If you forget that you are surrounded by water, the thickness of the air reminds you of it. Pick a day, any day of the year, and the morning humidity will more than likely be 84 percent. By midnight it'll have dropped to a mere 65 percent. That's not to say it's always hot. Walk down Bourbon Street, and your definition of what's hot is likely to have nothing at all to do with the weather.
Legend has it that there are bodies in the swamps.
And that there are people who live there, hidden from civilization. In the afternoon we drove to Slidell, where we were scheduled for a two-hour boat ride through a swamp. We ducked our heads as he softly maneuvered the boat under a tree limb overhung with moss. Mike, a native of Slidell, took us among cypress knees and lily pads to show us the bayou. It was quiet in there.