Day 91

Today we finally paddled through New Orleans!  We woke up early and things went pretty smooth as we prepared to push off until I reached down to turn on my radio.  It was gone!  Somehow while loading the boat it fell out of the pocket in my PFD where it had been in for the past 90 days!  What the heck!?!? Thankfully Amanda still had hers.  We shoved off and a bit nervously paddled into New Orleans.  Much to our surprise he port of New Orleans was easy, not too busy at all!  Seems to happen that way, Baton Rouge was the same.  As we paddled the wind picked up and as we passed under a bridge the water became very choppy as the wind howled.  I got frustrated and said some choice words which could not have been timed worse because Amanda was already very anxious about the wind and waves and had thought something was going terribly wrong and began to cry.  I quickly realized my error and told her we were fine and just to keep paddling.  Aside from that our passage through New Orleans was uneventful!  We stayed along the right side of the river but far enough out to maintain a good line of sight.  When we looked at the maps the right side looked like the best route however, to ease our minds we reached out to our fellow paddlers and thankfully they confirmed that the right side would be the best route. At lunch we stopped and contacted Mitch Selby and Malcolm Reed, two through paddlers who were very close behind us.  Turns out they were just putting back on the river in New Orleans after stopping for thanksgiving with Mitch's family.  As we paddled on the boat traffic for the first time in four days was dwindling rapidly!!!! Wootwoot!  As we paddled along a barge captain that looked like a rivery version of Willie Nelson waved at and radioed, "If she is crazy enough to get in a canoe and paddle down the river with your crazy ass then she is a keeper!"  Amanda and I instantly burst into laughter.  We paddled a full day and found a nice spot along the levy that was tucked away from the river and hidden from the town on the other side.  After dinner as we were putting things away the river instantly lit up.  We ran over to see a Carnival Cruise ship passing by.  It looked like the sky had been put on its side and was floating down the river.

Yep that is a ship behind Dave...he likes blue ships