River - Book Signing in Rhinebeck, Sunday, 9/29/19

Further to yesterday's post about this new Scholastic title that I'm so excited about - if anyone from the Rhinebeck area happens to stumble across this within the next 2 days, and you're interested in getting a signed copy of the book, meeting the author, AND supporting Riverkeeper, all at the same time, Oblong Books has got you covered. Click here for details and to RSVP. Wish I could go!

note: I am a Scholastic employee but this blog is purely a personal hobby - I'm sharing this here because I just love the book.

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River, by Elisha Cooper

Been neglecting the blog again as I've had quite a bit going on both at work and in my personal life (mostly good, including some fun plans shaping up for another step in my post-cancer paddling skills redevelopment this coming June, but keeping me busy). But I did just want to do a quick post about a book that Orchard Publications (a Scholastic house, and in fact the one where I began my Scholastic career with an unexpected temp job in the chaotic days after 9/11 - I'm still so grateful that that happened!) is bringing out this Fall.

I'm just a tiny tiny tiny bit excited about this book by Elisha Cooper. It's a story about a woman doing a solo paddle down the Hudson River. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you will understand exactly why this just makes me smile from ear to ear just saying that - it reminds me so much of my own solo trip from Waterford to Brooklyn back in 2014. It doesn't come out until October, but when I found out about it, I was able to get an f&g* version, and seeing the glorious watercolors with which he's illustrated it just brought such good memories of my own Hudson voyage.  Mine was half the length of the trip in the book, of couse, but still one of the best things I think I've ever done for myself - I'd been wanting to do it for years and then one year everything just fell gloriously into place, so off went trusty Romany and I for a week on the river. Boy. The book actually has me wanting to go back and do it again, and maybe a little more next time.

There's an excellent interview with Elisha at the Mr. Schu Reads blog talking about the creation of River. This is going to be a great book for paddlers (especially Hudson River paddlers) to share with kids in their circles!

 Disclaimer: I work for Scholastic, but Frogma is a purely personal blog and the opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

*f&g = folded and gathered, it's one of the final proof versions of a picture book before it goes to press - it's basically the book printed as it's going to be but not bound yet, just the pages for last reviews before the final edition 

Ke Aloha Outrigger's Hudson River Cup, Hoboken, 7/28/2018

So glad my friend Derek stopped by - thanks for the photo!

I haven't been keeping up with the blogging very well, but that's at least in part because Operation Seize the Summer has been going pretty well and I've been getting out and doing a good bit more on and in the water this year than I managed to last year.

My last post was from the inter-club race day at Inwood, where I ended up racing for Sebago, getting the club points pretty much by virtue of putting my butt in a boat and not getting distracted by a passing seagull (paddle paddle paddle paddle OOH LOOK BIRD! MUST TAKE PICTURE! - anyone who's paddled with me can tell you that's not really too much of an exaggeration) and wandering off the course without crossing the finish line. The following week was Ke Aloha Outrigger's Hudson River Cup race; I'd gone to the first one the year before and just had a blast, winning the kayak race, which consisted of me and one of the volunteers from the Hoboken Cove Boathouse paddling the sitatops the boathouse uses for their public paddling program (you can paddle with them for free on summer weekends, there's a link at the end if you'd like more info, also a link to a Flickr album of course - if you're just here for the pix, skip on down there!). The other guy was actually faster than me, but the timing was such that we were paddling into a strong current on the return leg, I knew the trick about pulling over to into some slower-moving water, and the other guy didn't and by the time he figured out what I was doing it was too late for him to catch me. It worked out fine but oh, that moment I made the turn at the buoy and suddenly discovered that I wasn't making ANY headway AT ALL...jeeze, I was having visions of having to be fished out by one of the safety boats! It was such a relief to find that sidling over into quieter water let me start moving again. 

Starting Line 2018

This year they stepped things up a bit. The sea kayak race went from being a little short one of I think it was about 2 miles up to a 5 mile distance, which I thought that sounded like a good test distance to see how I'm coming along with the general fitness level. I was not interested in doing that distance in a Drifter, though, so I got in touch with some friends there who were kind enough to hook me up with a QCC700, which is a good fast touring boat. Unfortunately I failed to do justice to the boat - I set the foot pegs a little too short and ended up getting foot cramps and a shin cramp (ow ow ow, that was a new one for me!) maybe a third of the way in. I'd been holding onto 3rd place of the 4 sea kayakers until that happened; I tried to suck it up and keep going but when the guy who'd been in 4th breezed by me I decided that if I was going to be in last place, I might as well be comfortable. Fortunately QCC's have footpegs that you can adjust easily while seated in the boat , and once I took care of that the cramps eventually eased off and I was able to get moving again. I didn't catch the guy who'd passed me to get into third but I also wasn't too far behind him.

Answer to the test of my general fitness level - I did five miles in just under one hour and eighteen minutes, in a fast boat, but with a episode of foot cramps; it's frequently said that the average cruising speed of a trained paddler is 3 mph, so I was at least doing better than that. However, I had absolutely no extra gas for a finishing kick at the end (I wanted to 'cause the other guy was just NOT that far ahead of me, but it just wasn't happening) - so there's still progress to make.

Sea kayaks were split by gender this year though, so I still brought home a trophy - 2nd place women's was the same tiki bar coconut mug as last year's 1st place so now I have a matched set! Now, I would LOVE to see more sea kayaks in this next year, but they drew a really nice number of outriggers and stand-up paddleboards - the race definitely grew this year and that was really good to see. Ke Aloha is a relatively new organization, but counts among its founders and members some of the most experienced outrigger paddlers in the area - I'm happy to support them, many of them are old friends from my Pier 63 days and they're good people, they didn't name their new club "Ke Aloha" lightly. These folks know how to run a major race and I'm looking forward to seeing the Hudson River Cup continue to grow.

In addition to the races, the boathouse folks also put together the Ohana Festival that went on throughout the day in Maxwell Place Park. The post-race atmosphere was thoroughly enjoyable, with ono-kine grindz, arts and crafts for the keiki, cornhole boards (not particularly Hawaiian but good fun for a summer day in the park), and lovely music and dance by the talented performers from Aloha Hula NYC - couldn't think of a nicer way to spend a day. You didn't have to be in the race to have fun!  As I said on Facebook when I posted the video snippet you'll see at the end of this post, "Lying on the grass after a five mile kayak race on the Hudson, looking up at the sky, Bill Wynne singing, happy people all around...can't get much closer to da 'aina without getting on a plane". Mahalo nui loa to Ke Aloha and the Hoboken Cove Boathouse for another great event!

Looking forward to 2019!

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Lots more photos on Flickr, click here to view. 

147 from Bonnie on Vimeo.

Turnbacktime Tuesday

Because I'm going to be kind of busy on Thursday, and also in honor of FINALLY writing down the last day of my Hudson River paddle in my journal. Yes, I just did that tonight!

Not that I hadn't done a writeup - I did cover that day when I did the trip reporting here on Frogma, which was pretty soon after I got back, but all the other days involved transcribing from my journal. I didn't actually write in the journal on the last day, though - I'd been very good about writing something for all the other days (plus quite a bit about the lead-in with the prep and all) but the day I got back, there was helping Carolina move stuff, getting my boat back to the club, unpacking and showering and lunching and napping and then taking the poor fella who was so sweetly waiting for me at Valentino Park after I'd abandoned him for ten days to go waltzing all over New York State out for some highly deserved sushi. That used up the rest of the day, and then it was back to work, and then once I had the day typed up here I guess I just lost track of getting it into the paper journal. I looked in that journal the other day and was quite surprised to find that it ended in Yonkers! Oops.

Next adventure starts soon - this time TQ gets to come with me (yay!) and although I got a new journal, because the old one was almost finished and I didn't think there would be enough room left for 10 days if sailing in the US Virgin Islands, I just decided that I wanted to have the Hudson River log put to bed before I went.

So that's done, and in honor of that, here are a few pictures from that summer adventure that didn't make it into any of the posts (there was a lot of mileage to cover, literally) but that I'd liked enough that I'd had vague intentions of putting them up. So here you go. If I could turn back tiiiime...

The Bronck Island Flyswatter of Mercy - courtesy of the Hudson River Watertrail Association, my "host" for most of the trip (my campsites were mostly Watertrail sites).

Pretty not-flowers - I think they're actually winged seed pods, but flowerlike in color

Actual flowers, catching the morning sun on Esopus Island

A small riverpool at one of the waterfront parks along the way - fun to see.

USCGC Penobscot Bay - they're breaking ice now, read more about her here.

Some people keep kayaks or rowboats or sailing dinghies on the beach at their waterfront homes. Some people.

Got it in my head that I wanted to take a picture of an Amtrak train looking like a train in a travel poster. This was pretty good. Driver saw me taking pictures as the train approached and gave me a friendly little toot-toot on the horn. I waved and grinned like a kid.

Interesting art/graffiti on a driftwood log

Old building from NYC's Catskill water supply - anybody know more?

Amy Moran waiting for time to go - I'm a member of a Flickr group for Moran tugs, never got around to posting this one.

DEP skimmer Cormorant - mentioned in Tugster.  

The Internet Is Cool #1 - A Tug Identified

So, remember the ___e Ann Conners from the 3rd day of my paddle down the Hudson? This was a handsome old (VERY old) tug that was being restored at the pier where a couple of friends with tugboats keep theirs. I'd gone up into Rondout Creek to take pictures of the Cornell and Gowanus Bay and found this classic there too. From my low perspective, I couldn't make out the first few letters on her nameboard; I guessed maybe Sue Ann, and I did think about asking Tim or Jessica (the respective owners of the Cornell and Gowanus Bay) what her story was, but then work kind of went crazy and tugboat history questions sadly had to go on the back burner for a while.

But the internet is cool. A reader by the name of Phil happened across that post (which was bizarrely popular, I had a great time doing that entire Hudson River trip series and they all got a good number of views but that one in particular is already the 7th most viewed post in the history of this blog - no idea why!) last week and left a comment answering the very question I been wanting to ask but just hadn't had time to yet -- this nice old tug is the Elise Ann Conners, and her story was featured in a New York Times article about that rare and admirable breed - people who restore historic boats. Phil - if you're reading, thank you so much!


At some point before she sank, she was also looked at as a possible subject for restoring a historic tug to run as an educational exhibit in New York Harbor. The tug that was chosen? The Pegasus, of course! Click here to read about more tugs that were under consideration. That must have been a hard choice to make! I love the Pegasus of course, can't ever take too many pictures of her - here were just a few that I took when she was at the Historic Ships Festival at Pier 25 in the Hudson River Park last June - click on the photos for nicer views: 

And of course when I went to an art-auction fundraiser for the Pegasus and came home with 2 gorgeous tug paintings and a lot of inspiration, it was the Pegasus I chose for a subject. I don't think I ever posted the final version where I'd added in the happy trees, here...well, it was December so they weren't that happy but they were the last touch and they did soften up the background a little bit. My artist friends would've done this twice as well in a tenth of the time, of course, but I had fun working it out and was pretty happy with the end results. 

Have to get back to the painting and drawing this winter - it's been such a good and busy summer that except for the 2 sketches during my Hudson River trip, I just didn't have time!

Hudson River Paddle Part 12: Day 7, Bringing It Home - Yonkers to Red Hook

Dawn at the Yonkers Paddling and Rowing Club 

As usual, click on any picture for a better view.

Sunday, August 18th - My friends at Yonkers had offered to find me a place to stay for the night, but I'd said if it was OK, I'd rather stay at the clubhouse. This worked out wonderfully - I slept very well on the bench in the meeting room and I must have been excited all the way down to a subconcious level about the last day because for the first time in the entire trip, I could have skipped the alarm clock - it was set for 5 am as usual, and I woke up feeling completely rested, refreshed and eager to go at 4:50 am!

I dressed, had an energy bar for breakfast, collected the day hatch stuff and the other items I'd spread out to dry, re-packed my boat, re-filled my on-deck water bottles, and as a final step stashed my cell phone in a small drybag in the day hatch, where I could reach it easily, in case I needed to text TQ with any updates about what time he should meet me. I'd told him probably around 2 at Pier 40, assuming I would have the same slow start I'd had every other morning - I didn't send him an update from Yonkers even though I was finally getting on the water at the perfect time because I wanted a good cushion to play with in case of...oh, in case of whatever. 

I was on the water right around 6. The sunrise was lovely and a little bit later, there was a piece of a rainbow over the Palisades. 

Morning rainbow snippet

Looking back at where I'd been

The ebb had just been getting started as I got on the water and as I approached the northern tip of Manhattan, it was increasing. I swept under the George Washington Bridge so fast I barely got a shot of the Little Red Lighthouse (that being the seventh of the lighthouses I passed on my trip - the only one I didn't get a picture of was the Stony Point Lighthouse, which is up in the middle of Stony Point State Park, which I passed on my longest day on the river - even if I'd known exactly where it was I don't think I would've been inclined to make a stop to see it). 

Spuyten Duyvil, at the northern tip of Manhattan

Approaching the George Washington Bridge

The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge

"If you want the rainbow, you must have the rain" - yes, the rainbow over the Palisades did of course mean rain was headed my way, and that started right around the George Washington Bridge. I thought about pulling out the short-sleeved paddling jacket I'd had in the dayhatch for the entire trip, but decided that if I just kept paddling at a good clip that would keep me warm enough.

When I found myself approaching the water treatment facility at 125th St. before 8:30 am, I decided it was time to send TQ an updated ETA. There is a small dock at the Fairway market at 125th Street, and I pulled over there to get out the cell phone. I texted TQ that I was now expecting to be there closer to noon, then put the phone away and pushed back out into the current.

As I approached the north end of the mooring field at the 79th Street Boat Basin, I saw flashing paddles approaching along the seawall - turned out to be some of the women of New York Outrigger out for a morning training paddle - I shouted hello as they went by and told 'em where I was coming from and their steerswoman, Di, who (along with a lot of other NYO folks) is an old friend from my Pier 63 days, flashed me a thumbs up. 

New York Outrigger - IMUA!

I'd already been in a good mood whirling along this oh-so-familiar stretch of the North River (as the stretch of the Hudson that runs by Manhattan is known) and seeing the NYO gang made it even better. A second outrigger passed heading north a little bit later and then a little bit later still I heard "Hut-HO!" from behind me and glanced back to find the first boat out in the current and bearing down on me fast - of course I immediately went into a sprint and raced them until they swept inexorably by and I capitulated, calling out "You guys are too good, I can't keep up"! I thought to try to draft a little too late, put on a last burst but couldn't catch 'em, gave up watched them charge away, but that had put me in just a fantastic mood and although I went back to cruising speed I kept some of that energy as I passed by all the familiar landmarks from my Pier 63 days. 

79th St. Boat Basin, "garbage barge pier", the "Uptown Downtown Boathouse" (although I think there's a new occupant there since the Downtown Boathouse was able to move back to the new boathouse on their original downtown pier this year), the Intrepid, Circle Line, the barge at pier 66 where I kept my boats for my first few years of paddling, Chelsea Piers where I actually learned to paddle a kayak and also the home of Classic Harbor Lines, the tour boat company I worked for on a part-time basis for five very enjoyable years, the fireboat station at the Gansevoort Peninsula, and then all of the sudden there I was pulling into the embayment to the south of Pier 40 at...10:30 am??? Hmm.

Intrepid and submarine Growler - navy brat, had to say hi!

The barge at Pier 66, formerly at Pier 63, which is where I kept my boats until 2006. Thanks to John Krevey for giving us such a welcoming home at a time when paddling was still regarded somewhat nervously by the powers that be. We all miss you, John.

Classic Harbor Line fleet - I worked on the Manhattan (motor yacht) and the Adirondack (white-hulled schooner); the America 2.0 joined the fleet after I'd left to go sail Sunfish at Sebago. Lovely boats, and a good outfit to work for.

The Chelsea Piers embayment where I took my first kayak lesson from Manhattan Kayak Company in 1998. I wonder if I would've believed you if you told me how far (literally) I was going to take this kayaking thing!

Fireboat at the Gansevoort Peninsula

I had picked Pier 40 as a takeout for a couple of reasons. New York Kayak is based there and if I'd somehow turned into a total beast (in a good way) on my paddle and gotten back in 6 days, on Saturday, or if there'd been some big problem at TQ's pool on Sunday and he'd needed to go help take care of it, there would have been a safe place to keep my boat overnight, and I could have gone home on the subway. It's eminently achievable from Yonkers, conditions would've had to be really, really bad to keep me from getting there, and another practical consideration was that I wasn't really thrilled with the idea of crossing the area between the Battery and Governor's Island by myself.  That spot is basically a 5-way intersection for some very big, very fast traffic; I don't mind crossing in a group because a group is a little more visible and with more eyes you have a much better chance of spotting anything you'd need to avoid. But it was only 10:30, the ebb was still going strong, the traffic hadn't looked too heavy so far, I was feeling great, and the idea of finishing in my home borough of Brooklyn, at Valentino Park, which has been the launching and landing site for a lot of good adventures, was incredibly appealing.

I only got out of my boat to go tell Randy that I was OK and heading on south - I'd told him I expected to arrive on Sunday and I didn't want him to worry; turned out he wasn't even there but I left word I was fine with Carey, went back to my boat, pulled out the phone again and texted TQ, "I'm going to Red Hook!" - and the way things were going, my ETA was still noon!

World Financial Center with the new WTC 1 towering up behind

Ebb carried me on south beautifully; just as I approached the Battery, the Staten Island Ferry and a Statue of Liberty ferry pulled out, and the SeaStreak cruised by - that was actually perfect, that meant a number of the boats I'd been concerned about were just leaving the area; I did a good look around for tug-and-barge units and other big guys who I would need to avoid, didn't see any of those, so off I went. A couple of tour boats did pass as I scampered across to the red buoy just north of Governor's Island, but not close enough to cause me any worry. 

Looking back at Manhattan from the Buttermilk Channel

I crossed the Buttermilk Channel and stopped at the Mary A. Whalen to see if Carolina was by any chance out; didn't see her but shouted out "Ahoy the tanker!" and that brought her on deck to see who was yelling out there. Great fun sharing what I'd just done with her, she took that lovely picture of me about to finish, of course, and it turned out that with TQ coming to get me in a station wagon, we were going to be able help her move a little of the remaining heavy metal from her Heavy Metal fundraising sale, so that all worked out nicely and I was really glad I'd stopped by.

Carolina Salguero aboard the Mary A. Whalen, home of PortSide NewYork

Carolina's shot, me in the homestretch, very happy!

With a few more minutes to spare, I set out again - by now the flood seemed to be started in the Buttermilk Channel, but I didn't have far to go and by 12:10 I was pulling into the cove at Valentino Pier, where TQ was waiting for me. Hooray! 

Arriving at Valentino Park

We unpacked my boat, loaded up the car, and went and helped Carolina move her metal (which was indeed heavy, but we got the things she wanted shifted shifted in two trips). She gave me a shackle the size of my two fists together as a thank-you present, which I have sitting on the windowsill in the living room now, and offered to take us out for lunch. Now, ordinarily I would jump at lunch in Red Hook, there are some great restaurants there, but the weird thing was I wasn't particularly hungry, and the not-so-weird thing was that I could feel the mother of all nap attacks coming on, so we said thanks but no thanks. Took my boat to the club, offloaded that, then TQ helped me bring all of my gear up to my place. We agreed to meet for a sushi dinner later (we love sushi and I wanted to take him out as a thank-you, he'd taken a day off from work to come meet me) and after he took off, I sort of dealt with the gear, turning every bag upside down, dumping the contents on the floor, hanging a few things (the tent and the soggier paddling clothing) up in the bathroom, spreading the rest out so that at least nothing would fester. Then there was a sandwich, a shower, and a long and wonderful nap in my own bed. Good to be home!

Schooner Pioneer in the Buttermilk Channel

Google map, Day 7 - Yonkers to Red Hook, 20 miles.

Hudson River Paddle Part 11: Day 6 On the River - Croton Point to Yonkers

Packing up at Croton Point. The tide was going out fast, ended up using a trick I learned from Louise, collected some round pieces of wood and using those to roll/slide my boat down to the water instead of dragging it over the rocks - she did that hull-sparing manuever with one large branch at the concrete boat launch where we took out after our Lake Cayuga day and I remembered it as I was standing here watching the water recede and trying to figure out the best way to get the boat (unliftable when loaded) to the water without gouging the living daylights out of the poor hull.

Journal Entry 8/16: Croton Point to Yonkers - Back in my "home waters" again! Passing under the Tappan Zee Bridge today brought past the furthest north I ever paddled from Pier 63, and I've done a number of paddles that brought me to Piermont or points south. Don't need the charts anymore, I'm in familiar territory now.

Green can 15, with cormorants. Just south of Croton Point, ebb's going strong already. First buoy I took a picture of on this trip was green can 233, just north of the Troy Lock. That's a lotta cans, right?

Had my first real boat parking issue (screw-up) last night - I've been landing around low water, I was really tired after my 32+ mile day, and the boat's too heavy to budge without a full unpacking (I didn't remember the trick with using pieces of wood as rollers until the morning) so I brought it partway up and then tied it securely to a low-hanging tree, thinking that when it floated it would bump into the leafy branches, which looked fairly forgiving . I woke up and checked on the boat in the middle of the night; it was there but looked weird, so I walked over to check and discovered that the boat had actually slid underneath a branch which held it down as the tide came in and the cockpit was completely full. Oops. No big deal, I got the boat out, drained the cockpit, pulled the boat further up the beach and went back to bed, but I forgot that there's a tiny hole between the cockpit and the day hatch where the seat back used to be fastened. I'd stuck some duct tape on that but it had eventually fallen off. I remembered the hole the next morning when I went to put something in the day hatch. Oops again. Took a while to bail that out but again, it was OK in the end - mostly the stuff I carry in the day hatch is stuff that's OK with getting wet.

Got on the water a little later than I wanted to, as usual - partly the day hatch surprise, but also that's just been my normal modus operandi on this trip, set the alarm for 5, turn the alarm off, go back to sleep, wake up for real at 6, packing always takes longer than I want it to (although I did get faster as I went along, partly because I got to knowing what had to go where, and partly because I was eating the food so every day there was a little more room), on the water 7:30 to 8:00-ish. Louise (my Antarctic kayak guide friend who organizes the kayaks for the Ithaca event that actually gave me the impetus to finally get off my lemu and DO this thing) had told me that I should put the alarm clock in the bottom of a drybag and forget about it, but I explained that I'm not a morning person and with the ebb starting pretty early, I didn't trust myself to get going early enough. It was really lovely weather for sleeping in a tent while I was out there and although it would've been nice, I think that dispensing with the alarm would've been detrimental to my timing.

Anyways - it was a GORGEOUS morning, no wind to speak of, Tappan Zee flat as a mirror, lovely! Ran into my first friend just north of the bridge - Staten Island Steve was leading a trip for Hudson River Recreation, nice to see him although I just said hi, didn't stop to chat.

Tappan Zee - so smooth!

Saw a new lighthouse (for me) today - I didn't know there was a lighthouse at the Tappan Zee Bridge, when I led the crazy 50-mile day trip to the Tappan Zee Bridge back in my Manhattan Kayak guiding days, we went up along the west shore because the Palisades are so nice to paddle along - I'd actually stayed on the east shore this time because I realized I'd never actually seen that stretch; the Tappan Zee is so wide ("zee" is Dutch for "sea" because it opens out so much there) that we didn't spot the small lighthouse from the far side. Cute little red and white one, I think I got a nice picture.

I did! I did!

A couple more pictures with stories from the Tappan Zee Bridge area -

Sometimes ignorance really is bliss. There's a lot of construction going on on the Tappan Zee Bridge right now, the aging span is being replaced and there are cranes and barges everywhere. I picked a relatively quiet spot to go under. When I got to Yonkers my friends asked me if I'd had any trouble at the bridge - I said "No, why?" and they said that with the construction, security's been bordering on ridiculous - at one point the powers that be apparently announced that kayaks simply were not allowed to paddle under the bridge, at other times the word was that crossings were allowed but only at certain places. Now it's possible that the crane-and-barge-free-spot I picked was one of the OK spots but in this case what I didn't know definitely did not hurt me. 

And this is Wilson, of course. Who else would it be? I found Wilson floating downstream all alone and decided that I was going to find him a home, even if I just chucked him out on the promenade in Yonkers for a kid to find. I ended up giving him to the first person who noticed that I was paddling down the river with a basketball - there was a young family out enjoying the morning by the water and Dad laughed and asked if I was looking for a game out there, I said, "No, I'm just looking for a home for this basketball that I found wandering around on the river," and that's how Wilson found his new home.

I thought I was going to be in Yonkers by 1 but then once again an afternoon wind came up (this time an uncomplicated headwind) and the current turned - that's why I'd been setting the alarm clock for 5, once again the last couple of miles were a pure slog and if I'd just gotten up a little bit earlier I could've cut quite a bit of the slogging out. 

Approaching the day's destination, just a little ways past the big blue box.  GW bridge and Manhattan in the distance!

Still got here (Yonkers Paddling and Rowing Club, where I'd made arrangements to stay after finding myself in a pinch when the new management at the Beczak Center turned out to be unaware that boaters doing the Watertrail had been permitted to camp there - with friends at the YPRC I didn't bother to argue) by 2:15. 

So nice to find the doors open and a few friends there cleaning. They made me welcome and then went back to their project; when they finished they took off, and at that point I crashed on a bench in their meeting room for a couple of hours. Woke up, called Jack (he'd told me to call when I got there), found out that he and Renee were coming back from Lake Sebago and weren't too far away. I got out my sketchbook and drew the club while I waited, I'd had this idea of doing a drawing a day, that didn't really happen but it was nice to have time to do one today.

Wish I'd opened the big doors - more welcoming that way. Proportions are way off too, should've been longer and lower, but this was a bit of an experiment, drawing an actual thing instead of either making something up or copying a picture. 

Jack and Renee got back, we put their boats away, hung out at the club for a while, then went out for Mexican at the place that replaced the mom and pop place that we used to like to go to after teaching the kids' sessions at the Yonkers Y. Different ambience entirely, but the food's delicious.

Returned to the club to find a couple more friends just returning from a late afternoon stand-up paddleboard trip - they'd seen my boat and not realizing I'd be back so soon, they left this:

 it was still on the backing and stuck under my deck bungees - would've been a fun surprise if I had gotten back later, but I'm glad we got back in time. I peeled off the backing and stuck it in my journal for fun. 

so glad I did run into them though - all five of us sat out on the dock and watched the sun go down and chatted for quite a while. Such a good end to the day.

Bed now, seriously hoping to get myself a good start tomorrow. Last day!

And I hate to do this but I'm afraid the last day report will not be until next week, probably Monday - TQ and I are going out of town for the weekend, hooray!

Google map, Day 6, Croton Point to Yonkers - 16 miles and change.