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The old Labrot House looks out on the end of the Pascagoula River at that strip of marsh grass. Everything south is salt, and lots of it, unbroken to the Yucatan, save for Horn Island. This place is more salt than fresh, although half a mile away near US 90, it begins to be more fresh than salt. The river is large and unimpeded and traverses a strip of wilderness for many miles until it runs into the coastal cities and a large estuary. Remote in very many places, wild and dangerous, and mostly jungle and water. The Pascagoula itself is formed by two other rivers, the Leaf and Chickasawhay that drain most of the Pine Belt.
Below I-10 there are few trees anymore on the random spits of semi-solid ground that makes up the swamp. Once long ago there were cypress there but salt water intrusion from digging channels, and pollution from a paper mill killed most of them a long time ago. But I did notice on a recent trip the young cypress were beginning to move further down the river and there is hope one day the river will have them again. They grow so slowly and have to find a safe place for a very long time. There are a few oaks on sand bars, and even some small cypress still hanging on. The river is a hard mistress as far as habitat goes, because it changes and moves around. I remember one flood around 1974 or thereabouts put water over MS 613, which has never happened since.
And so it ends here at this strip of grass (for the western most channel of the river).
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The western most channel runs just inside the grass toward the SW and there are bars and hazards galore, not to mention dangerous weather and sudden and severe storms. Here the cormorants are flying the channel toward the fishing grounds to the west. The lines in the water delineate the channel. Fishing below the birds is a standard tactic and I love to see terns hovering. The channel there is pretty deep, although I can't say how deep in feet, and a highway to the west and south. It is very difficult to travel east from this spot due to oyster reefs, bars, shallow water, military installations, and all the other dangers of water on the edge of the gulf. The commercial channel of the river to the east is dredged very deep and aircraft carrier sized ships move around there. The dolphins are frequently sighted plying those waters below the birds, although there is an underwater bar in the foreground.
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And one summer night Sonya and I took the boat a couple of miles west to fish a pier, and there were THOUSANDS of redfish in there. Every single one we caught was just a smidgeon too small and they carry a hefty fine, so we came home empty handed, dirty and stinky, and tired from fighting fish all night. It was a blast!