Hey Team,
Turns out updating a website while frantically barreling across the country in someone else’s truck on a tight deadline is a little more difficult than one may think. Blame the long BORING road for the dearth of posts this week. I’ll make up for it by making this a good one!
When I was passing through Louisiana I had the opportunity to take someone up on their offer to take me on a swamp boat ride with gators (#45)! Not a fan boat…but I’ve had several people write in and tell me how notoriously bad fan boats are for the ecosystem and now that I’ve actually seen one in action I’m not sure my conscience could take riding in it.
SO, thanks to Coerte (pronounced Kurt) over at The Atchafalaya Experience I was able to do one better! Kurt and his crew (son and grandson) have a set of much smaller boats that they use for swamp tours outside Lafayette, LA rigged with outboard motors, one of which will even continue to operate in soft mud. As a result they can get deeper into the swamp AND these guys love what they do. (I love people that love what they do…it usually means they’re good at it. No exception here.)
These guys are what made the whole adventure so great. It wasn’t like someone was just driving you around hoping you’d get to see some wildlife. They knew exactly where to go and what we were looking at. (Although since I have no idea what we were looking at from the beginning they could have just been making up names to see how much I would believe.)
But I do know I saw a pair of nesting bald eagles! And beavers and nutria and wood ducks and herons and turtles and owls and woodpeckers and bitters and alligators and crawfish and what may or may not have been a ROUS.
I even got to hold a baby alligator!
It was awesome. Period. Seeing that much wildlife in such a unique setting is just so impressive. The closest I have ever been to an environment like that (and some of you are going to hate me for this comparison) is the first show scene from Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland, you know, right outside the Blue Bayou restaurant. (I have a bad habit of comparing everything cool and/or unusual I see to something in a Disney theme park. Never travel Europe with me, it gets annoying fast.)
The plant life is so unique that it feels like you’re in another world. Spanish Moss (Fun Fact: Spanish Moss isn’t a moss, it’s a bromeliad and most closely related to the pineapple.) covered Cypress trees jut out from the water and buoyant plants create a weird green skin on the surface everywhere you look.
I guess you’ll get a much better look at this stuff in a week and a half when the podcast goes up on…you guessed it, Wednesday at 6pm Pacific!
#45 is done! Ka-KOW!!!
And so am I.
Brett.
Help support washing the swamp off my body.
Thanks!
That is totally awesome! (Oh my God, I’m starting to sound like you!)
The baby gator is adorable. Did it try to eat your fingers? How on earth did you spot it?
And Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Comment by Judy — March 17, 2008 @ 2:05 pm
Spanish moss is also an epiphyte and thrives in xeric conditions!
Comment by georgerocks — March 17, 2008 @ 2:07 pm
1. I brought it with me…y’know, for a snack.
2. I was expecting a rant about how often you have to wrestle gators the entire time I was writing that and you give me this made-up douchebag science instead?! I can’t believe I put up with this.
Comment by Brett — March 17, 2008 @ 6:18 pm
The large floating plants are Hyacinth… It’s an invasive species and kind of weed-like. African I think, originally. If you saw really tiny ones, that’s duckweed—one of the smallest of plants. If you catch the timing just right you get a lot of iris blooms out in the swamps too; it’s a close thing.
Comment by brianb — March 19, 2008 @ 6:52 am