Excellent NY Harbor Boating Site (for any kind of boat!)

Been a long time since I was seen in a kayak in upper New York Harbor, but I and a number of other Sebago folks are going to be at the Valentino Pier on Thursday - that launch is going to be the first official launch site on the New York City Watertrail and I am playing hooky (well, with permission so it's not really hooky but it's more fun to say you're playing hooky to go paddling than otherwise) to go hang out. Some of us are planning on doing a little post-ceremony poking aroud in the area, which should be fun.

How very, very odd to think that this will be my first time paddling in the Upper Harbor since September 2006.

Since Valentino Pier is in Red Hook, which is an area that's got a lot of commercial traffic, I'm planning on reviving my old upper-harbor habit of carrying my VHF in my PFD & turned on - Jamaica Bay is quiet enough that as long as conditions aren't rough or likely to turn that way, I usually just have it easily accessible in the day hatch, but I always liked actually listening to it in the Upper Harbor - you can usually get a pretty good picture of who's going where & that cuts down on the nasty surprises for everybody.

One odd thing about NY Harbor is that Channel 13 (bridge to bridge) is sort of the de facto harbor channel - 16 is used, but an awful lot of the general communication goes on on 13.

I used to just know stuff like that, but after a year and a half, I couldn't remember what that non-standard channel was, so I did a quick Google search under "NY Harbor VHF Channel", and found a very neat site, IBoatNYHarbor.com. It may not be the slickest site you've ever seen, but in the quick look-around I took, I saw an AWFUL lot of very good information for anyone who might find themselves in ANY sort of boat in NY Harbor.

I do still have that compendium o' catch-up trip reporting in drafts, but that won't happen 'til later tonight (miles to go before I finish work...hooky-playing hath its costs, sigh...) & I just figured I'd toss this out.

Reminds me of course of how painfully long it's been since I updated my blogroll...