Re: Post Season Things

[Rick]

The first guy to use Doug's, then new, 18' Go-Devil in our marsh also worked at a boat shop and installed a second bulb up near the tank in the bow to apparently good effect.

[DComeaux]

The first guy to use Doug's, then new, 18' Go-Devil in our marsh also worked at a boat shop and installed a second bulb up near the tank in the bow to apparently good effect.

I may do that as well rather than in the rear near and before the external fuel pump. I noticed a splice in the line in that area and assumed there may have been a primer bulb there at one time.

We have sleet falling here this morning! We'll, the local weather people are calling it graupel.

[Rick]

Sounds like a different setup, but I'm just saying that I don't think the additional bulb impeded normal flow.

Never heard of the PB Blaster version, but had good luck with Boshield's(?) waxy salt blocker during my Capt. Rick phase.

[Darren]

Looks good! We've long used Mercury's Corrosion Guard product for an anti-corrosion waterproof coating on all sorts of outboard parts or other stuff that gets a lot of water, not sure if you've tried that one in past.

[DComeaux]

Thanks for the mention of the other products. It'll give me options.

[DComeaux]

Moving along nicely


Louisiana Rice Research Board

In southwest Louisiana, the crop is essentially planted. Tyler Musgrove, the new rice specialist there, said, “We had dry and warm conditions early which led to a much earlier planting start than usual. Statewide, we reached 85-90 percent during the last week of March. The only rice left to plant is in northeast Louisiana and any crawfish rice in June.” Musgrove is estimating a total of 420,000 acres planted this year in the state.

"He estimated that 850,000 acres of rice will be planted in Arkansas this year."

https://www.usarice.com/news-and-events/publications/usa-rice-daily/article/usa-rice-daily/2026/04/08/u.s.-rice-spring-crop-planting-and-progress?fbclid=IwY2xjawRF0IJleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETF0bXdLdTIySndpRTNQYWk1c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHibWbHcZqE2zBMR50eJraDBF5TGy5g5VG4yEVRErPTgi2lZsyBwDmIRxSoHH_aem_97xl9xF_cwFZyaNp6PpAUg

668894122_122275236266204959_1936072793237357293_n.jpg

[Rick]

Yeah, but we gots 'em beat on crawfish boats a bazillion and twelve to one.

[Darren]

Moving along nicely


Louisiana Rice Research Board

In southwest Louisiana, the crop is essentially planted. Tyler Musgrove, the new rice specialist there, said, “We had dry and warm conditions early which led to a much earlier planting start than usual. Statewide, we reached 85-90 percent during the last week of March. The only rice left to plant is in northeast Louisiana and any crawfish rice in June.” Musgrove is estimating a total of 420,000 acres planted this year in the state.

"He estimated that 850,000 acres of rice will be planted in Arkansas this year."

https://www.usarice.com/news-and-events/publications/usa-rice-daily/article/usa-rice-daily/2026/04/08/u.s.-rice-spring-crop-planting-and-progress?fbclid=IwY2xjawRF0IJleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETF0bXdLdTIySndpRTNQYWk1c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHibWbHcZqE2zBMR50eJraDBF5TGy5g5VG4yEVRErPTgi2lZsyBwDmIRxSoHH_aem_97xl9xF_cwFZyaNp6PpAUg

668894122_122275236266204959_1936072793237357293_n.jpg

Podcast guys a couple weeks back were surmising rice plantings in AR would be down, perhaps substantially, this year due to conditions they were seeing. They figured beans would see an uptick. Not sure if that figure is up or down from par.

[DComeaux]

Remi had her last two kill injections on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week and she's doing fine. We're at a month and half of limited activity, leashed walks, and daily medication, and we still have another 30 days to go. The blood draw on Tuesday tested negative for microfilariae (heartworm young). Another month and the wild child will be released. I hope to never go through this again.

[Rick]

I hope to never go through this again.

Bet the prisoner does, too.

[Deltaman]

Bummer on the length of time needed Dave, but glad she is on the mend, and well before the season starts.

[DComeaux]

I really hate to see this happen. It's not going to be the same down there.

https://keatyblog.com/spacex-pecan-island-louisiana/?fbclid=IwY2xjawRghqlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeb_9rGTyckkOoT8TLcv4lYM3uP4puDRglx5B6OPyeOgFWcNPK1s9adoIbk2I_aem_XeeblSrjdc3NefQGswPcjA

Is SpaceX Coming to Acadiana?
By Jim Keaty, Owner — Keaty Real Estate · 337-344-4236 · jim@jimkeaty.com

Something big is happening in the marsh south of Abbeville and almost no one is talking about it on the record. Over the last few weeks I’ve fielded dozens of phone calls from clients, friends, and fellow sportsmen asking the same question: did SpaceX really buy 136,000 acres in Pecan Island and Freshwater City? I’ve called everyone I could think of who might know — government officials, longtime Pecan Island locals, energy insiders, hunting-lease holders. No one is denying it. A few are quietly confirming it. But not a single official document has surfaced. So I went down the rabbit hole myself. Here is everything I’ve learned about the rumor, what makes it credible, what it would mean for property owners and investors across Acadiana, and what I think you should do about it right now.
The Rumor That’s Shaking Acadiana
The rumor — repeated in private group chats, in coffee shops in Abbeville, and in hunting camps from Forked Island to Grand Chenier — is that SpaceX has acquired or is in the process of acquiring approximately 136,000 acres of coastal Louisiana marshland straddling Pecan Island and Freshwater City in Vermilion Parish. The footprint reportedly stretches from south of Highway 82 down to the Gulf of Mexico, encompassing some of the most ecologically rich and economically untouched wetlands in North America.

If true, this would be the single largest private land acquisition in the modern history of Vermilion Parish. To put it in perspective: 136,000 acres is roughly 212 square miles — bigger than the entire city of New Orleans. SpaceX’s existing Boca Chica/Starbase facility in South Texas, which has reshaped Brownsville’s economy and real estate market in just five years, is built on a footprint of less than 100 acres. A 136,000-acre Louisiana site would not be a launch pad. It would be an industrial campus on a scale never before seen in American aerospace.
Why I Believe This Rumor Is Real (The Exxon Connection)
The single most credible piece of evidence supporting the rumor isn’t a leak from inside SpaceX — it’s a verifiable public record about ExxonMobil. In October 2022, ExxonMobil announced plans to develop a 125,000-acre carbon-capture-and-storage project in Vermilion Parish, on land it controls through long-standing mineral and surface leases dating back to the Humble Oil era. That land is managed on the surface by the Vermilion Corporation, a private entity that has historically run hunting and fishing leases across the marsh.

Here’s what changed in 2025: ExxonMobil quietly withdrew its key wetlands permits for that carbon-capture project. Public records show the permitting effort has stalled. If Exxon has shelved its CCS plans, it now holds an enormous, contiguous block of South Louisiana real estate with no clear path to monetization — until a buyer like SpaceX walks in. Dealing with a single corporate seller like ExxonMobil makes a 136,000-acre transaction infinitely easier than negotiating with hundreds of private landowners. That’s exactly the kind of deal Elon Musk’s team would chase.

Two more pieces fit the puzzle:

The hunting lease intel. A trusted local source on Pecan Island has told me — and verified through other contacts — that hunting access south of Pecan Island will be changed for the 2026 season. If Vermilion Corporation’s surface lease is being terminated to facilitate a sale, the immediate consequence would be exactly that: cancelled hunting leases.
The 10x land offers. Multiple property owners in the Freshwater City area report receiving unsolicited offers from out-of-state investors at roughly ten times appraised value. This perfectly mirrors SpaceX’s 2019 Boca Chica playbook, where SpaceX (and speculators tracking SpaceX) offered three to ten times appraised value to secure the perimeter around their launch site.
None of this is a confirmation. But three independent signals — Exxon’s stalled CCS project, the hunting changes, and the premium land offers — all point in the same direction. My honest, professional opinion: this rumor is more likely true than not.

Why Vermilion Parish? Geography, Logistics, and the Halfway Point
If you’re wondering why SpaceX would care about a sleepy stretch of Louisiana marsh, the answer is one word: logistics. Pecan Island and Freshwater City sit on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW), a protected inland shipping canal that runs from Brownsville, Texas, all the way to Florida. SpaceX’s Starship rockets are 30 feet wide and over 160 feet tall — too large to move by road or rail. They have to be moved by barge.

Freshwater City sits almost exactly halfway between Boca Chica and Cape Canaveral. The Freshwater Bayou Lock provides direct, deep-water access to the Gulf of Mexico for SpaceX’s autonomous drone-ship recovery vessels. The Port of Iberia, just an hour east, has more than 100 marine fabrication yards already equipped to build launch mounts, modify barges, and supply offshore-grade steel.

Just as importantly, Cameron Parish to the west is the LNG capital of the United States. Starship’s Raptor engines run on liquid methane — the same product flowing through Cameron’s export terminals every day. And Entergy Louisiana has been building out a hurricane-hardened high-voltage transmission corridor across this exact stretch of marsh for the last two years (the giant steel monopoles you’ve seen being dropped by helicopter). Power, fuel, and waterway access are all converging on Pecan Island simultaneously. Whether by coincidence or by design, the site is now perfectly positioned for heavy industrial aerospace use.

The Important Catch: This Is Probably Not a Launch Site
Here’s a critical nuance I want every reader to understand: Vermilion Parish is an excellent location for a SpaceX manufacturing, testing, and barge logistics hub — but it is a poor location for an actual orbital launch pad. Rockets must launch eastward to take advantage of the Earth’s rotation. From Boca Chica, SpaceX launches east over the empty Gulf. From Vermilion Parish, a launch trajectory east would fly directly over New Orleans, the Mississippi coast, and the Florida Panhandle. The FAA does not allow that for experimental rockets that occasionally explode.

What they almost certainly can do here: build Starships, test Raptor engines (intentional fireballs and all), load completed rockets onto barges, and float them down the GIWW to either Boca Chica or Cape Canaveral for actual launch. Think of Pecan Island as the next Michoud Assembly Facility — a heavy-industrial aerospace factory hidden in the marsh.

What This Means for Acadiana Real Estate
If even half of this rumor materializes, it will be the single largest economic catalyst in Acadiana’s modern history. The Boca Chica precedent is the cleanest playbook we have. In Brownsville, SpaceX’s arrival generated more than $13 billion in regional economic output, 24,000 jobs, and a tripling of median home prices in less than five years. Property values in the Rio Grande Valley surged so quickly that locals were priced out of neighborhoods their families had owned for generations.

Acadiana would absorb that wave very differently. Engineers, contractors, and aerospace executives don’t live in the marsh — they live in Abbeville, Kaplan, Maurice, Erath, Youngsville, and Lafayette. The single-family inventory in Abbeville and Kaplan is thin and affordable today; that combination disappears overnight when 5,000 to 10,000 high-paid workers begin relocating their families. Lafayette would absorb the executive tier and see meaningful demand at the higher end of the market. The corridor along Highway 82 between Lafayette and Pecan Island would become the most strategically important strip of real estate in the parish.

The Biggest Investment Opportunities (Industries to Watch)
If the deal is real, the smartest money in Acadiana will move into seven sectors over the next 24–36 months:
Residential land and subdivisions — undeveloped acreage south of Abbeville (Perry, Henry) and along the US-167 corridor north to Maurice will be the prime build-out zones for engineer family housing.
Multi-family apartments — young engineers and contract workers want walkable, amenity-rich units. Abbeville and Kaplan have almost no Class-A apartment inventory today.
Commercial retail strip centers — high-income transplants drive demand for premium grocery, fitness, and coffee. SpaceX is currently building a $15M shopping and entertainment hub in Brownsville just to retain its own employees.
Industrial warehousing and flex space — SpaceX runs on a massive supply chain. Light-industrial parks near the Port of Iberia or along Highway 82 will lease quickly to vendors and logistics companies.
Construction trades — roofing, HVAC, electrical, concrete, plumbing. Local trades will be in unprecedented demand for both the SpaceX facility build-out and the ensuing residential boom.
Hospitality (hotels and high-end RV parks) — Brownsville currently has more than 400 new hotel rooms under construction. RV parks generate immediate cash flow with relatively low capital requirements while permanent housing catches up.
Marine tourism (charter boats, launch viewing cruises, eco-tours) — SpaceX launched 134 times in 2024. When Starship tests draw 20,000 to 30,000 spectators, the only practical viewing position is from the water.
Pecan Island Property Owners: Should You Sell Now or Hold?
This is the question I am being asked most often, and it deserves a direct answer. As both your local real estate broker and a fellow camp owner who loves the duck hunting, the redfish, and the quiet of that marsh as much as anyone — here is my honest advice, broken into three scenarios:

Scenario A — Your camp or property is inside the likely SpaceX footprint (south of Highway 82, near Freshwater City or Pecan Island ridge): You will eventually be asked to sell. The SpaceX/Spaceport playbook in Texas was a 3x-of-appraised-value letter. Do not accept the unsolicited 10x lowball offers from out-of-state speculators today; they are trying to flip your property to SpaceX for a markup. Wait for the official premium offer. If you hold out too long, you risk an eminent-domain proceeding that pays only fair market value.

Scenario B — Your property is in the periphery (Highway 82 corridor, Forked Island, Esther, Henry, north of the ridge): Hold. This land will not be seized. It will become the most valuable commercial, RV-park, short-term-rental, and laydown-yard real estate in the parish. Patience here will be rewarded.

Scenario C — You’re a sportsman who just wants to keep your camp for personal use: The hard truth is that the marsh you remember will not be the same marsh in five years. Highway 82 will see industrial truck traffic. Engine tests will rattle windows. There may be days you can’t access your own camp. If preserving the experience is what matters most, consider selling at a premium and relocating your camp to a quieter parish — Cameron, Iberia, or further into Atchafalaya.

My Personal Take
I’ll be transparent with you. I love Acadiana’s economy and I want to see it grow. I also love the Sportsman’s Paradise we grew up in. Those two things are about to be in real tension. If SpaceX comes, the prosperity will be enormous — generational wealth for landowners, thousands of new jobs, restaurants and businesses opening across Vermilion and Lafayette parishes. But the cost will be real too — a piece of the marsh, a piece of the quiet, a piece of the way things have always been. I don’t know yet how I’ll feel when I’m watching a Starship roll past my own camp on a barge. What I do know is that the people who plan ahead — instead of waiting for the announcement — are the ones who will protect both their families and their finances. That’s why I’m writing this.

[Darren]

I'm always anti-this:

But the cost will be real too — a piece of the marsh, a piece of the quiet, a piece of the way things have always been.

Dislike, a lot.

Now, the matter of the barges and rockets going by and such? Not really a biggie, Michoud has been doing that for decades (and currently with Artemis program) in my neck of the woods/marsh.

I also grew up hearing the Stennis space center test rocket engines from my grandma's place on the Pearl River Navigational Canal of far eastern St. Tammany Parish.....its a roar indeed.