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Sunday, April 04, 2004
Paddled down Big Alabama Bayou with Shawn Jolet on March 31, then did Little Bayou Pigeon and Cross Bayou to Murphy Lake, on the east side of the Basin with a group yesterday. First, Big Alabama. See the pictures here.
Big Alabama is very nice, with wide spots and narrow, a good mix of trees (not too many willows) and not much current. We put in at the upper end at a fairly crude boat ramp, after a several mile long shuttle run down to the other end. The roads can be kind of confusing if you don't know them, but after one time it's easy to figure out.
Little Bayou Pigeon and Murphy Lake were fun. The group was Shawn Jolet, Mike Bass and Scott Hitter in a two-man kayak, Robert Landreneau in another, Dave Snyder and myself. We put in at the larger boat ramp above Bayou Pigeon. There were about 150 cars and boat trailers parked there. We started paddling, and soon discovered that boaters on the east side of the Basin are less inclined to slow down for paddlers than those in the west.
I let Mike and Scott take the GPS and lead the way, which worked out pretty well. A couple of miles down Bayou Pigeon, Shawn noticed a cut running off to the south that looked like it would rejoin the main channel quickly. I said okay, let's take it. Probably two hours later, we rejoined the group, after flagging down a friendly fisherman named Mike who gave us a ride. Mike took Dave Snyder back to the landing. Dave hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, and was beat.
After a break, we kept paddling, up into Murphy Lake. Another fisherman told Shawn about a Bald Eagle nesting on one side of the lake. As he got close to it, it flew up and over and out of sight.
We left the lake behind, and turned south and west along a canal back to the landing. There were some beautiful, cypress-lined lakes and cuts along the canal. It makes me wonder what else is out there, cut off from any defined bayou. Near the end of our paddle, a motorboat came up behind us, bearing Dean Wilson and a group of tourists out on a swamp tour. Dean is trying to become the Riverkeeper for the Atchafalaya Basin, and finds out tomorrow. Dean's got an interesting story. Originally from Spain, he came to Louisiana to train himself up for the Amazon, and ended up staying. He's been running a swamp tour boat out of Bayou Sorrel for some years now, and is very concerned with the environment. And you can't help but be, out there. Every time I go out now, I see fresh sedimentation. It's scary.
James 3:53 PM [+]
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