Labor Day Weekend Photo Op 1 - Norwalk Islands, CT

Quick lunchtime post before I get too far behind here! Click here to go straight to a Norwalk flickr album!

September always gets very stressful at work but at least I'm going into the deadlines with a wonderful holiday weekend behind me. This post is about Day 1 of the weekend. The forecast for the Labor Day weekend hadn't looked so hot, with Tropical Storm Hermine headed our way the predictions were for Saturday to be OK, with Sunday and Monday being total wash-outs. Oh, btw, the tugboat race I always love attending was postponed to October 9th, if you're somebody who usually leaves town for the holiday but always thought that sounded like fun, this is your lucky year! Not mine on that front, TQ and I have some excellent vacation plans around then, but it's always great fun, you can buy tickets for the spectator boat or see it from the pier for free, I seriously can't recommend it enough. Here was a very entertaining moment from last year, when my friend Mandy and I went on the Circle Line spectator boat, which got challenged by the Susan Miller from Miller's Landing during the bow-to-bow pushing contest. That was a blast. Tugboat won, of course. 

Anyways, I'd planned to do that but honestly wasn't entirely disappointed to have that day freed up - I've been enjoying summer with a vengeance this year after my fall winter and spring of medical woes, but I had it in the back of my mind that I could actually use a good rainy weekend for a guilt-free day of chillling at home - a little cooking, a little cleaning, a lot of lazing about with a book on the Evil Futon of Nap, oh yes, heavenly. Saturday looked nice though, so I signed up for the mostly-annual (we didn't do it last year, I think there was some renovation work or something going on, but other years we have) Sebago Canoe Club day trip to the Norwalk Islands, where we are hosted quite splendidly by the Norwalk Yacht Club.  

I always love paddling this area - TQ was living in the vicinity when we started dating, and a lot of our dates involved paddling out here, sometimes with camping (I loved that), and then there were also a lot of weekend dates when he had to work but I would come up and go for a paddle on my own and then meet him afterwards. Unfortunately he's still working weekends so couldn't join me on this return to our old stompin' grounds, but I still enjoyed it. 

The weather did end up doing a bit of a switcheroo - Sunday and Monday ended up being breezy, but rather lovely as Hermine went offshore, while Saturday ended up being the grayest day of the weekend (and also breezy). It was quite choppy too with an east wind blowing across the sound. We didn't paddle as far as we usually do, I think the planned "long paddle" was originally supposed to be about 12 miles and we ended up only doing about 8. I was pretty happy though, I actually haven't had much of a chance to see if my speed and endurance have improved (ok, the fireworks paddle was good, but the one time I specifically set out to do a paddle that would really let me compare my current condition with the shape I was in earlier in the summer was the time I got to the club to find that an old friend from my Irish dancing days was calling a square dance out behind the clubhouse) but there were some fast paddlers on this trip and I was able to keep up with them, plus I was able to take pictures and then catch up again, unlike one paddle earlier in the summer where I let everyone pass to take pictures and then went to catch up only to find that my high gear was gone. That was jarring! Definitely getting better now. 

And I got to wear my yacht club dress to an actual yacht club. Stumbled across this while shopping for slacks for the office not too long ago, unfortunately completely struck out on slacks and will have to try again (ugh, shopping is not my favorite thing) but this was on sale and I liked it and the last time I got invited to a wedding I had this stressful and in the end rather expensive scramble to find a dress, so I figured I would grab this one and maybe spare myself a similar scramble for something to wear to some theoretical future summer shindig. As I was handing over my credit card, though, I was seriously wondering whether I would ever actually wear it. So when I was getting ready to go to the yacht club I thought "Hey, why not wear my yacht club dress at the yacht club?"

 

And I did. This was an unusual enough occurence that a clubmate suggested a photo should be taken, so we did that. Ahoy! Oh, ps, I did NOT use this as an excuse to not help load and unload my boat. Those might have been the more entertaining pictures! 

Sebago visits the Norwalk Islands, 9/7/2014

Haven't quite got time for a proper trip review, but here's a big big to thank you to Peter at the Norwalk Yacht Club for once again inviting Sebago up for another fine day of paddling around the Norwalk Islands. Always nice to get back up there, and the weather (and the post-paddle barbecue) just couldn't have been much nicer. Click here for more pictures. 

Morning in Norwalk

IMGP8447, a photo by bkfrogma on Flickr.

Not that you can tell from a picture, but this was taken as we were in the process of beating a hasty retreat. You expect bugs in summer camping - but the rainy spring meant a bumper crop of skeeters too hungry to be put off by silly chemical discouragement. We toughed out the evening (long pants & sleeves & a smoky campfire helped, and a little nice scotch & fireworks in 6 different towns made them a little easier to ignore), but they seemed to be even worse in the morning & between them & a member of our party with an upset tummy, the idea of cooking up a nice camp breakfast of bacon & eggs & hashbrowns was quickly abandoned.

However, the scenery, as usual, left little to be desired!

Thanks for the invitation, R.!

Monarch Migration Time

Grassy Island, Norwalk Harbor, CT. Taken during yet another great Sebago paddle, this one hosted by a friend at the Norwalk Yacht Club. A gorgeous day in a favorite location & it's always particularly incredible to paddling when the monarchs are heading for Mexico - the air was full of them today.

Thank you Pete and Norwalk YC for a wonderful day!

Trip Report, 4/5/2009, Norwalk River to the Saugatuck River Public Boat Launch (round trip, 10 miles-ish or so)

This was actually a new one for me!

No GPS, but once again I've entertained myself using a Maptech image & the Paint program. OK, I had a little too much fun with this one. Red line is outbound, blue line is coming back, SBS is the Small Boat Shop, CPYC is the Cedar Point Yacht Club - see the Laser regatta? :D

Anyways. It was sort of funny how this one happened. I haven't been talking about this much, but TQ actually moved a little further away than he used to be over the winter. I think the difficulty added by the extra distance will be offset by the fact that now he'll be able to free himself up on weekends (YAY! we used to only have holidays in common, pretty much had to take vacation days to get any regular time together). However, he will still be back in CT occasionally & I'll be making an effort to get up there when he's there.

The weekend of April 4th & 5th was one of those occasions - he went back to work for the Small Boat Shop's warehouse sale. I wanted to go up & see him, but there were a few considerations -

1. They tend to be really busy during their sales and I didn't want to be underfoot.
2. I also didn't want to get put to work. I have worked for the shop & they've always been happy with having me there, and ordinarily I like working for them, it's just that this time of year the day job overfloweth into the evenings and yea even into the nights & I really need days off to be days off. Working for the shop is fun work but still work.
3. I didn't really want to kill a day wandering around South Norwalk.
4. I really wanted to go paddling, it had been a month since I was on the water.
5. I was embarrassed to ask to borrow a boat - see 1.

My solution was that I should just go up after work on Friday night & he could put me on a train on Saturday morning before he went to work, sigh. Too short a catch-up but he'd just spent the weekend in Brooklyn I think it was the week before, and that way I'm no extra bother to anyone.

He countered my suggestion with "Well, if I put you in a boat before I start working in the morning and you go away, then you aren't underfoot and nobody can put you to work".

That's my guy. Knows me well, he does.

A quick look at the forecast told me that the getting-in-a-boat-and-getting-lost-for-the-day plan was not happening on Saturday. Rainy, foggy, winds gusting to 45 kts - I might do that in the summertime, with a few trusted friends, for an hour or two, just to push myself. Not solo, in April, for a whole day, when I hadn't been in a boat for a month. The getting-lost part is supposed to be a figure of speech, not something that could actually happen So I switched my evening to go up to Saturday, which worked out well since I was then free to get stuck at work on Friday, which I did (but it was a voluntary sort of stuckness & allowed me to tie up some things I would've been fretting about leaving undone if I hadn't, so I'm not being facetious when I say it worked out well).

Sunday was a lot more promising. NW winds, 15-20 kts, sunny, temperature in the low 50's. Water temps probably still in the 40's. Usually when I take a boat & get lost while TQ's working, I go out around the islands, but that's still a pretty solid wind & cold water, and since I was on my own & hadn't been out for a month, I decided I wanted to stick along the coast - I didn't see anything that was outside my comfort level but I just didn't want to take any chances. Anyways, there's all sorts of neat little places to poke your nose into along that coastline & before I'd even left for CT, I'd pretty much looked things over & decided that I wanted to go see the Cedar Point Yacht Club & then paddle on up the Saugatuck River a ways.

And that is exactly what I did.

The first place into which I poked my nose was a very nice marsh just past Calf Pasture Beach. At least one of the guys at the shop said it was a very nice marsh, and I bet it is, except that marshes are not exactly at their best in early Spring:

Still saw some nice ducks & a couple of egrets & made a mental note that this is probably totally worth a visit next time I'm in the area in the summer or fall, then headed on towards the Saugatuck River. I was a little surprised that there weren't any dinghies out by Cockenoe, but then one little white sail came cruising out from behind the point, followed by another, and then a whole crew. "Aha", I thought, "yonder must be the Cedar Point Yacht Club!" and I hustled my bustle to go get some pictures of the launch.

Thought about going out to watch the races - but it was around noon, the Saugatuck River looked pretty nice, I really wanted to get at least a little ways up the river, and I knew I'd set myself up to have a headwind all the way home. TQ had asked me to shoot to be back by 2:30 to 3. I'd told him not to call out the Coast Guard until 4 but I really did want to be back somewhere close to the expected time. Not enough time to go watch the races, but enough time for a short trip up the river.

And that was nice! Very scenic, the Saugatuck. I paddled up the Norwalk River once. When I came back & reported that, TQ started laughing & said "Everybody does that. Once." Now, I'd probably do it again, I don't mind paddling somewhat industrialized waterways, but I could see what he meant - up to the pretty little cascade that marks the end of the piece that's easily navigable from Norwalk Harbor, the Norwalk River is a pretty workaday stretch of water. Barges, boatyards, construction sites, waterfront condos, an interesting & very Corinthian-looking boat club or two -the river looks pretty much like you'd expect a river that runs through one of the less well-off towns in an extremely wealthy area.

The Saugatuck, though?

Well - here:



Nice digs, eh?

I was fighting the current, and by this time it was getting on towards 1:00. I was getting peckish so I thought I'd paddle just up to the bridges, looking for a spot that looked non-private enough to pull out & eat a sandwich.

Just past the railroad bridge, I saw a bunch of kayakers launching. I said hello, they asked if I was from Yonkers, I said no. Turned out some of the Yonkers crowd had planned a paddle up there that day. Bummer, I'd thought about getting in touch with them because they DO paddle out of Calf Pasture pretty regularly - but I hadn't felt like I knew what my own schedule was going to be, so I hadn't really wanted to get myself involved in trying to meet up with anyone. Still, I wish I'd at least dropped a note to a couple of my Yonkers friends. Haven't seen them since the Hudson River Greenland Festival last year!

Oh well, though. I was still having a very enjoyable day. The Connecticutt group confirmed that that was a public launch they'd just left, then told me to be careful out there on my own. I really appreciated that, it's good that people care, and I thanked them & told them that I was sticking along the coast because I was on my own. I almost considered asking if I could join them for a bit, as they seemed like a nice group, but by that time I was really hungry, plus I had the time concern, so I decided to just stop, have lunch there, and then hit the gas on the trip back. Nice launch - plenty of parking, convenient to the highway, and a ramp that looked big enough for just about anything you could fit on a trailer.

Fueled up & ready to fight the headwinds going back, I hit the water again. Paused to take a couple more pictures of these nice little cottages along the river -

That's a handsome estate, isn't it?

The ones that really killed me were the ones that had structures over their docks - I suppose they are boathouses - I'd totally take one for a house house though, they're as big as some of the pretty little bungalows they have in certain sections of Brooklyn that are the only houses I could even imagine being able to own & maintain by myself.

Heading on down towards the mouth of the Saugatuck, I heard a familiar, sharp "Kee-kee-kee" -

it was the first osprey I'd seen this year, our Jamaica Bay pairs should be back any day too, if they aren't already! Spring has sprung!

No more picture taking going back, I was right about the headwind, and the minute I got out of the river, I realized I probably hadn't left myself enough time for the trip home. I cut straight across outside of Sprite Island, instead of staying along the shore & really just paddled hard.

It was a workout getting back. That's when I really started to feel that month of too much work, insufficient exercise, and zero boat time - at first I thought the wind was picking up as I got closer to Norwalk Harbor, but as I was talking to TQ after I came plodding up to the dock where he was waiting for me a few minutes after 3, I admitted that...uh...maybe I'm just out of shape! :(

Hopefully only temporary.

I did pause once on the return. I wanted to take this one last picture, which I thought I would post with a quick suggestion for the benefit of anyone who ever might find themselves entering Norwalk Harbor around low water in a boat that draws anything much more than a kayak does...

You might not want to shave the buoys too close!

Squall Line, Norwalk Islands, 5/22/08

A few pictures from Sunday - Norwalk River & Sheffield Island

Didn't take a lot of pictures on Sunday. Spent a lot of time poking around last week - this week, it was colder & rougher & I was more interested in putting some miles under the boat.

but here are a few -

End of the road for a sea kayak on the Norwalk River. A father & son were passing by on another overpass right behind me. The boy shouted,

"Where are you going?"

I laughed and shouted back,

"No further here!"


Lunch break on Sheffield Island -

The dock - unused now, soon they'll be opening for tours again. Looks pretty wintery, still -


until you look a little closer.


Sheffield echo:

Three-Trip Conglomerated Trip Report.

OK, jeeze, these go back to February. And it's April now (4/3 note - and I actually did this slapped-together post in the wee small hours a couple days ago, budget season at work means crazy hours, and then I remembered about the arsenal thing & put that up instead. Time to just get 'em up already...

President's Day weekend - TQ took a Sunday off, and of course we both had Monday both off, so we paddled together 2 days in a row. Unusual treat.

Sunday, we paddled with a friend we'd been running into at the Greenwich pool sessions - he'd suggested it & we both jumped at it.

I think this was the most ice I saw all winter. Yes, there's ice there. A skin. It melted by the time we got back, and I prefer to do my rolling at the end of a trip when it's chilly, so although I've been testing my mettle (or masochism, or something) by rolling every month of the winter, I missed my one chance to say I rolled in water with ice in it. That's really cold. (p.s. note later - Mettle? I have no mettle. I am wimp. Here's mettle.. Brr!


It was just a nice straightforward 10-mile paddle with a lunch break on one of the islands. Here, we're passing Sprite Island, site of a club that's very busy all summer. This day, we had the place to ourselves (if I had a dime for every time I'd said that about a winter paddle I'd have at least enough for a beer, I bet).

Saw this cable layer while we were on the beach at Shea Island having lunch. This reminds me that the word is that that Broadwater LNG platform has apparently been given a green light. Seems too bad seeing how much community resistance there was. This reminds me of that because we were sitting on the beach, and this boat was very noticeable, and I couldn't help think how much more noticeable Broadwater's going to be - the promoters of the thing have apparently said that it'll be so far out in the Sound, no one will notice it - well, TQ says we won't see it in Norwalk, but the people further up the sound? I bet they'll notice it.

Next day was President's Day. Originally, we'd planned to go to Howard Beach (surprise surprise :D), but then the forecast looked like this:

SW WINDS AROUND 20 KT...BECOMING W IN THE AFTERNOON. GUSTS UP TO 30 KT. WAVES AROUND 2 FT. RAIN LIKELY WITH VSBY 1 TO 3NM...THEN A CHANCE OF SHOWERS IN THE AFTERNOON.

The group I paddle with in the winter is solid, everybody's pretty skilled, but with conditions like that, none of us is so goal-oriented that we're going to insist on making it to the original destination when the trip back was so predictably going to be an upwind slog. We left things open-ended 'til we got to the club; we looked at the conditions, and we decided to switch directions, slog out & get blown home.

It was pretty feisty. By the time I discovered that I'd put the battery in my camera backwards, I'd already been thoroughly misted with salt spray breaking over my bow, hence no pictures - too much salt water flying around to open the watertight battery compartment.

Originally we set out heading for the Goethals Memorial Bridge - but we stopped a half-mile or so short of that to take advantage of the shelter of one of the big seaplane ramps at Floyd Bennett Field. We had a pretty good lunch, considering that plans had been so loose - there was turkey jerky, and hot cider and tea, and homemade beer bread & some wonderful cheddar (the Paddling Chef is always far too good to us), and my yuppie gorp (cashews, coconut & dried tropical fruit instead of the usual Good Old Raisins & Peanuts) & some of the chocolate TQ gave me for Valentine's Day - we ate well there on the blustery beach! The whole time we were eating , the wind was picking up just as forecast - I'd made noises about going on to the bridge but when we came out from behind the ramp, I stopped! We headed for home & oh my, I think that was some of the best surfing I've ever done in sheltered water. Not breakers, just really nice, smooth, 2 foot swells that kept the boating just leaping along. Faaaaabulous. Absolutely the right decision to go into the wind, have a light lunch & then catch a good wave-driven rocket ride home, instead of getting blown to Howard Beach, stuffing our faces & then having to claw our way over every inch of the trip home.

Most entertaining thing about the day after the long sweet surf was the weather - it was to warm for snow but we had a little bit of everything else. Started out overcast, then it rained, then when we stopped for lunch it got gorgeous & sunny as the wind picked up, then the fog rolled in, then the fog rolled out - dramatically in flux. Fun since we knew what we were going out in - I think the whole trip was 7 miles, really short for the winter but we were all totally satisfied.

Finally, a few weeks later in March - President's Day, the weather forecast was pretty much dead-on - this day, I think they were talking 10-15 kts gusting to 20, but this time that was a bit of an overstatement - it was maybe 10 kts when we set out & then it just died & turned into weather I almost could have taken out my surfski in! This was the time we went to Howard Beach & I took the food picture I posted in the "Why We Like to Paddle to Howard Beach". I was actually rolling to cool down on the way home - these warmer days in late winter to early spring can be the trickiest to dress for, the folks I paddle with, we all like to be in drysuits at least 'til the water's over 50 degrees - but I'd dressed for cooler conditions because of the breeze that wasn't actually there. Always easier to cool off than warm up.

Chasing geese down the Howard Beach basin...
Our takeout in Howard Beach. This trip gets a little trickier in the summertime when these docks are a little more populated - but right now, it's just us enjoying this incredible day.

Home again - naturally this is the kind of weather that makes K-1 racers deliriously happy, so there's Sylvie the Dog waiting for us - we're not as good as Joe, but she was still happy to welcome us home.
There we go, all caught up!

Norwalk Harbor, Sunday, 3/29/08

Got out & did about 14 miles in Norwalk Harbor on Sunday. Would've gone further except that I had to stop...

to watch the Cedar Point Yacht Club Laser fleet race for a little while!

Asked permission of the committee boat to park near them, mentioning that I was just learning to sail dinghies myself - they were very busy but they were very nice, told me where I'd be safely out of the way for the start & the finish.

Lots of fun to watch.

Tillerman, see any friends?

It was a nice sailing breeze in the morning, but by the afternoon it died down...this larger sailboat gave up & started motoring not long after I took this picture. Enough wind to fill the sails, but not really move the boat too quickly.

I'd gone poking around in the marina across from the Small Boat Shop hoping to get a glimpse of a transantlantic rowboat - yes, there's a gentleman in Norwalk who's training, he's doing it as a fundraiser for cancer & I was really excited to finally see one of these special rowboats, but on a day like this, naturally he was out training. But these nice old wooden oyster boats were an acceptable consolation photo.

And finally - here's a picture for anyone who thinks kayakers are all a bunch of humorless gits with no sense of their true place in the maritime world:

That's Gaeton of the Small Boat Shop working on the good 'yak Speedbump, they are working very hard sprucing up the fleet for the season.

Did the first few miles solo, then went back at 3 & met TQ & we went out & did another circuit of the Norwalk Islands. Great day. Saw a pair of ospreys on the nest platform at the power plant in Norwalk Harbor - now there's a sign of spring!