11/18/2024
For those who are cruising from New Orleans.
LONG READ BUT WORTH IT!
There are great things to see as we go down the river. So much history.
Interesting facts about traveling down the Mississippi River
Before sail away, the building from where we boarded the ship was built in 2005-2006 and opened in October 2006. It sits on the site of the 1984 World’s Fair, and specifically where the Mississippi Aerial River Transit system terminated on the east bank of the Mississippi River. The MART was a ski-lift like passenger system that carried passengers across the river.
Just in front of the ship are the two bridges of the Crescent City Connection. Many people call them the twin bridges, but if you look carefully, they are not twins at all. The first bridge was built from 1954 to 1958 and was called the Greater New Orleans Bridge. It was the second bridge to span the Mississippi River south of Baton Rouge, the first being the Huey P. Long Bridge. The second bridge (the one closer to the ship) was built from 1981 to 1988. The two bridges were called the GNO Bridge until they were renamed in 1989. The CCC is the official name, but it is still commonly referred to as the GNO.
The trip from the Westbank (Algiers, Gretna), to the Eastbank (French Quarter, Garden District, Metairie, and Kenner) was a toll span of $1.00 charged to each car. The tolls were removed in February 2013. The lights on the bridge are decorative. There are 4 strings of 64 lights totaling 256 lights to light the two bridges.
As the ship pulls away from the dock and turns in the river, you can get an excellent view of the bridges from the starboard side.
Shortly after turning in the river you will see the French Quarter on the port side. The French Quarter is full of history and is the main reason most people come to New Orleans to visit, and many wind up staying. It is bordered on the upriver side by Canal Street, the downriver side by Esplanade Avenue, and by Rampart Street on the inland side.
(12 minutes after departure)
Just as we pass Jackson Square we will start to make a corner in the river, that corner is Algiers Point (starboard side). It is one of the deepest portions of the river, somewhere around 200 feet deep just off the point. River traffic at this section is restricted to one way with vessels going downriver having right of way. An air traffic controller style tower that serves as a river traffic control tower can be seen on the New Orleans side of the river at Governor Nicholls Street Wharf. Algiers Point is 96.4 miles "AHP" or above Head of Passes on the Mississippi River. The Passes refer to the point in the river just down from Pilottown where the river splits 3 ways.
(20 minutes after departure)
Shortly after Algiers Point we will pass by the abandoned remains of the Piety Street Wharf and Louisa Street Wharf (port side). This was the location used in the setting of the music video “Separate Ways” by Journey. The wharves burned in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Another fire in 2009 burned the Piety Street Wharf. Shortly after this, we will pass by two large navy ships that actually belong to the ready reserve fleet of Navy vessels. The
ships are kept up and maintained by the Keystone Corporation to be activated with 5 days’ notice. The ships are named "Cape Kennedy" and "Cape Knox".
The next thing you’ll notice is Jackson Barracks. It is the current home of the Louisiana National Guard. It is located in the Lower 9th Ward.
The big factory on the port side is the Domino Sugar refinery, the domed structure on the property is one of the largest sugar storage facilities in the world. If you eat anything with sugar in it in or near New Orleans (probably including the ship) it passed through this facility. There was an old abandoned plantation (LeBeau Plantation) that once sat on the property but burned down on November 22, 2013.
The next big thing is the monument at the Chalmette National Battlefield. The Battle was fought after the peace treaty had been signed, but was not ratified by the U.S. Congress until after the battle had occurred.
After the Battlefield, you will see the city of Chalmette and the oil refinery there. This is the first of the refineries you will see, and you will see many oil support stations along the river and out into the Gulf, where you will see drilling rigs.
(1 hour, 28 minutes after departure)
After Chalmette, we will pass the communities of Meraux, Violet, and Poydras, before reaching English Turn.
After the point of English Turn, we will pass Belle Chasse on the starboard side, which is home to Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base New Orleans, a Naval Air Station for the U.S. Navy Reserve which was founded in 1941.
Between Belle Chasse and Pointe à la Hache you will see the Harlem Plantation house on the port side. It was built in 1840 and added to the national register of historic places in 1982. This plantation was a Louisiana Creole plantation house, similar to Plantation Laura.
(3 hours, 14 minutes after departure)
The next town of any size you will see is Pointe à la Hache. It is connected to West Pointe à la Hache by a river ferry operated by the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development. It started service in 1933 and its future is questionable. The Woodland Plantation is in West Pointe à la Hache and is known as the plantation on the bottle of Southern Comfort. It is on the National Register of Historic Places. This area was devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Isaac. Isaac flooded most of West Pointe à la Hache and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill killed some fish in waterways up river from here. Pointe à la Hache’s population in 2010 was 187.
Downriver from Pointe à la Hache is Bohemia, which had a population of about 200 people prior to Hurricane Katrina, but the storm only left about 25 homes inhabitable. The town is only 7 feet above sea level. It also serves as the last town on the road that follows the Eastbank of the Mississippi river.
The next town is Port Sulphur and was founded in the early 1930s around the Freeport Sulphur Company which refined sulphur from nearby mines. In the early 2000’s Freeport Sulphur shut down due to low prices on sulphur. The land was sold and what was left of the plant was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The town sits 8 feet above sea level and was under 22 feet of water during the flooding. Most of the single family homes in the town were destroyed, and moved off their foundations by as much as 100 feet. Before Hurricane Katrina, the population of the town was 3,115. In the 2010 census it was down to 1,760.
(3 hours, 59 minutes after departure)
We pass the next navigation obstacle, the turn at Port Sulphur.
Just after the bend the next town is Empire, which when combined with Venice, a little further downriver, is the third largest seafood port in the United States by weight. Empire was also devastated by the storm and flooding as a result of Hurricane Katrina. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill also caused an immediate stop to all seafood landings here and many did not return for a year or more.
Buras-Triumph is an area formed in the 1840’s. It was originally a farming community raising citrus, and a fishing community with oysters being the main product. In the 1930’s oil was discovered in Quarantine Bay east of Buras. This started the oil boom in the region and is now the largest product of this area. Katrina also took her toll here as this was the part of Louisiana where the eye of the storm made landfall. The storm destroyed the town’s water tower which has been replaced.
(4 hours, 50 minutes after departure)
The next major landmark will be Fort Jackson (visible) and Fort St. Phillip (invisible). Fort Jackson is on the starboard side and is a decommissioned masonry fort around 40 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi river. It was constructed between 1822 and 1832 to protect the city of New Orleans and the Mississippi River. It was used as a fort and military training facility until after WWI. It was turned over to Plaquemines Parish in 1962. It was almost put into service during the 1960s as a prison for hippies and desegregation advocates who entered the Parish, but this never occurred. It was later used as a park and has been closed to the public since Hurricane Isaac in 2012. It was used as a bird cleaning station in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, but this station was moved to Hammond, La later to make it less vulnerable to hurricanes.
Across the river is Fort St. Phillip, which was a masonry fort on the East bank of the Mississippi. It was originally established as San Felipe, during the 1700’s when Spain had control of Louisiana. The fort was used to hold back the British during the war of 1812. It was also a part of the 12 day siege against it and Fort Jackson during the civil war. In the 1930’s it was used as a tanning factory. From 1978 to 1989 it served as the headquarters of the non- sectarian spiritual community Velaashby. The name was formed by combining the surnames of the land owners prior to this community being established. There were as many as 16 members of this community and were known as the Christos family. They resided in three of the two story officer’s quarters and the officer’s club that remained after the refortification during the Spanish-American war of 1898. The fort was badly damaged during Katrina and Rita, and only a few of the masonry structures still exist. It is only reachable via boat or aircraft as it remains flooded much of the year and there are no roads.
(5 hours, 19 minutes after departure)
The next town is the last town on the road, Venice. It is considered "the end of the road" and it is. Any town after this one is reached by boat or aircraft. Venice is the home base to many seafood and oil operations. It is the last place that a vehicle can reach before goods have to be transferred by boat. The population before Katrina was 460, after Katrina it is 202. It was also greatly impacted by the oil spill. The pilot boat that you see just before the Boothville-Venice Fire Station is with the Bar Pilots. The pilot boards when the ship pass right there but doesn't take over until the Crescent Pilot who guided the ship from New Orleans gets off in Pilottown.
(5 hours, 54 minutes after departure)
Next we will slow down quite a bit as we near Pilottown. At Pilottown a pilot boat will catch up to us and meet us to exchange pilots. The Crescent Pilot who joined us in New Orleans will disembark, and the Bar Pilot who boarded in Venice will take over and navigate us through Southwest Pass.
Pilottown was built as a replacement for LaBalize which was south of here. The town is built on piers and raised above ground level, which is prone to flooding. While the town has a ZIP code, the Post Office in the town was closed after the U.S. Postal Service could not find a Postmaster willing to live in the village. The one room school was closed in the 1970s.
(6 hours, 1 minute after departure)
The village is just a few miles upriver from the Head of Passes. This is the point from which all mile markers along the Mississippi river are counting. The passes split 3 ways and are considered the "mouth" of the Mississippi. We will take the western most pass, called Southwest Pass. All large ship traffic takes Southwest Pass as it is the only one cleared enough for deep draft vessels.
As we enter Southwest Pass, you can notice that we start seeing more navigational beacons. The safe path is between the red and green lights. They are spaced evenly throughout Southwest Pass and into the Gulf.
We will pass a few tank farms and a couple of seaplane bases before entering the Gulf.
After 7 hours and 16 minutes of travel, we will enter the Gulf of Mexico.
We will pause shortly after entering the Gulf to disembark the Bar Pilot, then the Captain will put the pedal to the metal and we will be making 24 knots by the time you wake up. If you wait just a few more minutes, the ocean waves will rock you to sleep.
Just for reference, if we leave port at 4:30 pm, it will be roughly 11:45 pm when we get to the Gulf of Mexico.
