Marathon Kayak Trip: Fort PIke, Lake St Catherine, Lake Borgne, Rigolets

Here's a very long trip that has tons of options and shortcuts along the way. See my entry from January 2016 about other trips around the Rigolets. This trip goes from Fort Pike, across Sawmill Pass, over to Bay Jaune Point and across Lake St. Catherine, ultimately out to Lake Borgne and then over to and up the Rigolets to return to Fort Pike. This is a 23 mile trip, and with that distance, you really better check the winds and plan your timing with the tides well. Besides feeling good about the tides, I was also comfortable with conditions in general: it was a mild, calm day with pretty light winds, mostly from the south/southeast. I headed out with at least a couple of route options in mind, and went for the longest, not sure exactly how long it would be. My guess was 20 or so, so I underestimated a little.

You can see a point in the image above where I had some minutes of indecision about which route I really wanted to take--note the northeasterly track, and then reversal, in Bay Jaune. That probably added a mile to my trip. You can also see in the picture above that I could have just cut right through Miller Bayou, and cut 4 or so miles from the trip.

On the day that I did this trip, I think I had a little beginner's luck with my plan and the timing of the tidal flow. From the charts, I could see that the incoming tide would peak around 3:30 in the afternoon, but that there would be a pretty gradual slowdown of the current--basically, a long, gradual slowing/slack tide on each side of high tide. 

Crossing Lake St. Catherine and Bay Jaune, you're much less aware the tide movement than you are paddling through the various passes, especially moving the direction I was. I anticipated having to work against the flow as I went through "Unknown Pass", out to the lake, and I did. My pace dropped significantly as I paddled my way out to Lake Borgne.
But sure enough, I found myself getting to the Rigolets right in that slack tide. This was the most calm I've ever seen the Rigolets, and a light south wind was more of a factor than the current. So, tired as I was at the 17 mile or so mark, the wind kept me moving along at a good pace. 

The closest thing I've found to a name for this pass is "Unknown Pass". That's the Intracoastal Water Way and a train track that it crosses.

Out on the lake, it was very calm and I probably would have done just fine without my rudder. Incoming waves were very light and the wind was very pleasant. Then, as I mentioned, once I turned left/north to reconnect with St. Catherine Pass to get to the Rigolets, the water was very calm and the wind started giving me a nice little push. 

By the way, I decided to cut in before Rabbit Island, pass under the train bridge and intersect with St. Catherine Pass to get to the Rigolets since this was familiar to me and the day was getting long. I could have continued east to go directly to the Rigolets and come around Rabbit Island. 

Also, by the way, I got off to a late start this day and became a little concerned about my timing and dinner plans, so I did this trip without taking a break. But unlike some of my other trips in this area, there were spots where I could have stopped. In particular, as I skirted the shore in Lake Borgne, I passed several sandy beaches that looked very inviting.

As I mentioned above, a shorter option would be cutting through Miller Bayou, probably cutting 4 miles off the route. On a day with a friendly breeze, the beaches I kayaked past on Lake Borgne would have been great lunch breaks.There are some landing/break options also in the Intracoastal Waterway, southwest of Rabbit Island.  Also, by the way, I have landed and taken a break in the lagoon on the southwest corner of Rabbit Island (zoom in to see it), but it really wasn't a great spot to land or hang out and relax. But...it was a spot.

I was very grateful that the final stretch through the Rigolets was very calm, and it was very quiet. I only saw a few personal fishing boats on the water. When you're paddling north through the Rigolets, towards Fort Pike, after you follow the left-hand bend, the Hwy 90 bridge becomes the obvious marker for you, and Fort Pike is right at the western end of the bridge. There is often a good bit of boat traffic passing under the bridge, going to the Rigolets or going through Sawmill Pass towards Lake St Catherine. When that's the case, it's best to hug the left side of the Rigolets and cross at Sawmill Pass to eliminate a lot of the cross-traffic,especially the bigger vessels, and it shortens your crossing. But, this approach brings you in at a very shallow angle relative to the bridge, and if you're tired and ready to get out of the water, Fort Pike can feel like an elusive target. As you move towards the northern end of the Rigolets, the relative positions of the land features on both sides of the Rigolets, and the bridge, change, especially because the Rigolets really widens a great deal at its northern end. There are times, following this very shallow-angled approach, when the fort or the bridge seem further away than the last time you looked. But, because traffic was so light on this trip, I decided to paddle a path more directly down the middle of the northern end of the Rigolets, before Sawmill Pass. This shortened the trip and minimized the "moving target" sensation I was having. 

This was a great day with really good conditions for kayaking. My entire trip kayaking up the Rigolets was a not-all-that-hard 5 mph, and the last mile was a bit above that. I don't do that many 20 - 25 mile trips alone, but I can easily see myself kayaking parts of this route again. The portion along Lake Borgne was very pleasant. 

The Launch:

Just west of Fort Pike on Hwy 90 is a public boat launch:

https://www.google.com/maps/@30.1653248,-89.7371044,164m/data=!3m1!1e3

Kayaking Old Pearl River to Rigolets (shuttle required)

This is a 13 mile  trip that my friends Sarah Wilker and Nick Napoda put together at the very end of 2013. It involves a very easy shuttle of about 6 miles along Hwy 90, between Fort Pike and a western section of the Old Pearl River. The river had a pretty good flow this day, so our trip down was pretty fast, with our pace being nearly 6 mph much of the time.Then, our trip back up the Rigolets to Fort Pike was against the ebb tide, and our pace was well below 4 mph for most of that. But it was a fun trip. Paddling against the tide on the Rigolets definitely feels slow, but there's enough energy in the water that you actually feel like you're moving faster than you are...somehow.

But, the fast speed coming down the river, and the slower speed going "up" the Rigolets, meant that we have very, very few pictures. So this will be one of my shorter and more boring posts. But this is still a fun trip, well worth doing when the conditions are right.

Before continuing, my usual "do your homework" thing: When I did this trip in 2013, I was very inexperienced in anything but flat water situations. I had good fitness and a nice 17' fiberglass boat, but I fully trusted Sarah's and Nick's judgement on where they took me. Paddling on the Pearl network and the Rigolets can vary from pretty safe and easy, to dangerous. Tidal flow and river levels and conditions can make one trip entirely different than another. So, do your homework. Go with someone more experienced. Do not go without your PFD. Maps, GPS, charged cell phone, marine radio....all good things to bring (along with food and water, of course). 

Okay, here's the info:

We parked one car (capable of carrying 3 boats) at the Fort Pike boat launch, then drove the short distance along Hwy 90 to the first bridge with a boat launch you come to on the Old Pearl--just past White Kitchen (not sure if White Kitchen is marked on the road, but it is on the map). For reference, this is right across Hwy 90 from Cajun Encounters Swamp Tours.

Launch:
https://www.google.com/maps/@30.2306021,-89.6686396,320m/data=!3m1!1e3

Take out:
https://www.google.com/maps/@30.1655167,-89.7367319,333m/data=!3m1!1e3

And here's the route, as recorded by my Garmin Forerunner:

From our launch, we paddled downstream for about 7 1/2 miles. Even though the river is very curvy for much of this trip, the fast current kept us moving along at a good clip. The river was pretty clear of boats and obstacles this day, though we did pass some of the Cajun Encounters tour boats full of tourists. Typically, you'll paddle over some eddies or swirls on the Pearl or Old Pearl, but normally  these are not cause for  any concern. On this trip, we just followed the river to a fork at about the 6 mile mark, and we went right. We could have just as easily gone left, and this option would have taken us out to Little Lake, a little east of the Rigolets. and it would have added about 4 miles to our trip as we made our way west over to the Rigolets. But, we did know we were going to be paddling against the outgoing tide up the Rigolets, so we took the shorter option to the right. 

This brought us out onto the Rigolets perhaps a mile or less from its southern end, or right across from St. Catherine Pass (more options for longer loops come to mind as I type this), and we took a right, going north up the Rigolets.

As I've said, we did our "upstream" paddle towards Fort Pike at a much slower pace than our trip down the river. I've made mention of the Rigolets in at least one other post, where I discuss how the tides moving through this curved channel don't really make it feel like paddling upstream or downstream. You definitely feel the increased or decreased speed due to the direction of the tide, but in the Rigolets itself, the tide does react to the curved banks and there is a lot of reflective energy. Due to this energy and the width of the Rigolets, this usually has a fun, semi-open water feel to it. When I'm paddling against the tide through the smaller channels, like St Catherine Pass, it does feel like a slow down, or uphill walk. But not so much through the Rigolets. Again, in an earlier post, I do discuss the Rigolets in a little more detail, and describe some other experiences I've had paddling. You can click a link on my side bar to the right of this page to find my other references to the Rigolets.

The following pictures are from the northern end of the Rigolets, maybe a mile south of Fort Pike. As you can see, it feels like open water out here:

Here's Nick

Here's Sarah, taking a picture of me taking a picture of her.

And, that'd be me.

You should expect quite a variety of boat traffic through the Rigolets, from small fishing boats to much larger vessels. Because kayaks are not exactly common out here, these boats will not be looking for you, so stay to one side or the other. If you need to cross from one side or the other, be very careful to check for traffic. This is a pretty wide channel, at least on its northern half--your crossing could be 3/4 of a mile, IF you can do it in a straight line. So allow enough time and distance for any oncoming boat traffic if you cross.

After that left hand curve, you'll have the Hwy 90 bridge that crosses over the Rigolets as a target to aim for. Your take out spot at Fort Pike is to the left of this bridge, and remember that your perspective changes as you continue following the curve. If traffic is heavy, it may be a good idea to stay on the left side, and then you'll have a pretty short crossing at what is called Sawmill Pass (see map below). This will keep you out of the flow of most traffic as you finish your way to the take out spot.  But, as you can see from our route below, traffic was actually pretty light on this December day, and we were able to spend a lot of time cruising (and posing for pictures) right down the middle.  

As I mention earlier, paddling the Rigolets and the main "fingers" of the Pearl River can be a lot of fun, and you have lots of alternate routes to try. But both some of the trickiest paddling in the NOLA area can occur in these waters in certain conditions. So make sure you, or the person you go with, are experienced enough to predict and handle the conditions of the day.

I have other Rigolets and Pearl routes listed in the links/labels along the right side of this blog. And more to come!

Paddling the Rigolets from Fort Pike: 2 routes, plus a third option

Paddling through the Rigolets is quite an experience and I really enjoy it. But for many reasons, I’m going to rate this as an intermediate to advanced paddle. The cautious tone I'll have here is mainly because I've just seen too many people try to do 10-15 mile trips in boats that are just not adequate, and often their skills and fitness levels aren't up to task either. This trip, in the wrong boat, on the wrong day, could be rough. If you've paddled a bit, know some of your limits and want to test them a little, and know how to read a tide chart, this can be a good route for you. The route I'll describe through St Catherine Pass and the Rigolets is 13-14 miles.  Some of that, at some point, will be against the flow of the tide.  
Compared to most of my other articles, this one will be more about the conditions and safety concerns, and less about the photography and details of the route. I’ll list some images of maps and routes, and you’ll see that the common routes are pretty easy to follow.

Here's a capture from Google Earth of three routes my Garmin has recorded on some of my trips in this area. This post is primarily about the fuchsia route in this image, but I also mention the light blue route.

The light blue route also has its own post here:
http://www.southeasternlouisianapaddling.com/2016/04/old-pearl-river-rigolets-kayak.html

And, the red route is described in this post:  
http://www.southeasternlouisianapaddling.com/2016/05/marathon-kayak-trip-fort-pike-lake-st.html

A few things need to be considered before paddling the Rigolets, Lake St Catherine, and Bay Jaune, as well as the passes between the Rigolets and Bay Jaune, all affecting safety and difficulty levels. First and foremost are the tides.  This area is a coastal marsh, so any trip or loop in this area, and especially on the 8 mile Rigolets, has to be based around the timing and flow of the tides. I will not pretend to be an expert in this area—my knowledge of tides is  pretty amateurish, to be honest. But I can speak to experiences that I’ve had. 

In very general terms, look at a map of this area, and try to envision an overall movement of water, either going out, or coming in. That's a lot of water being squeezed into small channels. So, if you leave from Fort Pike and head out to Lake St Catherine and then Bay Jaune with an ebb tide (tide going out), your paddle will be fun and easy until you turn back towards the fort in the Rigolets itself, and then you’ll slow down a lot, depending on the range of the tides and your timing.  How the tidal currents will feel going through Bay Jaune and St Catherine Pass is fairly predictable—you’ll work harder or more easily, depending on the your heading versus the tide. But, the same is not true of the Rigolets. 

My first two or three times out here, I really had a simplistic view of the flow of the tides. For an amateur at understanding tides, it was easy for me to look at the map and think of the flow through the Rigolets as being like the flow of a river. I assumed it would simply be "with me" or "against me" as the tides moved in and out. But that’s really not the case here. This is not a river, whose course was cut by the one-way flow of water, so you're not simply paddling upstream or downstream. This is a curved, narrow pass that has water “pushed" or "pulled" through it with each movement of the tide. The flow interacts with the shape of the land on both sides, so there’s a good bit of reflective energy. This channel also gets pretty deep compared to the areas around it--in excess of 50 feet. so there's a lot of energy, and it can feel very bouncy. And the energy changes as you pass through each curve. 

I have paddled through the Rigolets on the day of a full moon (Spring Tide), and was paddling “with” the flow through the Rigolets, but I hardly felt any benefit. My partner and I were in nice sea kayaks, but with no skegs or rudders, and it was a lot of work. We had already fought against the tide paddling through Bay Jaune and St Catherine Pass getting to the Rigolets, thinking we'd ride the flood tide in once we hit the Rigolets. Not so much. We were tired from the effort getting to the Rigolets, and once there, the water was very bouncy and our boats were really weather cocking. This was the wrong day to bring an inexperienced paddler, especially in a boat without a skeg or rudder. I did not know there was a full moon (poor planning), and I'm sure the tidal range was larger due to that, so more water was moving that day. For my partner, with little experience in bouncy water or with edging and correcting for pretty severe weather cocking, who was already tired, this was just too much. Especially with a good bit of fast moving motor boat traffic. As we moved through the Rigolets, the water energy changed with the shape of the channel,  and we'd go from weather cocking to the left for a while, then to the right for a while. For more experienced and confident paddlers, it could have been a fun day to test fitness and boat handling.

But that day was the most difficult I've experienced out here. I've had several trips through the Rigolets that were much, much calmer, with the main concern simply being the direction of the tide or the wind. In fact, the last time I paddled this area, I got to the Rigolets at the very end of the incoming tide, or more likely at slack tide, and it was the smoothest part of the entire trip. 

And of course, wind will have a very strong influence. There’s a lot of open water around, and that’s surrounded by flat terrain and only grassy vegetation. So if there’s a wind, you’ll feel it. The marsh grass offers some protection from the wind as you pass through any of the smaller channels, but not a lot. 

In Lake St Catherine and Bay Jaune, you’ll probably only encounter fishing boats, but some will be moving pretty fast. In the Rigolets, you’ll encounter a large variety of boats, most moving fast, and few expecting to see kayaks out there. Stay to the edges, and if you need to cross from one side to the other, be very careful. The crossing can be a third to a half mile, and again, larger vessels won’t be looking for you.

Finally, another consideration is that you may not encounter any firm ground to stop and take a break. On the St Catherine Pass option, you should be able to pull over and rest at the train tracks just past the left hand turn that you’ll see on that route image. Basically, go past your left hand turn, take a break, and then keep right when you set off again. If you want to add a little bit to the paddle, there's a sandy landing spot past the RR bridge, also. On the Counterfeit Pass route, you should expect to have to stay in your boat the entire time.

None of this is to discourage you. It's only meant to prepare you and to make sure you plan your trip and know what you could experience. I really do enjoy paddling through the Rigolets. 

Okay, the routes:
As I mentioned above, the routes are pretty easy to follow on a map, but it is worth remembering that one “intersection” in the marsh looks like another, and you will come across some small waterways through the marsh grass that you may confuse with your actual route. If you take the route through Counterfeit Pass, it would certainly be helpful to load the route into a GPS device. It’s not that hard to follow, but again, you may get tempted to go down the wrong path. The route through St Catherine Pass is easier to follow, since that pass is pretty wide and easy to distinguish from the others. To follow this route, you just need to look for the very wide and noticeable left hand turn shown on the image I’ve provided. In the route image below, you can see the train tracks where you should be able to stop and relax. This is actually just past the left turn I mentioned above, so you can go past the turn, land, stretch and eat, and then head back to the Rigolets. Looking at the map, you can see that St Catherine Pass has a much more direct flow to and from Lake Borgne, so the tidal influence is very noticeable.

I actually haven't yet made it through Counterfeit Pass, but I'm eager to. I am curious to see if the tidal influence is less noticeable, since this pass is really an offshoot from the Rigolets, and runs more perpendicular to the general tidal flow. My hunch is that the tidal flow is a little less strong here, but I just don't know yet. On the day I intended to take this path, my GPS failed, my directional confidence was low, and tidal flow was very strong, so I didn't want to take any wrong turns, and I just went to St Catherine Pass (and worked very hard against the current). I've added an image of gmap-pedometer route through Counterfeit Pass also, as well as a link to that route that you could export as a GPX to add to your GPS.

Finally, some friends and I did a very fun paddle down the Old Pearl River to the Rigolets once that involved only a short vehicle shuttle from Fort Pike to our launch farther down Hwy 90. I've included an image of that route, as recorded by my Garmin Forerunner. That launch was right across Hwy 90 from Cajun Encounters Swamp Tours. 

The Fort Pike Launch:

Just west of Fort Pike on Hwy 90 is a public boat launch:

https://www.google.com/maps/@30.1653248,-89.7371044,164m/data=!3m1!1e3

The launch at Fort Pike

A loop through St Catherine Pass to the Rigolets. The white line cutting the bottom right corner is the train tracks, and that's one spot to stop and stretch and eat.

An option going through Counterfeit Pass, with a link to this below:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=6706681

Old Pearl River to Rigolets, with  short car shuttle between launch and finish.

Lake St Catherine, just leaving the launch.

As you launch from Fort Pike, you should see the Rigolets train bridge off in the distance (above picture).  But this is NOT the same train bridge you'll come to on St. Catherine Pass.

Lunch at the train tracks--above and below:

As you can see, it's wide open out here--nothing to stop the wind.

Just past the train bridge

There's a lot of open water out here.

Fort Pike