I was back on Route 1. This stretch of leveed highway parallels the Gulf shore, and a brownish-green marsh stretched between me and open water. My destination: the end of the road, and possibly pirates.
As I made my way east, wetland slowly gave way to low dunes, and after a flyover bridge I found myself on a barrier island. Here industry gave way to the tourist economy: the main road was lined with shops and restaurants, while side streets were lined with rental cottages and elevated vacation homes. Most were elevated on pilings the designers hoped would protect them during future storm surges, providing space to shelter cars, trucks, boats, and the occasional RV from the sun. It being summer, streets and yards were packed with families and other constellations of revelers enjoying time away from their day-to-day lives. The balconies of the larger homes sported drying towels and fishing poles. After some twenty minutes of slow moving traffic the homes thinned again, leaving dunes to my left, a tank farm to my right, and the tip of the island ahead.
During the Napoleonic Wars, the U.S. outlawed trade with both Great Britain and France, two major sources of goods for the recently-acquired New Orleans. This created opportunities, and a local smuggler and pirate, Jean Lafitte, set up shop on the barrier islands one hundred miles south to fill the need. For the next few years, merchants made their way across Barataria Bay to his Grand Terre warehouses and slave pens for auctions, and he was mysteriously effective at evading capture by local soldiers and customs officials. In 1814, as the War of 1812 spread south, Lafitte was approached by the British and asked to join their fleet’s attacks along the Gulf Coast. Lafitte chose to warn the Americans instead and, after some initial resistance from Jackson, was instrumental in the American victory during the Battle of New Orleans. When the war was over, his men were pardoned, his Grand Terre station coopted by the government as a coastal defense fort, and Jean Lafitte and his brother Pierre moved west to Galveston, where they served as spies for Spain during the Mexican War for Independence. While Fort Livingston (as their enclave is now known) is accessible only by boat, I’d heard it is possible to get a glimpse of it from the bay’s west side*.
I entered Grand Isle State Park and made my way along the estuary to the visitors center. The weather here was cooler than in Port Fourchon, with a stiff breeze coming in off the water. There was an observation tower, a roofed deck perched atop five flights of stairs. I gave it a try but, as expected, abandoned the effort at the fourth turn of the stairs**. This left the pier that led out over the dunes and the beach and over the water. As I moseyed toward the waves, I watched two families on the beach below, the adults sunning themselves on towels, the youngsters playing near the water’s edge. To the other side, sandpipers and gulls alternately probed the beach for food and scurried away from the wave wash, and pelicans perched on the stones of a decaying jetty.
And there it was: a stripe of brick on the opposite shore. Pirates.
I leaned on the railing and took some deep breaths. It had been a long four months, and fatigue was catching up with me. My eyes drifted to the waves; the regular rhythm of the swells began to relax the knots in my body and mind. A shrimp boat chugged through the pass towards open water; a helicopter circled on approach to a nearby base. A man walked towards me, tackle and pole in hand, set up further down the railing and cast his line. I scanned the horizon, and the city of oil platforms that stretched along it. I stood, and breathed in the Gulf air, and slowly began to relax.
* https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/fort-livingston
** Remember the bridge thing?