How Often Do You See Alligators

Kayaking at Cane Bayou

The other day my good friend Angela from Long Island New York and I were chatting.  And she asked me, how often do you see alligators?

I actually laughed, since alligators are not common to the average person living in Louisiana, even us country girls.  But what was so funny was I had actually seen a few recently. 

My daughter, 2 of my nieces, a friend and I decided to go kayaking.  Amanda did some research and found a bayou that fed into a lake where we could put in and kayak.  It was about an hour and a half from home, an area we have not kayaked before.  

Getting to this place was a little tricky, but with our phone GPS we managed, sorta.  We of course got lost, had to turn around and then went to the wrong place and had to turn around again.  Now mind you there were 2 young women navigating the GPS, I was driving. 

Finally, we found the landing for Cane Bayou.  It was really nice, and easy to pull in.  So we unload all the kayaks and put our paddles, life vests, coolers and backpacks on board.  Away we went.

It was a beautiful sunny day, and the bayou was pretty.  Not long into our trip to the lake, we saw something in the water.  

Not sure what it was, I decided to be the brave one and paddled a little closer, whew it was just a log.  Now mind you there are other people out here kayaking down the bayou to the lake.  So it’s not like we were the only ones.  A little bit of comfort there. 

Along the way, we see some water lilies and other natural flora.  It was nice and relaxing.  We passed under a bridge/railroad trestle that is a walking/biking trail through the parish.  This trail is on an old railroad bed…very nice and very cool.   

We made it out to the lake, and well after paddling, floating and drinking a cool one or two, most of us had to pee. So, we looked for a spot to get out of the kayak and cool off in the water.  

There was some grassy area, and since we knew there could be gators, we chose a spot where we could see the bottom if we decided to go into the water for a dip.  

Oh, it was nice to get out and stretch our legs and just chit chat for a few minutes.  The lake was not too rough, and we are able to just float a bit, and grab something to munch on and relax.

As we were getting ready to paddle-on-back down the bayou to the landing…there we saw it!  

Yes, an alligator that was up on that bank that we got out on.  

Thankfully he didn’t charge us, but we sure got the hell outta dodge.  

And funny, on the way back we saw 2 more…just the eyes floating, but that was enough.  So we saw a total of 3 gators in one day, well above the average for me. 

All in all it was a great day (except for the sunburn.)  I had sunscreen, but it was in my backpack.  As you can imagine, that didn’t do me any good.  

When I got home, I took the coolest Wisdom Bubbleaux bubble bath that I could handle.  

Talk about feeling so good.  I finished the evening off with cool and refreshing Wisdom lotion all over my sunburn (it was feeling hot and stingy at this point.)  Now that made my sunburn feel so much better.  At least I could sleep.