Slip One, Tiger Pass

On the west bank of the Mississippi below New Orleans and above the Head of Passes, the work-boat docks in Venice have become a coon-ass Mecca for Louisiana's fisherman. Arriving for the clean-up and a shot at a paycheck from BP, this shrimp boat pilgrimage has swollen the waterways with traffic, enhanced the culture, devoured empty dock space and created a real hazard to navigation. The Coast Guard has at least begun to investigate the traffic problem. We'll see...

To reach Venice from the river, its a quick trip on a bubbling current through the Venice Jump and a right turn at the V into Tiger Pass, where two work-boat slips, 50 yards wide and 500 deep, service a variety of commercial endeavors but primarily the oil field. The little town itself rests uneasily beyond the levee, to the west and out of sight.

We're running out of Slip One, a mass of fishing boats junked together and blocking the entrance. Any decent-size boat can build up a lot of momentum down-bound; in the past week I've watched several boats enter the slip blindly, their view blocked by work-boats, two abreast on the north side. They make security calls at least on VHF 13; but its crazy, because the fishing boats aren't monitoring a radio without tunes, and they'll pull off the dock without looking. Despite sympathy for their cause, I can't help to wonder if some want to get hit, hoping for a lawsuit; the lawyer population looks healthy around here. Venice lives in madness.

I woke up offshore one morning, found the boat tethered to a sea buoy. I took the watch at 06:00, coffee & sunrise. In about an hour, we were cleared to head in, dropping off a few passengers on the way. As we neared land, the morning sky appeared as an interesting blend of sunlight, dark clouds and low-lying fog. I made it through the jetties with at least a mile of visibility, and then there was none, enveloped in white. Driving in fog is a video game, and fairly care-free offshore, but its very serious in pilotage waters. As long as I've got a reliable visual on radar, I'll drive the boat hooked up, throttles to the dash if no one's around, but that doesn't happen these days--its a constant boat parade in Baptiste Collette, at least in daylight.

That morning I pulled the throttles back and killed our wake, an immense 8-foot swell that will roll for miles if unencumbered. I reached for the radio and considered a call, checked the speed of the vessel astern on the AIS. With nothing to worry about, I slowly brought the engines up until the fog turned grey and wind whistled against the wheelhouse. Soon rain arrived, and I was blind. Torrential rain is more hazardous to negotiate than fog; a hard enough rain will wipe out any chance of the radar distinguishing a small vessel coming round a bend. I reduced to bare steerageway, saw only lightning out the windows; but just as quickly, the fog disappeared and I could see white-caps in the bayou, lush green foilage on the banks, trees shaking like pom-poms.

The Coast Guard has set up a decontamination center in the Jump, but boats are tracking in oil. Nearly 10 miles from the Gulf in any direction navigable by large vessels, a de-con station in Venice is like gettin' home with dirty boots and headin' to the bathroom to clean 'em up. It's stuck thickly to the hull's of the larger, slower boats.

Down-bound in the Jump and approaching Tiger Pass, I spin the boat around early, pivoting 180 and pointing the bow upstream. I've got more control of the vessel backing down from the stern controls where I can I crank up the bow thruster as precaution. Again, two work-boats on the north end, the mass of shrimpers on the other. I kill momentum with the outboards, reverse the rudder and begin to pivot, placing the port quarter just underneath the bow of the outside boat. I let the bow fall with the current, prepare to "walk" the boat to starboard in case that becomes necessary. It's congested, but clear enough at such slow speed.

There's an old fishing vessel, a real rust bucket, in our spot on the dock. I could run him out, but we've got enough room, so I take the boat in further forward and tie up facing stern to stern to the piece-of-junk boat. Our wheel-wash brings a tiny Vietnamese man out of the cabin to check his lines. He lights a cigarette. Anywhere along the Gulf it can turn from busy to still real quick. He shuffles around, produces a fishing line and weight and tosses it by hand toward the center of the slip. Now he's jigging the line, right in the filthy water of Slip One. An adolescent boy appears and makes to clean the deck. It's just passed 09:00.

Billy and the berm

"Twenty-four miles of Plaquemines Parish are destroyed. Everything in it tonight is dead. This will destroy the marsh forever."

These solemn words are Billy Nungesser's, a portly, sincere politician, the President of Plaquemines Parish. A former businessman who recycled old shipping containers and outfitted them as living quarters for offshore workers, he's in Venice fighting for birds and turtles, and Billy's a hero to mother nature. He gets red-faced and winded talking to multiple reporters each day, espousing plans for a "Berm", borrowing language from the Dutch, a shelf or raised barrier, which may be dredged onto beaches to both inhibit the advance of oil and to prepare for the worst with the onset of hurricane season just six days away.

Mr. Nungesser is fiercely trying to hold onto something, something there for all of us to appreciate--and it's dying around him. At times, he appears choked-up, just trying to convince someone to take action, someone high up. He's requesting federal help, citing BP's indolence, and calling for government intervention to force BP's hand, who according to Billy, proclaiming with a deleted F-Bomb on local TV, "They ain't doin' a f&%@#' thing!" His red face is incredulous, ubiquitous.

While you can readily find images from the marshland, I can say that at sea, legions of portugese man-of-war float dead, as black-tip sharks still swim through the oil. I've seen dolphin close ashore who appear ok (for now) and sea birds sitting in the slick offshore who surely won't make it; all of it beneath a lavender sky.

This morning BP will attempt, again, to cap the well. God be with them.

Meanwhile Mr. Nungesser will continue pleading that it's way-past time to get the right powers-that-be involved, for a leader to arise.

"We're begging BP to step up to the plate, the coast guard, and now I've written the President this morning to demand that we mow these dredges, to put an 80-mile levee in front of our barrier islands... Up to now they shoot down my proposals, give me excuses why this and that can't be done. Well, what can be done?"

Whatever Billy can accomplish, the damage is done but not over. And much more of it still lurks, offshore; its a plume surely visible from space, enveloping titanic portions of sea; another, bizarre blight on the canvas to the astronaut's in orbit and a reminder to us all of our sickly excesses.

A Refusal

I've seen much in the Gulf since returning to work three weeks ago. I've been running a crew boat from Tiger Pass to the Venice Jump, up the Mississippi River, out Baptiste Collette, and offshore--then back. As debate rages and fingers point, I see for myself this scrap of world news.

In my almost 3 years of driving boats in the Gulf, I've seen images both sublime and unappetizing. There is an awesome energy created (and consumed) by more than 6000 horsepower pushing a 165-ft boat through the water at 27 knots. It may be guy-stuff appeal, but when witnessed on deck at sunrise with the boat underway, that energy will blow through your veins like a hard drug, like multiple shots of whiskey. In recent weeks, oddly enough, I find myself more eager than ever to take the boat offshore. Usually content at the dock, sanding and painting in the day, working out and reading by night, I wish to see the Gulf and to monitor the advance of the creeping sheen. It's astounding.

I ran the boat for about 10 days without seeing much if any oil, making it 30 miles from the entrance to Baptiste. Then we began to notice the sheen around the time BP failed with its first containment apparatus. It came in narrow swaths and in tide lines, and then one day in a light chop the whitecaps disappeared; we were surrounded in a thin blanket, shiny like iron.

The advancing sheen is thinned, presumably, by the oil dispersant Corexit, a toxic substance banned in Great Britain, as dramatic irony would have it. On Monday morning, BP surpassed an EPA deadline to stop using it, asserting their ultimate power, claiming they will continue to use the chemical until the well is capped. I've heard scientists question the use of Corexit: is it necessary at that depth, at that distance from shore?

It took awhile, but I finally realized the answer: the dispersant is necessary to keep the oil field running. Boats like mine might be unable to operate in thick, surface sludge. Raw-water-cooled engines might get fouled, captains might refuse to run boats, traffic might be diverted. The American economy depends on the oil field, and you can't shut it down. With our reliance on oil, the US is "all-in" and there's no going back. No matter who we elect to office, no matter what we do. Environmental destruction is as inevitable as death and taxes. It's true wherever you are: in your town, in the far-reaches of wilderness. It sure as hell is in the Gulf of Mexico.