Day 39 (Saltwater at last!)

Daily stats
Start: 7:28 AM- French Quarter, New Orleans
Finish: 2:14 PM - Between Lake Borgne and Lake Pontchartrain
Time: 6:46
Daily dist: 28 miles
Total dist: 1,191 miles
Companions: none
Weather: Started in the low 30s, reaching upper 40s by mid-afternoon.  Partly cloudy, with a breeze out of the north.
Notes:  Warmer weather ahead

First a thank you to Bill Strickland for picking me up and giving me a place to stay while passing through New Orleans.  I'm not sure how this trip would have gone without all the help from people like Bill here in New Orleans and last week Michael up in Baton Rouge.  Thank you everyone that has helped me on this trip.  I truly appreciate it.

Bill seeing me off at the steps near the St.Louis Cathedral in New Orleans

Waving good by to Bill - photo by Bill Strickland

Saltwater at last!

At 8:15 this morning, after descending ten feet, the downstream doors of the New Orleans Industrial Lock opened onto the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and I paddled out into salt water at last! I said it to my friends in the beginning that I wouldn’t feel like I was really doing this trip until I made it to the Gulf. Somehow up to this point it has been something I wanted to do or was trying to do. Now I feel that I can stand on my own and declare that this trip is something that I AM doing.

Lock doors opening into the Intracoastal Waterway linked to the Gulf of Mexico

As far as paddling goes the ocean is my home turf and when I caught a glimpse through a side channel of the clear horizon on the open gulf I must say that it feels good to be home. The oppressive size and raw energy of the Mississippi river is behind me and while I already miss the incredible distances the river’s fast flowing current allows, it is a relief to be off the river into more stable and predictable waters. The feeling is like when a loud noise you were talking over is suddenly shut off. You may not have noticed the stress it was causing but you appreciate the sudden calm. Today I felt like I had turned off a fast moving busy interstate onto a quiet neighborhood street.

Up to today, I had never paddled the Ikkuma fully loaded in flat water. Almost all of my experience paddling the Ikkuma fully loaded was on the fast moving Mississippi. I had no clue what kind of pace I would be able to maintain in that boat. I had only predicted that I would be able to do a sustained pace of 3 miles per hour. Today I was happy to see that I could maintain a somewhat better 4 mile per hour pace which will allow me to do my planned 25 miles per day with a few miles to spare.

I stopped a bit early today at 22 miles because beyond here there is very little dry ground to be had for another 20 miles. I’m set up on a ridge of land that was deposited here by the dredging operation that created the canal I was paddling. It’s a nice spot all things considered, not much more than a rough grassy bank but way better than the mucky salt marsh that is the norm in this region. Finding today’s camp site was a crux move and something I’ve been stressing over since last week. I spotted the lighter colored ground of this bank on Google Earth and assumed it was something other (and hopefully dryer) than the black soil and marsh that surrounds it. I really didn’t know what was here, and if this spot would work out until I arrived at 2:00 this afternoon. I had back up plan but it would have meant hours more paddling and a lot of stress. It made my day when I saw how nice this spot is today.

If I had known the camping would have been this nice never would have worried.

Besides the nice camp spot, today everything seemed to fall in place. I had heard rumor that the Industrial Lock can be very busy with barge traffic that can lead to hours long delays. However, luck was with me when I called to check in with the lock this morning and learned that there is a bridge curfew on the two draw bridges that flank the lock, and that no barge traffic can go through until after the morning rush hour. It pays to be small because I easily paddled under the bridges and locked through all alone in less than a half hour. From there I made great time and enjoyed the first truly warm day of paddling I’ve had so far, in fact this was the first pogey free (paddling mitten) day I’ve had as well. I also discovered that GorTex must have a temperature below which moisture simply condenses faster than it can pass through the fabric. It was warmer today than ever before but I stayed dry and comfortable inside my paddling clothes all day long.

Being on less intense water brought with it something else that has been missing with this trip so far… people. For nearly the first time I saw boats other than barges and ships out using the water for recreation be it fishing, hunting, or just boating. They were a welcome site and made me fell much less alone on the water. Even the tow operators (which there still are many) seemed less annoyed by my presence than they did on the river. I got more than a few waves and a few hearty hellos from tow captains and crew as they passed by. Two young men I encountered near a huge Billion dollar Army Corps project even slowed and approached me in their personnel transport boats to say hello and to find out just what on earth I was doing. They seemed hard pressed to get their head around the magnitude of my trip, I believe, mostly because they are not familiar with what sea kayaks can do.

From here I have a few more miles to paddle before I cross the Pearl river and float back into Mississippi State waters and the open Gulf.