Post Crawfish Discussions About the River

Still perplexed by last night’s post crawfish berl discussion / disagreement about the Mississippi River.

It started out with talk of drownings in the river and the inability of folks to manage in the current even a few feet from the shore. That was all well and good and everyone concurred that the river is indeed dangerous. But just how dangerous it is was up for debate. Aggie and Randy stated rather unequivocally that a strong swimmer, in the right conditions, could stroke across the river from ferry landing to ferry landing no problem. Randy then stated that it has undoubtedly happened many times recently and through the ages. I responded that it has never happened and anyone who attempted it would drown and their body would be found in Plaquemines Parish.

In the course of this discussion, I stated that the river was a half a mile across at New Orleans. I remembered this fact from my training as a Hospitality Ranger several years ago. This was dismissed and laughed at. Aggie would only go so far as a quarter of a mile (at most) and Randy stated the river was 1/10 of a mile across (“and probably not even that”). Also, apparently they both overestimate the size of a football field because they thought that the river was at most three football fields across. I tried to say that a football field wasn’t shit lengthwise and many of the freighters on the River were longer than a football field. Our block is about the size of a football field.

I stuck by my ranger training and as a drunken debater I always prefer to spend my time finding an Internet connection and looking up the answer rather than fighting it out so, I went across the street and measured the river using an excercise site called Map My Run. It’s .47 of a mile from ferry landing to ferry landing, about nine football fields across. So that was settled so I thought. I got back ac

Harder to find was evidence of anyone successfully swimming across the river at Algiers Point or anywhere in GNO.

I found several colloquial stories…

Does anyone know if there’s any truth behind the myth that it’s impossible to swim across the Mississippi river with clothes on

It was a great feeling when I finished swimming across the Mississippi River, to fulfill my to-do-list-before-I-die. Even though it was at the Headwaters, MN, where the Mississippi River is only about 30 feet wide, but of course I did “Swim across the Mississippi River” (check).

Officials warn against swimming across river

But things got really interesting when I found several accounts of folks having done it as far south as Clarksdale…

Anyone for a Dip?
Since I was a kid, I’ve been warned that the mighty Mississippi is a deadly stew of swirling eddies—and that swimming across it is oneof the stupidest things a person can do. Naturally, I had to give it a try.

And they even had a YouTube clip too…

Those two stories damaged my argument a bit but Clarksdale is several hundred miles north of New Orleans and the current is stronger and the channel is deeper here. Not to mention the hazards presented by the millions of cubic feet of water whipping around Point. But I must say these videos did damage my argument.

Finally we jokingly convinced Randy that the only way he could prove the River could be crossed was if he did it himself. Right then and right there. So we rode our bikes down to the Old Point for some brews and went up to the levee to measure up the situation. Aaaaand that was about it. We just stared at the river and speculated some more. Never figured out if it was indeed possibly to swim across it at the Point or in New Orleans proper. I still say it can’t be done even if no freighters were coming. It’s a safe bet drownings would result if people tried it.