by This post shows photos of Grand Isle, Louisiana in 2019. In 2021 Hurricane Ida destroyed or seriously damaged all homes on this island, the only inhabited barrier island in Louisiana. The long, wide beach shown near the end of this post was essentially washed away. Ida made first landfall at Fourchon. By 2023 people were rebuilding the stilt houses, although there were still large stretches of vacant land.
A confession: As I drove across Arizona, then onto Texas and Louisiana, I had a fantasy of finding a small cottage near a beach and spending some time there. No particular beach or even a specific state in mind. Just a few weeks near the sand and surf. So when my stay in New Orleans was drawing to an end, I looked on a map and saw Grand Isle, a 2 hour drive to the south. “It’s gotta have beaches”, I thought. So off I went to find a beach cottage.
Flat, flatter and flattest
Before I go further, I need to tell you that the last place I saw mountains–real soaring, western-type mountains–was on the distant horizon outside of Pecos, Texas. Sure, there were rolling hills along the way in West Texas, but the countryside was growing increasingly flatter as I traveled east and south. By the time I drove through miles of swamps and estuaries and reached Fourchon near Grand Isle, I was ready to sign up with the Flat Earth Society! It was flatter than eastern Montana.
The elevated causeway in the distance runs for miles across the swamps and seas of grasses in southern Louisiana. That palm tree next to the road out of Fourchon was the only tree in sight.
Fourchon, Louisiana, however, looked nicely rustic, so my hopes were up for Grand Isle, just a bit further on down the road. Maybe this was the place for a secluded beach experience. Later I learned that at Fourchon I was actually turning northward; Fourchon is to the southwest of Grand Isle. Perhaps I should have stopped in at Fins Bar and learned a bit from the locals before going on.
Stilt houses with ocean views
As in Galveston, almost every building in Grand Isle facing the ocean was on stilts. Here, however, a homeowner could park his/her boat underneath the house. Good for a quick getaway.
A high berm/sand dune/seawall prevented me from seeing the ocean as I drove slowly along the two lane highway down the center of Grand Isle so I focused on looking at stilt houses. Quite a few looked empty. Hmmm… maybe a fantasy cottage on stilts?
A picnic table and two office chairs in the shade beneath a stilt house. Is it time for a party? Or simply debris that washed under the house?
End of the island blocked
I kept on driving with a goal of going to the very end of the island road where I expected to find a beach. (I was still thinking that I was continuing further south in Louisiana, but I wasn’t.) Then the road split, so there were two “ends of the road” at this point. I took the road to the oil depot. The Coast Guard Station was off-limits.
Beside the oil depot this Adriatic Marine ship was docked. It looked as if it was being lived on. Maybe a large houseboat? Maybe I should think about a houseboat instead of a fantasy beach cottage. (Nope–I already did that years ago.)
So there was no accessible beach at either end of the road. But I remembered seeing a park on my way so I backtracked to King Tarpon park.
Why is the Grand Isle beach empty?
The beach at Grand Isle goes on for miles with almost no one on it. I soon learned why.
I climbed up and over the dune on a rubber mat then down a short trail lined with bushes and onto the wide beach. At the edge of the wet sand I took off my shoes and waded into the Gulf of Mexico ankle deep. Unlike the Pacific, the water was warm. Waves barely made more than a splash. And the air was almost suffocating it was so hot and humid. It felt hotter than Las Vegas at 122 degrees F which I have experienced. Not a breath of the cooling breeze that I expected to find. No wonder there were so few people around.
A shark scare
Then I noticed a shark fin come up to the surface less than 30 feet from where 4 children were playing, waist-deep, in the water. OMG. OMG. My urge was to shriek “Get out of the water”. Their parents, a distance away under umbrellas on the beach, apparently didn’t see it as the fin glided by and disappeared. Should I say something or not? Or was it too late?
I stopped. Watched. A minute later I saw the fin again, this time farther out from the beach. The shark was chasing a school of tiny fish, that were jumping out of the water as the shark approached. Then a mother called to the children to come out of the water for lunch. I sighed with relief and, barefooted, turned back to the path. I should have said something and the fact that I didn’t still bothers me years later.
I hadn’t reached the beginning of the path up the dune before my bare feet began to burn. The dry sand was incredibly hot. Painful! So standing on a small patch of grass I put my sandy feet in my shoes then made my way back to my car. This Louisiana beach was definitely not the cool haven that beaches in California are. My interest in a fantasy beach cottage on Grand Isle faded.
I continued on to Lafayette where there was air conditioning, dirty brown bayous and tall trees that obscured the truth of flat earth. No beach cottage on stilts for me.
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