The blow-out
Wow, what a day! It started out with clear skies, delicious donuts from Ronnies and 10-40% chance of rain after checking the weather channel and radar reports. Little did we know that the storm apocalypse was on its way.
And so we got to Grand Isle, excited about the day ahead and planning the number and type of samples to be collected. Once we hit Elmer’s island, we were faced with a load of trucks heading the other way, off the beach. But we plowed forth and decided to brave the elements, making our way in the trusty jeep to the edge of the beach, where we decided to wait out the storm. After a little while of waiting, I turned around and witnessed what looked like the disappearance of beach behind us. That was when we decided to head for higher ground- but what constitutes higher ground in Louisiana where most of the state is below water level??
As it turns out, the supermarket acted as our safe haven (but getting there proved interesting, with giant puzzles, um puddles to plow through). Once the storm blew over enough that we could get out of the car without getting blown over and smacked down by the rain, we ventured onto the beach, where we came away with an impressive number of samples given the stormy conditions. We found tar balls scattered all over the beach, in the high surf line, way up on the beach behind the plant barriers and all over really, except the rock jetties. Pat confirmed that those were all underwater and unattainable.
After Grand Isle beach we made our way to Elmer’s island where the mosquitos came out to bug us, but only after we blew it out of the park and found an impressive number of samples! Well, Katie was the one to thank, she located a gold mine’s worth of tar balls that filled an impressive number and size of jars. Whoot!
And so we concluded our trip with grand successes, having experienced extreme weather conditions (even though Debby was not on the radar this trip, weather turned out to be much more unpredictable!) but definitely coming out on top. New Orleans was a treat, with the opportunity to meet some of Helen’s friends and the cutest baby(!) over delicious and food-coma-inducing Vietnamese food.
Great way to end the trip, the night and this blog post.