Louisiana – Bayous and Plantations

The Beagle set sail from southern Florida on the Ides of March, making two stops – one in Ocala and one in Pensacola – before finding safe harbour in Louisiana on St Patrick’s Day, March 17th.  The Beagle enjoyed fair weather on this leg of the voyage but put into port just as the forecasts were becoming less favourable in the coming days.  Indeed, while moored  just outside New Orleans, we learned that the shipping lanes between Louisiana and Texas were closed due to excessive rain and flooding, making it possible that that the Beagle would have to alter course far to the north to circumnavigate the closure.

 

 

The doughty crew explored the area, with Mr. Darwin enjoying the bayous very much, observing the water fowl, listening to the the bull frogs and walking the adjoining leafy lanes.  Eventually needing to  obtain victuals, the crew happened upon a local purveyor called “Rouses Market”. It was here that the crew was able to purchase freshly cooked crawdads, boiled in Louisiana cajun spices.  It had been many years since the Captain and Master had put into port in Louisiana, but they certainly  remembered the very fine experience of dining on freshly boiled, spicy crawdads.  

The next day the crew set off to survey the local countryside along the Mississippi River, which flows south into the Gulf of Mexico past the great port of New Orleans.  Just up stream from New Orleans there remain the vestiges of a time gone by when very large cotton plantations lined the river.  Before the American civil war, these plantations were home to some of the wealthiest people in the country.  One can still see, and visit, a few of these big houses along the way.  Nowadays, large oil refineries and chemical plants are also located along the riverside where they can get access to shipping. The river is contained by levies that hold the water back from flooding the fields which are generally lower than the river.  One can often see the tops of large oil tankers towering above the levies and indeed far above the river road which lines the river.  The area is an extraordinary jumble of refineries, old plantation houses, strip residential development, ancient trailer parks and, where these are all absent, the river road is lined with vast fields of sugar cane.