Old Fort Bayou - Here There Be Gators!

Okay, let's get to the most important point first.  This cutie greeted us as we turned a corner in Bayou Talia, off Old Fort Bayou, on our kayaks.  David yelled back to Kathy, "It's the real thing!"  Kathy didn't know what he meant, and she paddled to within maybe 15 feet of this baby before she realized it was a real alligator, and not a log.

But we get ahead of ourselves.  We wanted to kayak again today, but, due to low tides, there wouldn't be much water that we haven't explored in Davis Bayou, here in Gulf Islands National Seashore, where we are camped.  So David did a little investigating and found the Old Fort Bayou Blueway.

Old Fort Bayou is a 13-mile nature lover's paradise that provides a beautiful vista for paddling. Its headwaters begin in the longleaf pine savannas south of Vancleave, Mississippi and continue through many important natural areas, including the Sandhill Crane Wildlife Refuge, The Nature Conservancy's Old Fort Bayou mitigation property, the Land Trust's Twelve Oaks Conservation Park, and Mississippi's Old Fort Bayou Coastal Preserve, deepening and widening toward its mouth at Biloxi Bay in Ocean Springs.

Luckily, there is a boat ramp on Old Fort Bayou, just a couple miles north of our campground, so it was easy for us to drive the kayaks up and plop them in the water.  We looked back at the boat ramp and dock as we set out on the inky, slow-moving bayou water.

Once we paddled out onto the main bayou waters, things opened up and we had expansive vistas:

We decided to paddle west, toward Biloxi Bay, and turned north into Bayou Talia.  The map below gives you an idea what our route was like:

Once we got into Bayou Talia, we found smaller water and lots of interlacing waterways with chances to explore (and get lost):

The bayous are set in grassy marshland with stands of pine trees overhead:

Eventually, after passing Mr. Gator, we arrived at our furthest point, the north end of Bayou Talia, where some houses lay along a smaller waterway leading north from the bayou:

Paddling back down toward Old Fort Bayou, we passed the power line easement, where a dirt maintenance road followed the power line poles right down into the water:

Back on Old Fort Bayou, we rejoined the weekenders who were out fishing and pleasure-boating.  This family gave us a big wake to surf on as we headed back to our boat ramp:

Just west of the channel into our boat ramp, we came across a beautiful property, with a large tree draped in Spanish Moss, gracing their waterfront along the bayou:

An adjoining property had two elevated boathouses, and a proprietary pelican sat on a piling, keeping a eye on the boats for the owners:

A friend of his was hanging out in our channel as we approached the boat ramp.  David tried to get closer than this for a better photo, but this pelican beat wings and frustrated the effort:

The paddle was a total of 5 miles, which was a moderate distance for us.  But we did this in one sitting, without getting out of the kayaks and stretching our legs, or taking a break from paddling, so we were ready to start walking again when we returned to our boat ramp.

We've taken note of Old Fort Bayou as a "must do" paddle if we return to the area.  We didn't explore anything on the bayou to the east of our location, nor areas below Bayou Talia.  There are probably 9 more miles of Blueway for us to explore when we return!