Good morning Water Plant Watchers!!

There is a story the local marina residents told me about the alligator seen a couple of days ago amongst the green floating plants.  Yep, they said.  It was only a small one.  A 4 footer. One of the boaters looked around his boat in the slip…no, I haven’t seen him today, tho.  Of course, at this stage in the conversation, I am not sure he is just pulling my leg or telling me the truth.  I am the new boater on Dock C and you never know what stories the residents dream up.  I looked around and saw green floating plants in almost every slip around the marina.  What does a 4 foot alligator look like floating in the river?

The marina uses this boat with a front scoop to push the floating plants out of the way of the fuel dock.  Occasionally, they push alligators away from the docks.  No kidding.

Alligators in Mississippi??  Really?  I found a brochure in the marina office that informs the visitor about “Alligator Awareness in Mississippi”.  Really?  The brochure states that in the 1960’s and 1970’s alligators were introduced into Mississippi to both repopulate some of the coastal areas as well as to control the beaver population along the rivers.  I guess alligators don’t like beavers because the beaver population didn’t change but the alligator population increased.  Ahhhh.  Every  time I walked around the docks I kept a look out.  Night and day.  Would I see a pair of eyes staring back at me in the dark?

The other warning for boaters is to not cruise through large clumps of floating plants.  The larger the clump, the more likely there is a log they have attached themselves to.  From our slip, I pushed away a rather large clump.  Yes, this clump had a log about 6 feet long and 6 inches diameter.  It would do damage to a propellor for sure!   Using my boat hook, I pushed away a number of clumps of plants throughout the day.  They just kept coming into the marina from the river.  The wind and current caught this clump and took it away from the docks into a swamp area.  whew!

We joined another Looper couple for dinner at a local restaurant.  Great times.  Great tales of times on the water.  We did get wind and cloudy skies.  Very little rain.  Clear skies are forecasted for tomorrow.  We got our rest.  I even had time to take a nap or two.  Time to rock and roll down river!!