We left our marina on the south shore of Ponchartrain and motored a couple miles west and then south to enter the Industrial Canal. The path we took through New Orleans is shown with a red line beside it.
This is the first bridge as we headed south on the Industrial Canal. The bridge operator responded quickly to a call on VHF 13 and raised the bridge as we approached. After that bridge it was all downhill from there. First I got confused about which bridge was an L & N RR Bridge and twice called it to open after I had already passed. Then we had to wait over 90 minutes for tows to get through the Industrial lock which is shown below.
After we cleared the lock and bridges on the Industrial Canal we entered the Mississippi River and headed up river. A Louisiana Power Squadron member I had contacted warned me about what I had to do to get through New Orleans. First, a boat entering the Mississippi River has to call Vessel Traffic Control (VTC) and tell them who you are, where you are, and where you are going. Within a 1/2 mile the VTC was calling "the powerboat near the Navy Ships". Since this sounded like me I called and found out that, although I had reported my information on VHF Ch 67, now the correct VTC channel was VHF 12 as of 8 days ago. So I was trying to monitor Ch 13 for commercial traffic, Ch 67 for Vessel to Vessel, Ch 12 for VTC, and Ch 14 for the locks. It was confusing because at the same time I was trying to sight see things like downtown New Orleans shown above.
Kaye and I have been to New Orleans many times, and I had raced cars in downtown New Orleans twice, but the view was definitely different then on land. This building was right on the waterfront and the trolley that runs though downtown is visible at the base of the building.
This is looking back at downtown with a cruise boat tied up near the main downtown bridge. Vessel Traffic Control had told me to call in when I reached this bridge. The VTC acts like "Air Traffic Controllers." They tell boats where to go, and warn you of other traffic coming. Upon entering the Mississippi they had said there was no traffic coming towards me on the river. About three miles further up river we turned towards Harvey Lock. Unfortunately, just then two tows (tugs pushing 1-2 barges) stopped on the river bank decided to start up and go into the Harvey Lock right where I was headed.
To give the tows room, I turned slightly right, more to the center of the river. Within a moment I heard an air horn blowing. Thinking it was the tows I stepped out of the pilothouse to discover much to my surprise that the horn was from a freighter about 1/4 mile behind us but heading right for us a 13 MPH. I immediately turned right at high speed to get out of the channel. A couple minutes later I took this picture of the freighter that had nearly impaled our American Tug on its bow.
After a few minutes to settle my nerves, we called the Harvey Lock on VHF 14 to request lockage. Much to my surprise they told us to come in and tie up next to a tow. Here we are in the lock.
After a nerve racking day in unfamiliar territory we decided to stop a little early and tied up at a bulkhead at the Boomtown Casino. We walked over to see what was inside and found multiple rooms on multiple floors with hundreds of people gambling. Most were in front of game machines. We played $5.00 in a "slot machine" and went back to the boat.
The next day we headed west on the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway (GIWW). The waterway distances west of Harvey Lock are indicated in miles WHL meaning west of Harvey Lock. The waterway was narrow with some spots curving through Bayous and other areas straight and partially man made. The town we passed showed the importance of fishing to their economy.
We had seen signs advertising air boats rides to explore the swamps and bayous of Louisiana. This was the first air boat we saw.
The GIWW is very commercial. Business servicing fishing or the oil industry are common. Near passages out to the Gulf of Mexico we would see these oil well service business congregated. These boats shown are called crew boats. These boats carry crew in the forward compartments out to off shore oil rigs, thus the name crew boats, but they also carry supplies to the rigs. The supplies can include water, drill "mud", diesel fuel, food, and equipment which was often welded to the rear deck.
In some areas there are dormitories for off shore crew that typically work 12 hours days with 14 days on and 14 days off.
We had seen evidence of hurricane Katrina damage all the way from Mobile.
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