BE AT POULOSKIS AT 1700

Late yesterday, Jim got a mysterious text message on his phone, "Be at Pouloskis at 1700." He left a return text, "Where is Pouloskis? " We asked everyone we ran into if they knew where Pouloskis was? No one we talked to in Cypress Cove had a clue where or what Pouloskis was. Terri, the office attendant at Cypress Cove even looked up boat names that register into the area. Nothing. We were at a loss and hadn't found a ride. A visit to Pilot Town was looking pretty dim for Tuesday. Its the off season for fishing and many boaters have alternative season jobs.

We called several local marinas and got names. We called numbers plastered on the sides of boats passing by. Tuesday dawned cold, gray and windy. At 11:00 a.m. Chris Calloway called us and offered to take us to Pilot Town on an open boat. We debated briefly since neither of us brought winter clothing. "Bundle up, you are gonna be cold," he told us. When would we have another opportunity to visit this unusual place?

Chris knows how to dress for an open boat. He promised we wouldn't get wet. We managed to avoid frostbite on the 20 minute drive over. A slew of cliche's come to mind, like "colder than a well digger's ass in the Klondike."

When Chris pulled up into Pilot Town, a pilot boat was backing up to the dock. The skipper was a retired 25 year employee of Texaco, now working as an engineer on the pilot boats. Hewett Peles informed us what everyone else had already told us, and what we had read, "There is nothing here to see!"

Yeah, we know. We aren't normal tourists. We don't only flock to tourist sights. He told us the pilots used to work several branches of the river, they were called the Branch Pilots. "Now, the branches are all full of sand. They have dredges taking the stuff out, but they'll be at it forever. Only one branch near the gulf is navigable now," he told us. We asked which direction to the post office. "It was only a trailer on piers. It was one of the first buildings to go in Katrina," he said. The building below is floating on a barge and is in good shape.

The Pilot's barracks was in good shape. At first we thought the sign was a joke since this is a very quiet community, but people come here to hunt and guns are noisy.

This building right next to the barracks was clearly damaged during Katrina, but others were far worse. Below you see the piers for the boardwalk and house, all that is left of this residence.

Air conditioners, stoves, refrigerators and washing machines lay rusting about where they once graced peoples houses. We saw a door with the knob still on it floating in the water and the pink bathtub below overgrown with weeds.

We walked the cement "boardwalk" , built in 1993, in both directions as far as it would go. We saw about 5 intact buildings and many crushed beyond repair, sunken into the swamp or gone altogether.

Chris then took us around the North side of the Island to see the camps which suffered little damage. Small cabins on stilts. He had never visited or navigated around Pilot Town and he showed us the depth gauge reading 23 1/2 feet change within 100 yards to 2 feet. Nature reasserting itself, trying to rebuild the island in its own way. We saw egrets that looked like flamingos because they had eaten enough shrimp to turn temporarily pink; raccoons, ibis', and many other birds. It is/was a unique community in that all houses there are built on stilts or float.

It wasn't our intention to go to Pilot Town to document Katrina damage, but to wander as far south in Louisiana as we could go, just for the heck of it. We did it! We decided to celebrate our adventure.

When we returned home, Jim claimed his fingers were still cold enough to chill the champagne. (Whatta ham!) As for Pouloskis? He never returned our message. There is a military installment nearby, military time-1700? We decided it was just a wrong number.

VENICE, PILOT TOWN

http://neworleanspodcasting.com/JimJailletandMaryMatzek.shtml

Yesterday, Jim and I heard from Craig Kraemer, the guy who interviewed us for his podcast. If you are interested you can click the link above and hear our interview. You press the "plug" to get it to play.

Several months ago we watched a video of Charles Kuralt, a long time television personality, who traveled around the U.S. in his motor home and visited a number of out-of-the-way places. One of those was Pilot Town. Since we were kind of in the vicinity, we decided to attempt to visit Pilot Town. It is the furthest point south in the State of Louisiana, on a small Island only accessible by boat . On the way, we stopped at Fort Jackson, now closed after being badly damaged by Katrina.

We were able to hike around the grounds and watch the boats churn up the Mississippi. The Fort was strategically located during sailing ship days on a big bend in the river that gave it an advantage when the ships would have to lag looking for a new wind to make it around the bend.

Much has been said about the horrible damage done to large population centers like New Orleans, Shreveport, and Biloxi, and rightly so. As we drove through Plaquemines Parrish, the devastation was horrible for miles and miles. Many, many foundations with nothing on them. Blasted buildings, row upon row of temporary modular housing sitting on blocks, piles of debris including rolled together cars and trucks. Boats rotting in fields, and huge storage containers on empty lots. One property had a beautiful blown up picture on a small billboard of what their once gorgeous house looked like. Mailboxes still stand by the edge of the road with nothing behind the driveways but trees. In one tract, huge trees drowned by standing salt water, lay dead with huge tangled root balls in he air. It was sad to see.

We reached Venice late afternoon and found a friendly cop who told us to contact Mike Bally out at Cypress Cove to help find us a boat ride out to Pilot Town. Mike was a very friendly, helpful guy and gave us a couple leads that produced no results-yet. We are hoping for better luck today.

In the meantime, we sit at this beautiful resort. Mike allowed us to plug in and here we spent yesterday afternoon and evening walking around this beautiful resort, and harbor, watching the pelicans play.

This old drake was hanging around and then joined by a blond. I know nothing of pelicans and which is male or female, but that's the way it looked to me.

While out and about I talked to a young guy and asked him about a boat ride. He told me his name was Ryan Buras , a river pilot. "I'd take you myself if I wasn't headed for home," he said, which is Covington. He is 35 years old, was raised in Pilot Town had a house there that was moved off its foundations and deposited in a swamp by Katrina. He now uses his property as a camp, as many pilots who suffered the same fate do. Few of them live there anymore, he told me. He is what is known as a Crescent Pilot, he guides boats in and out of New Orelans. Other pilots work up the Mississippi or their tributaries. To be a pilot you have to have a relative who was a pilot. His grandfather and uncle qualified him. The Pilots's Association building was destroyed by Katrina and they rebuilt in Venice. He hardly ever goes back anymore. The only people who go there are duck hunters and fishermen. His last teacher was an avid duck hunter and if the ducks were in and the wind right, she'd cancel school for the day and go hunting. He knew no other life as a kid, nature, hunting and fishing. He recognized that it was unique to live in a place only accessible by boat.

For information about Pilot Town, click the following url:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilottown,_Louisiana