#15: The Atchafalaya Swamp Tour

Louisiana Bound (2008) Part 15 of 40 - The Atchafalaya Swamp Tour As everyone stood around and talked there was a question about whether SSP's (Support Service Providers) could be admitted free of charge. The final outcome seemed fair to me. Everyone had to pay $12 instead of the regular $20 charge. That was a nice break for all of us. Boarding the boat was tricky. The step from the ramp deck was iffy as the vessel was rocking a little. But no one landed in the swamp. It was a tight fit backing out from the dock after the captain released the ropes securing the boat. I spotted wide open water as we proceeded forward into the swamp. I didn't catch the Captain's name. I think he liked to be called Captain. He was rough in appearance, much like the French fisherman I grew up with in Nova Scotia. In some ways he was a typical narrator who had a good sense of humor and loved to joke around a bit. In other ways, he was serious, knowing the swamp was not always nice to visitors so his knowledge and skill gave them an extra edge. The whole water area served as the Captain's "backyard" from the time he was a kid. The Captain said, "When my parents sent my brother and I out into the backyard to play, our backyard was the Atchafalaya Swamp." He claimed to know it as well as he knew the back of his hand. I looked at the back of my hand. "Oh, is that what it looks like." I did doubt whether or not he knew the back of his hand, but I was pretty much certain that he knew the swamp. We headed in a northern direction towards the I-10 bridges. How fast were we going? About 12 knots, maybe. Okay, I never could understand knots either. Let me simplify it! A knot is equivalent to 1. 15 miles. Here's the way I see it. Consider a mile being the bill you get at a restaurant. Now pay the tip, ah, 10 percent. Now pay and another 5 percent for reasonable service. Your mile bill is now equivalent to one knot? Breaking it down into big-size always works for me. So, into the swamp we went! Captain tried to give us a feel for that body of water with facts, jokes, fables, and even some long stories. There was a fable about two lovers. The young man grew a long beard and while jumping down from a cypress tree he got his beard caught in the branches. That is why there is all this silky fluffy stuff called spanish moss hanging from cypress trees in swampy the areas. There was another story about getting lost in a storm. This one was true. The Captain got his prominent passengers back home even though he had to reject their decision to go in a certain direction. They thought they knew the way to get back. They were wrong! He went against their decision and got them back home safely. As a teenager then, he made a stand. It was also a child-rearing story. For if those businessmen had reported any bad behavior to his father, he would get the tar whipped out of him. It turned out though that he was right. They were glad to get back to the dock and out of a violent thunder and lightning storm. As the open-sided, roof covered, flat bottom boat motored further into the swamp, especially as we passed the possible sighting area for alligators, it became apparent that the wide open waters were a myth. The swamp closed in and it seemed a boat could get lost. But the captain informed us that by turning the motor off, we'd be able to hear the sound of traffic on the 17-or-so mile-long I-10 bridge. That is, for those of us who had good hearing! That bridge was a marvel! It was built by planting round concrete posts 150 feet into the floor of the Atchafalaya swamp. Most likely, the pillars were constructed by pouring concrete into a large hollow shell. Yeah, I am guessing as I do not really know, But I can't picture anything picking up those gigantic posts. And there were thousands of them needed for the bridges. In the boat while under the bridge, it was like being in a tunnel of pillars. The pilings were so close together and so huge that they appeared to be walls on both sides. How could construction workers get it so straight to have that effect? There was also something about rescue vehicles being able to cross the traffic to go in the opposite direction while on the bridges which ran east and west. That doesn't sound too difficult except the two bridges were separated by water. Yeah, somehow certain sections of each bridge had to branch over to join both bridges. That way any rescue vehicle in the area could access an accident site from either direction. It is hard to remember all that the Captain spoke about, but in here and there I will recall some of what he said. I think, by the time we reached the bridges, it began to register with Captain that his passengers were mostly deafblind. There were three or four French visitors behind where Melanie and I sat. Being young adults, I would say, and maybe University students, they were quiet, but having a good time. Anyway, Captain, as we called him, would speak in French for them at times. He was a little rusty, but seemed to get his points across. The bouncing plants in the water were called water hyacinths which pretty much were bobbing all over the swamp. Thousands of plants! They had been imported into the swamp, courtesy of a regular business deal with the Japanese. The price was very reasonable. But something wasn't obvious in the deal and that was that each plant which floats on the water produces up to 17,000 shoots, according to Captain. That means the Louisiana government spends about a million or more dollars thinning out the plants every year. It was now early spring! The water levels had risen as much as ten feet. Maybe that was good for the water hyacinth, but to the degree it affected the crawfish, I am not sure. Millions of crawfish are buried in the swamp floor and conditions must be right for them to survive. The general feeling was conditions were not right. And Baton Rouge depended heavily on the swamp. The main restaurant foods were fish and crawfish. That's another story! Written by Harvey A. Bond

 

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