M bo batan

Lewis Gut

We headed west in the car toward favorite places only to find both of the possible roads jammed for miles.  I turned east and headed to a place that S had not seen, a new experience to make up for a delay.

We set out on a warming day that will reach nearly 90 degrees, but with a steady fresh breeze off of the sea from one direction or another.  The tide is high when we set the canoe on the rotting asphalt boat ramp lined with trash, a hint at the past and present of this gritty city.


"Row, row, row our boat" is sung from under the dilapidated swing bridge as we approach.  A pleasant if not completely present fellow is parked under the bridge in a tiny dinghy fishing for porgy.  Gritty as this city may be, I have always been greeted with a smile whenever I pass someone in my canoe.

We stop on the sandy shore of Pleasure Island, a former amusement park being redeveloped by nature into something....more natural.  There are a fair number of people coming to the island on the park department ferry and some of them are then being delivered to the swimming beach in a very long golf cart taxi.

rotting keel of a wooden boat

Osprey rule the area today and I imagine that at least ten can be seen at any one time.  A few willets are around as are some great blue herons and great egrets. 

It is called the Lewis Gut and S finds it visually interesting, as do I. There is something surreal about it and something that reminds one of a desert island. A long spit of sand divides us from the sea, a long spit with a lot of somewhat shredded trees on it, a place that is exposed as any to the storms that come.  The last hurricane washed right over the spit and if I remember right, cut a channel through which has since been filled.

the dilapidated swing bridge