2nd half of Sunday's paddle

Note: When this was first posted I said Saturday. Oops. I meant Sunday. And as long as I'm making random corrections, it was pointed out to me at one point that I accidentally referred to the Manhattan Bridge as the Williamsburg Bridge on every single post I did on the transit strike! Guess I am thinking of that because Roger Toussaint, head of the Transit Worker's Union, has to go to jail for 10 days and pay a $1000 fine for doing that. Anyways better late then never.

Lunchtime, thought I'd post some pictures from Sunday. Beautiful day. There were all sorts of trips going out from the barge, that's always cool when you have an assortment. I picked the shortest one, let me sleep in & get a nice leisurely start - and anyways, I was pleasantly achey after 3 hours up at the pool in Rye (I'd say I was rolling intensively for 2, observing Tom & Dominick teach for .5 and just plain horsing around for .5 - felt great. I said that already though, didn't I?).

Anyways, I was going to put up all the pictures but Blogger won't let me so I'm just giving you the last leg of the trip today. We started at 1:30, planning to go to Port Liberte, aka Venice-on-the-Hudson; ended up going down to the Robbin's Reef Light, then back to Venice. Beautiful day.

Now I'm very proud of this picture. I mean, everybody knows what the front of the Statue of Liberty looks like, right? A day like this, a sky like that, I could so easily have taken yet another ho-hum picture-postcard shot...but NO. I decided I would show a side of the Statue that most people have never seen (unless they live in New Jersey, of course).


Northbound, heading for home! Notice we've still got the harbor amazingly to ourselves. We're sharing the water with the normal year-round commercial folks but the fair-weather recreational set isn't here yet. For all I kvetch about the gear, there are some wonderful things about off-season boating. Experiencing something approaching solitude is one of those things.


O & D passing Ellis Island. O. had a great day at the pool on Saturday, got her sweep roll working beautifully, then played with my Greenland paddle, and I also shared with her the trick about this sculling brace thing I like to do to warm up for rolling (and it is a trick, too - once you get your back down in the water, it floats you)...cool stuff. D. & F. were also doing some very nice rolls too.


Heading north on the Jersey side. See the geese? We're in the full migration swing here. We've got Canada geese here year-round, but the brants are passing through right now, and there were a lot of some sort of very small black & white ducks which I'll have to check my bird book about tonight too.


Bad picture 'cause there was water on the lens - but look at all the people out soaking up the spring on the Christopher St. pier! See, when Pier 64 starts looking like this I'll be a lot more resigned to that piershed being gone.


Here's the new homecoming view from the south


And here are a couple of shots of what's left at Pier 64



Oh, and the restaurant at the barge opens on Friday! Bargeburgers on the Hudson, Hurray!