pilot informed us during our subsequent research.  The river wants desperately to flow down this alternate channel but the Army Corps of Engineers is doing everything in their power to stop it because if the Mississippi changes course it will detour around Baton Rouge and New Orleans.  Not good for those two large economies.  Presently 30% of the Mississippi waters turn off the main channel and form the Atchafalya River and the experts predict that during the next big seasonal flood the river will change course despite the efforts of the Corps and New Orleans will suddenly become a river town without a river.

We opted to take the Atchafalaya for the final stretch for one huge reason... Less commercial traffic and industry.  The last stretch from Baton Rouge to the Gulf is one long industrial corridor with constant barge and freighter traffic.  A paddler David had traveled with briefly a few weeks before had made the ocean around the time we met and described seeing over 100 barges a day during this stretch and acquiring a serious headache due to the inhalation of severe industrial air pollution throughout the corridor.

Alternately the Atchafalaya was a beautiful river with lots of wildlife, swamp, narrower channel and little boat  traffic.  It's a popular hunting area so on one morning in particular we woke up to the sounds of war.  The cajuns were the victors and I'm sure even now their families are well fed on a waterfowl diet.  According to Greg's cousin we were hitting the river during fog season and sure enough every morning we awoke to dense fog and would push off into the river with zero visibility.  It was a beautiful and peaceful river to paddle in the fog unlike the Mississippi where at any moment you could unknowingly be playing chicken with a barge.  By mid morning, sometimes near noon, the fog would begin to clear and the channel would be revealed.

But now we stand on a sand bank, taking photos, talking about the rivers behind us, eyes drawn to the ocean ahead, swigging from a whisky bottle, putting off the 20 mile paddle upriver back to Morgan City, LA.