Grand Isle, LA

It was a long trip just to dip our toes into the gulf, but neither of us had been down to Grand Isle, so we went. Along the way we followed Hwy 380 and Hwy 1 along a canal until the canal opened up into the bayous fronting the Gulf of Mexico.

 

There were many boats along the canal, including several dry docks and these tug boats.

Looking down the canal. All those tall masts you see are actually fishing boats. All up and down the highway you could stop and buy fresh shrimp and crabs, even oysters.

Once we were down to the end we ran into the gulf. As far as you could see were these offshore oil well rigs.

I just had to put my toes in the water, even though this was not the beach we were going to swim at.

A bayou like this on one side and on the other, the gulf.

Finally Grand Isle and Grand Isle State Park and the beach.

But the beach was closed due to construction. I guess they were repairing damage from Katrina. They were building up artificial sand dunes to keep the erosion down.

But the park ranger told us where we could find a beach for swimming.

And out beyond the breakers was one of those fishing ships with their nets down.

About 20 miles from Grand Isle we came across this long new bridge they were building. We never could figure out why they were spending all this money to build a bridge down to an oil tanker plant and a very small fishing village.

Here was the end where they were still building.

This is part of the bridge they have completed.

Here is where it stopped.

This was beyond the stop sign. The bridge being worked on will eventually meet up with this piece.