Water Hyacinths Galore

As we traveled through the Louisiana Intracoastal Waterway we decided to spend a night anchored in Charenton Drainage Canal.  The Waterway Guide indicated this canal was heavily used by commercial traffic.  When we arrived at the canal, we had to slowly wind our way through the water hyacinths.

Flowering Water Hyacinth

Night set in as the hyacinths
 begin creeping in

These are free-floating plants. They can grow to a height of 3 feet. Their dark green leaf blades are circular to elliptical in shape and are attached to a spongy, inflated petiole. Underneath the water they have a thick, heavily branched, dark fibrous root system. The water hyacinth has striking light blue to violet flowers. They are a very aggressive invader, native originally to South America.  As these plants grow they forms thick mats. It was these mats we encounter on our way into the canal.  Our first thought was there was no way this could be a busy canal. No one has been in this river all summer with all these plants floating around. We checked our AIS (a device that identifies all commercial vessels, providing usual information like speed, distance and direction) and found no commercial traffic within ten miles of us.  Never-the-less, as the sun set, lighting up the evening sky with the beautiful pinks, oranges, reds and purples, we put out white solar lights and turned on the anchor light to ensure “Little Lara” was well lit up.   Shortly thereafter, mats of water hyacinths began creeping in towards “Little Lara”, completely surrounding us within a matter of minutes.  It was like one of those scenes from a science fiction, alien, thriller movie without the music.

Tugboat with barges pass "Little Lara"

The water hyacinth was first introduced in the United States in 1884 at the World's Fair in New Orleans.  The plants were given away as a gift by visiting Japanese. Soon thereafter, they choking rivers, killing fish and stopping shipping in Louisiana and Florida's waterways. There have been many attempts over the years to eradicate the plant, but none worked.

Dusk at Charenton Drainage Canal

Once the sun set and before dusk set in, up the river came a tug pushing barges.  Now we were glad “Little Lara” was well lit.  We slept soundly that night, but the next morning revealed a world of swirling, creeping, dancing water hyacinths, which had completely surrounded and engulfed “Little Lara”.  It was weird to say the least.  Slowly, we motored our way around and through a thick mat of these plants hoping they wouldn't get sucked into our engine cooling system. Eventually we made our way back to the Intracoastal Waterway without problems.  We were once again making our way eastward.