Christmas Eve! 🎄
Here we are, in Empire, Louisiana and this area, the Bayou, is a VERY interesting area to say the least....
We came into the Empire lock, a small channel off of the Mississippi River, and we needed to go through and under a swingbridge to get diesel at the Marina fuel dock. With the cold temperatures the last couple of days, the bridge that stood between us and the fuel dock, was frozen in the closed position! 🥴
A current was pushing us into the bridge, as did the cold wind! Oops!
But, we got permission to tie off right there and did so in a hurry, and spent the night.
Phew, VERY happy we didn't end up on "epic boat fails "!
Diesel then was available for us to purchase the next morning with the dinghy. We weren't even going to try again with the Gem, as this area experiences tidal ranges of enough to strand us with even our shallow 5 foot draft. 😳 This Harbour is full of fishing and shrimping boats!
After getting diesel, we continued the short distance to Venice to get in position for the Gulf of Mexico crossing!
Venice is just about 20nm (37km) from the Gulf entrance.
Here we would wait for the weather window necessary to get us past the Yucatán Peninsula into Panama. Soo close.....
The Bayou is a bit spooky... all the "fingers", hundreds of small and shallow channels, that veer off the Mississippi River, and form the Delta. Theycreate a huge watery net, with here and there a Houseboat, or structures of some sorts, and cows, confirming there IS life out here.... very strange feeling!
We are now at Louisiana's "End Of The Road", Louisiana's Southern most point. Cool!
This whole area was hit soo hard during Hurricane Katrina in 2005! Many people left and never came back.
They get many, many Hurricanes that come through here, unfortunately being in the Delta comes with risks of this kind.
It's a very sad sight to see happen to a once booming area.
The people that stayed behind, or returned, are very resilient! They rebuilt the best they could, and started over after every Hurricane...
Offshore oil companies have moved out over the years, commercial fishing and shrimping boats have closed their doors, too many governmental restrictions, leaving many to seek employment elsewhere, or if they chose to stay, they'd now have to make do with living off of the land and the sea.
If they rebuild their houses, in order to get insurance, they now have to build to a minimum height of 12 feet (3,5-4 meters) off
the ground, on stilts, pylons.
So, here we are waiting for a 5 day weather window to get us through the Yucatán Channel safely!
(Can you find the Gem ? 👍🏻🤣)