By Linda Cooke
With a steady but mild south wind blowing lately, the water has risen a little. All boat launches at the Belle River landing are usable but there isn’t much activity. I did see two boats leaving today as I sat under the pavilion— both filled with flattened crawfish traps.
There is a lot of barge traffic lately. Seems to be mostly tankers. And there is at least one fairly large alligator hanging around one of the launches, most likely attracted by scraps tossed out of boats. And I did one day see two Roseate Spoonbills in the shallow water but they seem to be gone. My dog doesn’t help since she loves to chase them.
Just before getting to the landing on Hwy. 997 or Levee Hwy as we call it, a new campsite now has a brand new, concrete slab . The other site a little before this one has a new dirt road from the highway to the river with a camp back by the river. Perhaps not as permanent a structure as the other.
I usually go to the landing in the late afternoon when it is cooler and when there usually isn’t much activity. My dog is friendly but sometimes people aren’t and it is a public landing. Anyway, as I sit under the pavilion roof the vehicles leaving the landing pass me and often beep. I have noticed most are loaded with flattened crawfish traps.
Another thing I just noticed is no seagulls! Each piling holding the floating dock normally has one seagull perched at the top but I just noticed no gulls! Maybe it’s the time of day.
With no apparent crawfishing these days Hwy. 997 or Levee Hwy is pretty quiet. Not even many tanker trucks. Now that’s a blessing!!!!
And the mosquitoes aren’t bad, either. The sprayer does pass but not often. I wish the spray would damage the big, black grasshopper population but that doesn’t seem to happen. Those Lubber grasshoppers can chew a plant to the ground in a day. My neigihbor applied some fancy granules to her flower beds which doesn’t seem to have bothered the critters. I stick to an ant and roach killer from the dollar store which seems to kill them, assuming I see them.
My daughter and a friend spent the weekend with me and we drove to Four Mile Bayou one afternoon. I hadn’t been there in years. There were three, maybe four nice sized houseboats tied to the dock and the little convenience store was packed. The road to Four Mile Bayou is still not paved all the way to Gros Marina. Seems I’ve heard that money was appropriated for paving the remainder of the road several times but obviously that hasn’t happened. It was dry this day but the swamp water was not far from the edge of the road.
I remember when the movie Deja Vu was filmed just a little farther down the road at T-Man Bailey’s place. We didn’t go that far this time but I believe some of T-Man’s family still lives there. At the time I was given a tour of the movie set up by a publicist and still am amazed how many huge trailers they managed to get to the end of a one lane road. There were big trailers for wardrobe, makeup, food, and a whole bunch more. I also remember that residents of Fou-Mile Bayou were not impressed by Denzel Washington. They said he wasn’t friendly at all. I think I watched the movie on TV later and one feature was burning down T-Man’s store. I don’t know if it was built back or not. T-Man is gone now but his store was the last on the river before you got to Grasse Lake and then Lake Palourde. Quite an icon!
Teche News’ Lower St. Martin correspondent, Linda Cooke, can be emailed at lindacooke1939@ gmail.com.
