Alligators Can Kill You

Wednesday, April 3rd. 3 Oaks and a Pine RV Park, New Orleans. 

This is our remaining day of nice-weather in New Orleans so we headed back east on highway 90 to the Pearl River Wildlife Management Area for an eco-tour. Tomorrow and Friday the weather will be crap; tomorrow in particular we’re expecting heavy rain so we’ll go indoors to the WW II museum that we couldn’t see last year because I had a bad cold. Friday is still to be determined — hopefully the weather improves. 

Lorraine asked that on the tour we avoid airboats;  We have travelled on those once in the Everglades and I’m happy to agree; Airboats are very noisy and a little unnerving as they move over land and shimmy sideways. We leafed through the ubiquitous pamphlets from the office to find one with a small boat and motor and found one that runs for two hours around through the Honey Bayou area of the Pearl River. I called to reserve even though it was already well after hours and had a very nice, long chat with a man who found us a spot on the Noon tour and talked to me about life in Fort Pike. This is a really quaint little village on Lake St. Catherine that Lorraine and I had added to our list of places we could live as we came in. He did mention that it’s beautiful there but you have to be prepared for the tropical depressions that do come every summer and mean they have to park their cars on the highway for a few days. A simple tropical storm can leave the town knee deep in water; Katrina covered them with 23 feet. But it is beautiful — and they don’t get snow and ice storms. I could spend the winter and springs here for sure...

Morning came a little early and maybe a little rough. Could have been the double bourbons we had in the bar the night before but we didn’t really feel drunk at all as we ubered back to the park. Might be the allergies that are certainly increasing as things come into flower here. Regardless, this was nothing that a couple of coffees, a good walk for the dogs, Claritin, and a shower couldn’t fix. 

The drive back out on Highway 90 was just as lovely as the drive in had been the day before — lots of sun with the ocean marshes on one side of the road and Lake Pontchartrain on the other. 

We arrived just before noon to a sign that said “Don’t go near the water. Alligators Can Kill You”. 

I think this is more to amuse and frighten tourists than any specific alligator threat. Unlike Florida, Louisiana rarely has any alligator attacks on humans despite the huge number of gators that are here. Or at least that’s what the colourful young man who would be our guide on the trip would tell us. 

There were only four of us on the tour a nice slightly older couple from Wisconsin. Our guide was a very buff 20-something Louisianan guide who is also university student, fishing guide and a waiter at Copelands Restaurant in Slidell. The open-topped jon-boat could easily carry 12 people and was powered by a 150hp evinrude with great acceleration.

We started the tour off in a back bay that I assume they keep well stocked with Gators including the 11foot long “Elvis” who is the alpha-male; the guide had no problem finding them. Apparently there are thirty or forty females in the half-mile of river that he would call his territory. We also encountered a second six-foot long male and an two foot long baby gator; A fun way to start.

Rubble and junk from Katrina and other storms is everywhere. Apparently, Louisiana doesn’t have a salvage law to force people to pull old junk boats out of the water when they sink; I suppose this is a function of the economics — a lot of people who work on the water wouldn’t have the money to salvage even if forced. A different approach from Ontario where an ice-hut in the lake results in a very large and very thorough salvage bill plus a fine if you let one go through the ice - a boat or a car would get a similar treatment. I think I prefer our approach as the Pearl River was really pretty junky in places.

The intent of the tour was to see the swamp and not wildlife but we saw plenty — Great Blue Herons, “Herrings” our guide called them; White Bellied Kingfishers ( bigger than our belted kingfishers by a factor of two); great egrets; a few water snakes, and lots of turtles of a variety of types but mostly red-eared sliders.

For me the best part of the tour was to see some of the vegetation — there are large Cypresses here, not old growth as in Corkscrew Swamp but good old second growth. These trees are protected now in Louisiana — you could get in more trouble for hurting a tree or gator than you can for hurting a person, apparently. The Bald Cypress are beautiful, soft bark, tall and straight with tattered crowns covered in Spanish Moss, surrounded by Cypress Knees poking out of the water; my favourite tree of eastern North America. I avoided corrected the guide when he mistakenly gave the old story that the knees bring air to the roots.  We learned about Water Hyacinth and Elephant Ears — destructive but pretty invasive species and a beneficial invasive species that looked like a cross between pampas grass and bamboo that holds marshland in place.

We went up the actual heart of the Honey Bayou — featured in a number of movies including Swamp Thing and Live and Let Die — really beautiful and were treated to some really swell jokes by the guide... “What’s the loneliest Bayou? — Bayou Self. What did the Swamp say to the Marsh? I want to be Bayou”. We learned the different terms they have — swamp is a forest that is regularly wet and barely above water at the best of times; Marsh is a grassy area of saltwater wetlands ( here anyway). A bayou is any very slow moving body of water with a muddy bottom and could be in a Swamp or a Marsh. In the bayou we encountered an area occupied by feral pigs — these were cute little guys and probably very tasty given the amount of marshmallows thrown to them by tour guides... But they do occupy the bayous in the thousands and can be hunted at any time. 

After the tour we followed the guide’s recommendation ( wish I could remember his name — I suppose I could have made one up) to eat at the Copelands in Slidell — it was after 2 and we were famished. I was so hungry I considered knawing on the table; I really should have had more than an english muffin for breakfast. Copeland’s is a venerable New Orleans restaurant that’s now a bit of a chain but it did not disappoint. I followed the recommendation of The Guide who had suggested the Crab Beignets or The Stuffed Mushroom Caps both classic New Orleans style dishes. The Beignets were light, airy-crisp, tempura batter around rich balls of crab meat and a blistering horseradish rich remoulade. Lorraine had the mushroom caps and they were as good as any ever made in the 1980’s - tender well cooked mushrooms full of crab and hollandaise beautifully broiled almost to a scorch under the salamander; Rich and sweet but balanced by the earthiness of the mushrooms. Lorraine had an angel-hair pasta of crab stuffed shrimp with more shrimp in a mere breath of the lightest Alfredo sauce one could imagine. I had a catfish po’boy — light, crispy deep fried catfish with veggies and mayo on the lightest bun I have ever eaten. I didn’t imagine after eating three of the four beignets that I could possible eat the whole sandwich... It was gone before my Fries came... 

Lunch done, we drove back down to Highway 90 and across into New Orleans again and somehow I stayed awake. We stopped at a Wynn-Dixie where we were the only pink-skinned people in the whole store — we got more than a few looks. We didn’t really need dinner after a huge lunch so we shopped for breakfast food. It’ll be leftovers tonight and early to bed as the Museum tomorrow will make a long tiring day.