River and Bayou

Two milestones today. First, I left the State of Mississippi behind. Louisiana is now on both riverbanks. And second, I left the Mississippi River. I turned right at Carr Point into Carr Cutoff and locked through the Old River Lock in early evening. I’m now swatting mosquitoes sitting on the muddy banks of Lower Old River about two miles from the Atchafalaya River.

My last day on the Mighty Mississippi was quite a day. You’d think that maybe, this being Labor Day, the barges might take the day off. Nope. They were out in full force. And, boy, was the water choppy because of them. The waves caused by all that traffic made for one heck of a bumpy ride all day long.

The moment I entered Carr Cutoff, I entered a new world. Gone were the waves and chop I had dealt with all day. The water was smooth as glass. Both banks of the cutoff were just an easy paddle away. It was small, quiet, and barge-free. Oh. And there was no Lock and Dam in sight. There also wasn’t any current.

Checking my chart to make sure I hadn’t made a wrong turn, it was a twenty minute paddle before I saw the Lock just beyond the first bend. The Lock was huge! Far larger and far more imposing than those on the Upper Mississippi. And it looked closed for the holiday! I paddled up to the end of the approach wall where I expected to find a bell rope so I could signal the lock attendant that I wanted to lock through. But there wasn’t any! So after scouting around for about thirty minutes looking for a way to announce my arrival, I finally pulled over onto a convenient patch of deep muddy river bank, dug my laptop out of my gear, and opened the digital Atachafalaya Chart folio file. I needed to find what VHF radio channel the lock was monitoring for traffic. That info was in the chart folio.

Finding they were monitoring Channel 14 (I initially thought they’d be up on 13) I radioed them and, as you can imagine, was very much relieved to hear a voice respond back. A half-hour later, the lock master wished me luck as I passed through the west gate into the Navigation Channel.

It’s six miles of paddling from the Old River Lock to the Atchafalaya River (at Mile 0.) There’s no current anywhere in those six miles and no sandbars. Just mud-lined banks. And there was no way was I going to paddle those six miles before sunset, so I needed to find a place to camp. Fortunately, if I could get across the mud with my camping gear, there were decent campsites just beyond. So I paddled until I found a spot where the mud was the least, secured the canoe, and made camp about thirty minutes before sunset. And about one minute before the mosquitoes came out in full force! (I’m glad I packed two extra bottles of mosquito repellent. Looks like I’m going to need both of them. And my mosquito head net, too!)

And that was today’s paddle. It was a very long day. But I’m almost onto the Atchafalaya and the final leg of this summer’s adventure. And four nights and five days from the end.