Waltzing Matilda in “Another World”

December 26, 2009
This will be a long one, as Nathan had quite a bit to say.
Waltzing Matilda was two miles west of Morgan City, Louisiana, when Nathan called this afternoon. He’s gone about 730 miles on this more than month-long water adventure. Now, only about twenty miles of Louisiana swamp separate him from the Gulf of Mexico.
He’s on the Intracoastal Waterway sailing with a tailwind of about 3 knots. “It does feel weird to be going west,” he said. But he’s headed toward New Iberia, Louisiana, where he plans to tie up for perhaps a week at the waterfront home of the father of his friend Ragan. The next major checkpoint will be Vermillion Bay of the Gulf of Mexico.
Nathan and Ragan met while both were students at Northeastern State University in Oklahoma and they often partnered up for swing dancing. Ragan apparently wants them to go dancing at some place in Louisiana where the dance is from 7:30 a.m (that’s right, a.m.), to noon. So strange is that arrangement that the bar serves breakfast.
Nathan described Morgan City, which he just passed, as a petroleum center and a major port and it’s where he saw his first oceangoing ship on this trip. Although small by ocean standards, the ship he saw was perhaps 80 feet tall and 300 feet long and made Waltzing Matilda seem very insignificant. At Morgan City the ocean ships transfer containers to the river barges. And it was there that he also saw a derelict iron-hulled three-masted schooner rusting and listing.
The barges have been smaller where Nathan is now, compared to the monsters he had to contend with on the Mississippi River. “Where I’m at now, the water is as smooth as glass, there’s no current at all. There’s a barge a half mile ahead and one is creeping up behind but I’m off to the side and out of his way.” As we carried on our phone conversation, Nathan began to speak perhaps as much to himself as to us about the barge behind him “This guy’s not going to give me any room here.” Then: “You might be able to hear his tug as he comes by” (we didn’t). “He’s the Thomas E. Rollins and he has two empty liquid containers for diesel fuel.”
Diesel fuel is a problem for Waltzing Matilda. He’s very low on fuel, although he has been burning discarded crankcase oil, of which he has a half gallon. Baldwin, Louisiana, will be “my first time at panhandling,” Nathan said. “I’ll find a gas station and I’ll have my fuel can and will play my violin and have a sign that says ‘Will work for diesel fuel and dog food.’”
Colorful storytelling, but I think he was serious.
If anyone were around Nathan in the lonely Louisiana swamps where he is sailing, it might appear to them that Mattie the dog is piloting the Waltzing Matilda. In the calm water Nathan sometimes sets the sales and lashes the tiller. Mattie likes to lie across the tiller, so Nathan tells her “Okay, you drive the boat, I’m going to go below and make some coffee.” And it looks like Mattie is indeed “driving.”
“I really like Louisiana,” Nathan said, despite its marshland. “It’s a different world. For instance, in the swamp there are no pickup trucks; instead people get around in boats.” He has been in places where it’s swampland for a hundred miles in any direction. “There are some interesting characters living on the waterfront here.” In one case he saw a wrecked mobile home that was floating on 55-gallon drums. It had a sign that read: “No Trapossing.” Another sign reflected the circumstances of water everywhere: “Groceries delivered by truck or boat.”
However, there was one place where he did come across some pickup trucks; in fact, there were 5 to 6-hundred of them gathered at a hunting spot. Someone had bagged a big black boar and Nathan said he told them it was the ugliest deer he had ever seen.
“The swamp is beautiful,” according to Nathan, “Although the foliage is down due to winter. There are lily pads all over and there’s floating foliage and cypress and Spanish moss and lots of owls. I see and hear all kinds of birds. I saw alligator tracks.”
Other news of the Waltzing Matilda:
--He’s heard French spoken on the ship’s radio. And as he nears the ocean ships he’s heard Chinese.
--Christmas dinner consisted of canned ham and potatoes.
--Given the complexity of waterways and channels in Louisiana, Nathan said he got lost on the Atchafalaya River. Then he qualified his statement, indicating that he wasn’t completely lost. I guess it was like the statement by early American explorer and pioneer Daniel Boone: “I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks.”
Tonight, Nathan expects to for the first time start noting the ocean’s tide and its effects inland. The tidal change, he said, should be about two feet. As we wrapped our conversation today, Nathan made one more observation that reflected optimism and that was worthy of a sailor.
“Today,” he said, “The sun rose one-half minute earlier than it did yesterday. The days are getting longer.”