I started out a little later than I had been on this trip to cross from Slidell, LA., to a beach on Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans, but it was only a twenty mile jaunt, and the wind was blowing from the NE with predictions that it would be turning out of the south by the afternoon. It was bouncy on the giant lake, and I took shelter from the wind on the lee side of the railroad trestles, figuring I'd slip out under them when I hit the New Orleans side. I began to notice, though, that with the trestles so low, and the swells fairly sizeable, that timing to squeeze under there safely would be critical. I paddled along, thinking that perhaps this wasn't such a hot plan after all. Maybe I should have gone under the trestles at the designated channel. Hmm. The big swells seemed to come in fairly predictable sets of three, and you could see them coming a bit off, so it didn't seem like it was going to be that difficult, but once a decision was made to go forward, there could be no second guessing and it would have to be fast. If you thought too much about it, you wouldn't do it. It had to be a gut decision. Kind of like a leap of faith.

I glanced at the narrow opening, glanced at the swells, and went for it. One, two, three strokes and I was in the vast open Lake Ponchartrain. And you know what?  It was actually easier paddling there than on the lee side of the trestles. The swells were actually surprisingly big and rolling, and the wind came mainly abeam. Anticipation is a funny thing, and it seemed like forever before I got to the airport. Once I got near enough, pylons were visible way out. The wind had now shifted to the NW and was gusting pretty good as I headed into it to round the pylons.

As I rounded the bend a bobbing piece of Styrofoam caught my eye. At first I tried to drag it along, but that kind of interfered with steering. I grabbed it again and jammed it into my aft bungies as well as I could in the wind and choppy swells. Unfortunately, in the process I knocked one of my Tevas out which I didn't notice until after landing in New Orleans. I was totally bummed about that. Not only am I saddened to lose my Tevas, which were part of a donation package from Campmor, a huge outdoor outfitted in North Jersey, for the miami2maine journey two years ago (and my favorite running shoes, to boot!), but I added to the growing amount of marine debris swirling around out there in the ocean. And Pat Lamar of "The Canoe Shop" in Panama City had just repaired them for me, so I'd been counting on many more years of running in them. Serious bummer!

Off in the distance I could make out the buildings I was told to aim for. Within a quarter mile it finally became obvious to me- Aaron, Casey, Stephanie, Megan, and a host of others from The Gulf Restoration Network and elsewhere, including my mother, Carl, and the kids were waving me in. NOLA Brewing was there to greet me with a keg of one of their brews I had read about. What a delicious way to end the paddle! One thing that made the ending really perfect, though, was Aaron Viles' awesome idea of a beach cleanup. There was a fair amount of trash around, mostly plastic, as has been the norm, but our crew of cleaners got the place picked up in no time. Many hands make light work, and so it went. What was also kind of cool was that one of our trash "finds" happened to be a pair of flip flops that fit me perfectly. How amazing was that, especially since my trusty Tevas were the only shoes I had with me!

This paddle was most definitely a team effort. It took the involvement of many folks to get me here.  I could not have done it alone. It took people to care about "the mission" of the paddle, just as correcting the many problems of our ocean and Gulf will take people who care and understand the value of it. It will require a Herculean group effort, but we can do it. There is too much at stake to do nothing.