05/02/2010 - Bayou La Batre Blessing of the Fleet

Launch: Bayou La Batre Public Launch
Destination: Bayou La Batre Blessing of the Fleet

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1) Bayou La Batre is trashy as ever. A shoreline like this is not good for eco tourism in Alabama in what could be a very enticing location for visiting kayakers.

2) Bayou La Batre is also an appliance dump.

3) A kayaker does not have to look very hard to find petroleum sheens on the water along with their noxious fumes in Bayou La Batre. 

4) Tons of people have been activated to monitor and address the BP oil spill, but they seem blind to the petroleum that already coats the local water surface of Bayou La Batre.

5) Breathing the air around this minor spill was terrible. I can only imagine what the air will be like when the BP oil starts coating the shorelines.

6) I reported one of the sheens (there were several in different locations) to the Marine Police who were at the Blessing of the Fleet. I applaud the Marine Police for responding and actually checking out the spill. One officer said it was diesel fuel and that the EPA won't respond to spills of this nature. The EPA's current method of dealing with these sheens is to let it evaporate or let the sun burn it off. They also went over to the shrimp boat where the sheen seem to be coming from and talked to the crew. Kudos to the Alabama Marine Police. BP gets severely sued for their accidental release of petroleum while shrimp boats go around releasing petroleum with without any consequence. It boggles the mind...

7) Anyway, I wanted to see the decorated boats of the Blessing of the Fleet today as well as check out the situation concerning the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Many airboats and environmental response boats are on standby along with a news vehicle.

8) A barge was headed out into Portersville Bay with a load of oil booms. No booms were visible from the mouth of Bayou La Batre.

9) Water levels were quite high almost flooding Shell Beach road.

10) This year Alabama Cruises had a tour boat running up and down Bayou La Batre during the Festival event.

11) I was not the only kayaker out today.

12) These were some of the decorated boats that were going to participate in the boat parade.

13) This graphic on this shrimp boat was confusing. Piss on the shrimp? How distasteful. Well, shrimp does have about 5 times the cholesterol compared to steak, so, maybe it is best to avoid eating shrimp.

14) I uploaded this photo showing a cooler boat graphic on porpoise.