Swamps, wetland, bayou, canal, river, sea, and lake - all in Louisiana

Southern Louisiana is a land on water - thousand miles of waterways through the fresh and brackish delta of the Mississippi, with vast lakes,slow-moving rivers, handmade canals and floating vegetation that creates wetland vegetation over open water.  It is all called the bayou.


In the higher areas there are pecan forests with saw palmetto understory.


Sometimes the forest is just water at the bottom.


Golden orb spiders, snakes, and frogs are everywhere. Here is a small tree frog that I found along the boardwalk.

 
You can find midden heaps with their thousands and thousands of seas shells collected by prehistoric Native Americans for food.


In even more wet areas you get the bald cypress swamps with their long hanging Spanish moss, fluted stems, and roots that come up like knees.  The alligators like to hang out here.  We saw an alligator that was maybe 8 feet, who laid still for 10 min and then suddenly exploded in diving action in a microsecond.


Along the canals there are traditional part-time settlements with docks and small cottages that have been in families in generations.  In Jean LaFitte National Park these settlements, often used as vacation houses, are grandfathered in and allowed, but they cannot be sold, only inherited and kept within the same family forever.

 
The only way to reach them are on the water, and everything has to be brought in, including drinking water (unless you have rain tanks).


During hurricane Katrina these were hit hard with wind, but there was no big flooding - not like in New Orleans where the areas below sea-level flooded catastrophically.


People personalize their docks and houses and live here for months on end.  But some houses have seen better days...

 
During our swamp boat tour we got hit by an amazing rainstorm - 15 minutes of horizontal rain that drenched everything, and then it was over.  The captain of our boat, run by Louisiana Swamp Tours (appropriate name, don't you think), was great, funny, and smiled a little at the poor scientists (not me) that got first muddy up to their knees in the swamp and then drenched to the bone in the rain storm.

 
Dragonflies everywhere!  I have no idea of how many species, just many.

 
And these beasts, called 'devil's horses' in Louisiana are giant black grasshoppers that eat vegetation voraciously.  They come out in swarms in the spring - and you do not want them in your yard or there won't be much left for you. 


This is the land of the movie Beasts of the Southern Wild.  See it if you haven't!  It is an amazing place, not like any other place I have been in the world.  Hot, flat, mosquito-rich, magical, mystical, and rick with life of all sizes.

(More photos from Jean LaFitte National Park here.)

Stamp of the day: boat with little outboard motor

This Swedish stamp from 2002 invokes many Swedish summer memories for me.  A simple wooden boat, with oars for slow moving and fishing, and then the little engine for the times when you have to get home for dinner or the wind is in your face and you need some extra help.  Our sailing boat had a slightly larger version than this, a 7.5 hp Mercury outboard motor, and when it was stormy you really hoped it would start.  It did, because it had replaced an older, smaller engine that was not so reliable.  Maybe that was an Evinrude, I don't remember.  But most of the time we sailed in our 18-foot sailing boat with 5 people and two dogs for weeks... the outboard engine was just for storms, when the wind was wrong, or when you had to get through locks or under bridges. 

OK snapshot: Stockholms hamnar... (Stockholm's harbor....)

...jumps the shark.

(LS comment: I guess they mean mind the gap, but I didn't get that at first :)

A new steam boat!

Igår hade vi celebert besök i Södertälje. [Translation by LS: Yesterday we have a famous visit in Södertälje.]

Ångbåten Eric Nordevall (II) är en kopia av en båt som trafikerade Göta kanal ( Stockholm-Göteborg) från 1837 till 1856 då hon sjönk. Det var en av Sveriges första ångbåtar.
[Steam boat Eric Nordevall (II) is a copy of a ship that once toured Göta kanal ( Stockholm-Göteborg) from 1837 to 1856 until it sank.]

Eric Nordevall is letting the steam whistle blow to salute another boat.
Below: Södertäljes own steam boat, Edjern on the way back to the Baltic sea through the #sluss#.
[sluss = lock in English]

Inside the hot machine room with the impressive steam engines visible left and right.

Eric Nordevall from back, below the deck are the passenger cabins.

Vraket hittades på 45 meters djup i Vättern i närheten av Vadstena 1980 och har väckt intresse då det är en hjulångare med sidohjul, med två separata ångmaskiner på vardera 7 hk. Forsviks bruk startade ett projekt att bygga en kopia och den är nu klar och ska döpas av HKM kronprinsessan Victoria på måndag i Stockholm. På fartygets dopresa har de angjort ett flertal hamnar och kom igenom Södertälje igår. Vill du se filmer så finns de här.

[The wreck of this boat was found at 45 m depth in Lake Vättern nerar Vadstena in 1980 and created a lot of interest since it is a paddle wheel steam boat with two separate steam engines of 7 horsepowers each.  Forsviks Bruk started the project to produce a copy of this boat, which is not finished, and it will be christened by Crown Prinsess Victoria on Monday in Stockholm.  During the ship's virgin trip they have stopped at several places and passed through Södertälje yesterday. If you want to see some movies of it, they are here .]

Vi klev ombord och intrycken var många. Det luktade nytt trä, ved, ångmaskinsolja, vedrök, tjära, nyoljade relingar. I pannrummet var det varmt, som i en vedeldad bastu och nytt och fräscht. Nordevall kan bara eldas med ved, 1 kubikmeter i timmen vid 5 knops fart. På däck låg vedtravar redo. Båten ger både intryck av att vara gammal och vara ny, då den är byggd enligt de gamla ritningarna. Ångmaskinen, båtens hjärta, är byggd av Motala verkstad, precis som den som en gång fanns på den första Eric Nordevall. Det är en lågtrycksbalansångmaskin med kondensering. Bilder finns här.

[We stepped onboard and the impressions were abundant.  It smelled like fresh wood, firewood, steam engine oil, woodsmoke, tar, newly oiled railings.  In the boiler room it was hot, like a woodfired sauna, and new and clean.  Nordevall can only be fired with firewood, 1 cubic meter per hour at 5 knots speed.  On the deck was heaps with firewood ready to be used.  The ship gives both the impression of old and new, since it is built using the original drawings.  The steam boiler, the heart of the ship, was built by Motala works (verkstad), just like the original steam boiler in the first Eric Nordevall ship. It is a low pressure balance steam engine with condensation (not sure if I translated that correctly, PP can correct in the comments).  More pictures are here. ]

Vi besökte Forsvik för ett antal år sedan och såg redan då bygget, därför var det extra roligt att möta upp båten här i Södertälje. Vi hoppas kunna resa ett stycke med denna båt i framtiden.

[We visited Forsvik a few years ago and saw this ship being built, so therefore it was extra fun to meet this ship in Södertälje. We hope to be passengers on this boat for real at some point in the future.]

Stamp of the Day: Frans G Bengtsson

In Swedish literature there is ONE great book about the Viking age you should all read if you like reading.  Röde Orm (Red Orm = Red Snake, but also known as The Long Ships in English).  This is a tale of vikings as traders as well as marauders, and it takes place all across Europe and is supposedly rather historically correct.  Part of it takes place when one of our (possible) ancestors Harald Bluetooth was King of Denmark.  This book has been elected as one of the top ten best books in Sweden, ever.

The author was Frans G Bengtsson, and he is depicted on this Swedish stamp together with typical Viking longships. The book, which is in several volumes, was written during World War II and Frans made a political point in the book on how the Vikings allied themselves with Jews over a thousand years earlier. He tried to simulate the language in the book after the old Nordic sagas, with their terse sentences and usually not very elaborate descriptions of people and places. 

The 1960s movie Long Ships was partly and loosely based on this book, but I haven't seen it.  But they are planning a real movie on the book now, and the director was quoted as saying "It will be like Lord of the Rings".  Except of course that Vikings did happen. And Vikings had gold rings too, and there were smart women with long fine hair (but no pointy ears) not only in Tolkien's books.  I hope they get a huge Hollywood budget to make this Viking movie. 

OK snapshot: ångslupsvåg (Steam boat wave)

On Lake Mälaren, outside Stockholm.

Comment from LS: OK's snapshots are all taken with an iPhone. 

OK snapshot: Botten upp! (Bottoms up!)

Vid strömmen vid riksdagshuset. "Nisse, gula sidan upp!"
(Seen in the river at the Swedish parliament in Stockholm.)

Waiting for spring

A sailing boat is frozen in the river. The sail is still there and it is waiting for the ice to go away so it can sail again. The picture is taken 4 days ago close to the Mälarsee (Lake Mälaren) in Sweden.

Stamp of the Day: Vasco da Gama, India, and the Cape of Good Hope

I am sitting at home on Martin Luther King Day, a holiday here in the US (but some, like PP, have to work anyway), and working on flowers from Colombia, putting firewood in the furnace, and helping the kids to study. Midterm exams are only 3 days away for them. AREA is learning about the great explorers, like Vasco da Gama, the first one that rounded the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa and reached India. Dias had already passed the Cape but turned back.

This is a map of how he sailed and this how it might have looked like. I would not want to sail on those ships. But seeing new land must have been exciting.



PS. EH - Spring is coming nearer, I saw the first starlings ('starar') of the year in our tree outside the kitchen. But now it snows again...

I miss Maine. Really.

More photos here.

A first taste of Maine

We are back from an amazing week in Maine, about 600 miles northeast of New Jersey, and a different kind of life and land. It was simply wonderful! A lot reminded me of Sweden and a lot did not. We had rented a cottage on Mount Desert Island, and during our time there we visited Acadia National Park, drove up to Cadillac Mountain, took a ferry to Little Cranberry Island, eat LOTS of lobsters and mussels and clams, hiked along the shore, went whale watching, went fishing, went lobstering, ate lobster rolls, saw very old antique cars in a museum, found the best grocery store in the world, got mosquito bitten (plenty), and on an on. I took 500 photos, that now need to be gone through and a few of them will make it onto the blog. Just be patient dear friends and family and you will see Maine here soon. Here is a first taste - the fantastic little cafe at Islesford on Little Cranberry Island. Yummy!

Weird architecture

When you leave the Historic Railroad terminal in Jersey City to get the ferry to Ellis Island, you see some new construction like these buildings to the north. The largest skyscraper is the new Goldman Sachs building, built after September 11. I think it looks like a giant electric razor. The railroad terminal, now no longer in use and abandoned among weeds, is dwarfed by the new colossus buildings without any character and charm.n More photos from Ellis Island and the Railroad terminal soon.

A razor like this. I couldn't find the exact model I was thinking about from the 80s, because these days electric razors look so weird and different. I think it was a Braun or Philips, but I can't find the model right now.

Old town from the water

Last weekend we suddenly had full summer in Stockholm - a really hot day. As it happened my job arranged a conference that day in the Stockholm archipelago. When we left the city we saw "Old Town" disappear in the wake. It was a great day!

Doings of a Donkeyman

A different boat, Olivia at Slussen, Stockholm. Still steam powered though. :)

I recently found a swedish blog that I think some readers here might enjoy.
It is the 1954 diary of the chief machinist on the steamship "Blidösund" published day by day. You find it at blidan54.blogspot.com. First entry is april 1st.

/O.K.

Right of way

The following is the transcript of an actual radio conversation in October 1995, between a US Navy ship and the British authorities off the north coast of Scotland. The transcript was released by the MoD on the 10/10/95.

BRITISH: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid collision.

US Navy : Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the North to avoid collision.

BRITISH: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid collision.

US Navy: This is the Captain of US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.

BRITISH: Negative I say again divert your course.

US Navy : THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER 'USS LINCOLN' THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES' ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH, THAT'S 15 DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.

BRITISH: We are a lighthouse. Buzz Off!!!

(found here, but the story is false, even if funny and maybe even possible)

A piece of a shipwreck

At Spurn head we saw a bit of a stranded ship. The iron had been corroded and sanded into a smooth black object, nearly organic in shape.

Ships on the Delaware

Only a few ships are left at Penn's landing by the piers on the Delaware River in Philadelphia, and most can't even sail or move anymore. . Penn's landing used to be settled by Swedes and Dutch and Indians, before it became a city. Here is the largest 4-masted sailing ship still in existence, Moshulu, that has been transformed into a fancy restaurant. It is from the late 1800s and rounded Cape Horn no less than 56 times, and was kept in Finland for many years until it was sold to the owner in Philadelphia. I liked the restaurant, and you could imagine the leaning and creaking as if it was sailing outside of Africa.




Next to Moshulu are two military ships, the WWI ship U. S. S. Olympia (white) and a WWII submarine called U.S.S. Becuna (after a fish). Both are museums now. PP and I had a discussion here of what would be most tolerable - being underwater in the submarine or on the surface of the water on a sailing ship in a storm. I voted for the sailing ship, I think the submarine would be too claustrophobic. I have seen too many submarine movies...

The "New Market" is very old, and no longer used as the market. Imagine this place bustling with fishmongers and sailors a hundred years ago. I like all the old brick buildings with their wooden doors and window shutters.






Three entrances to a house - door, window, and coal shoot (?) to the basement. This is also an old museum building in the Old City.

The stoker

I found this poem about a occupation now long gone, a job my granddad had in that era. The poem was published about a month before the at the time worlds largest steam powered ship Titanic sank, in the march issue of "Technical World Magazine" of 1912.

(Click on the pictures to see them larger).

/O.K.

Stamp of the Day: Tenerife with El Teide

This stamp is a map of the island of Teneriffa/Tenerife, part of the Canary Island Archipelago in the Atlantic. The islands belong to Spain, just like Madeira to the north. EH posted a picture of the week of the volcano El Teide (Tejde) in the background, and here it is on the map too. Teide is 3700 m tall (over 12 000 feet), the tallest point in Spain, and has often snow on top despite being in the subtropical area of the world. 4 million years ago there was just see here, and the island has been created by volcanic eruptions since then.

When we were small we had a children's book about Barna Hedenhös (The Children Hedenhos from 1953), who took their stone age timber raft and sailed to the Canary Islands, where people sailed in boats made from giant banana peels, and all were afraid Tejde would wake up and spit out lava, people climbed ladders to reach their houses on the steep cliffs, and people communicated by whistling in the valleys. I have very vivid memories of this book.

Stamp of the Day: Ett skepp kommer lastat

(In English: A ship is full?)

These days stamps are all multicolored and fancy, but this is what stamps used to look like in the old days. One color, often bleeding into the paper, fuzzy details, but still great design and fonts, and a piece of history. Here is a steamship and mail tender in a harbor, maybe New York city? It does have skyscrapers. PP can probably tell us what kind of steamship it is. Is the little boat the mail tender or a tug boat? I wonder when it cost 10 cents to mail a letter, today it is 41 cents. Imaging when a regular letter took 4 months across the Atlantic - last week it took only 3 days from New Jersey to Sweden. Nowadays everything is so fast, back then you could take your time. I think it affects our brains, this rush-rush about everything.