Opening Day at the Sebago Canoe Club

Sunday was Opening Day at the Sebago Canoe Club, and what a stunning day! 9 of us went out for a great paddle before the potluck and General meeting - it was beautiful, clear, and calm, with the Manhattan skyline very visible in the distance. A few of our sailors got out too, and our safety boat was launched successfully.  

This was my first paddle since February, and my first paddle on Jamaica Bay since January 1st, and it couldn't have been nicer. Forecast had called for light rain on Sunday up through the end of the week, but timing changed, the light rain was on Saturday (not enough to dampen spirits at the NYC March for Science though!) and then Sunday was just spectacular. I required wetsuits or drysuits because the water temperature is still in the low 50's in Jamaica Bay. The air temperature was in the high 50's, and we were all kind of steaming in our gear as we paddled down the Paerdegat Basin, but once we got out into the bay all was well. Wonderful paddle, so good to be back out on J-bay with friends after a kind of hectic Spring - work's always a bit bonkers this time of year, and Saturday's memorial service marked the last (hopefully) of a string of losses among people who have touched my life in one way or another. I'd been aching for a nice quiet paddle with friends for weeks, and this was just perfect. Click here for more pictures, the day was about as photogenic as they come!  

NY State Lifejacket Law still in effect (and very necessary)

Sorry I have been such a boring blogger of late, it's been a rough Spring. Nowhere near enough time on, in, or near the water. Hope to remedy that on Sunday with my annual Spring swim with the Coney Island Polar Bear Club. How many years in a row do you have to do something before you can officially call it a tradition? :) Anyways, I've been absolutely aching for a water day, was torn between a swim and a paddle, but with a high of 75 on Sunday, I'm thinking a swim may better than a paddle - warm spring days here in the Northeast are actually not the best paddling days because the water is still very cold and you have to dress for that, not the air.

And as long as I'm talking about warm air/cold water paddling, my whole point in signing on to do this quick post is to share this quick Frogma P.S.A., same as I do every year around this time: 

The New York State off-season lifejacket rule -- the one that says anyone who's out in any recreational vessel of 20 feet or less must be wearing a lifejacket between November 1 and May 1 -- is still in effect. Also, we are having some wonderful weather here, but the water's still quite cold. Immersion gear (wetsuit or drysuit) is still a very good idea if you are going boating, but at the very, very least, please wear your lifejacket.

This is always a bad time of year for boating accidents, a capsize that would be an amusing minor mishap in August can go south extremely fast here in April, and even on into May. For more information, please visit any of the links in the cold-water safety link list to the right. Thanks for reading, let's all be safe out there!

Resurfacing!

Hellooo!

Back from my rather lengthy break here! I think that usually more than a week of radio silence here means I am off having tons of fun somewhere neat, with limited access to doohickeys. This time was a little different, the 7 days following my last post were one of the most intensely scheduled non-vacation-type periods I can ever remember having, but I made it through and yes I did manage to squeeze QUITE a good bit of fun in there!

So here's what I've been up to:

Thursday the 19th was the big budget presentation at work. Plus packing for the big departmental move. I ended up packing a lot of my boss's office that day - people didn't think that was right but my boss had 2 things that had to get done that day - give the budget presentation, and pack his office. I wasn't about to offer to give the budget presentation, I infinitely preferred to help with the other thing! :D

Friday the 20th was more packing, my cubicle this time.

The weekend was all planned out with a combination of water fun and preparation for Wednesday's surgery. 

Saturday had been slated for a good paddle, weather permitting, for about as long as I knew I was going under the knife again the following week - TQ works on Sundays so I always like to plan my paddling so he can come when I can. This weekend was great, I didn't even have to do the planning this time as Cindy at the club was also up for a trip and she got together a very nice small crew for another lovely day on Jamaica Bay. Wasn't quite as long as some of my other recent paddles because it was a bit breezy and this was the first paddle of the season, but I did a lot of zigzagging, pretending I was a Sunfish and tacking around buoys and stuff, and I think I did about 6 miles. First non-drysuit paddle of the year - I was totally on the fence about what to wear so I took both a drysuit and a wetsuit; it was cool enough at the club that at first I was leaning towards the drysuit, rolling to cool off as needed, but after moving a couple of boats and getting very warm very fast, I decided to go with the wetsuit instead. That ended up being fine, and it felt so good to lose some of that bulky winter paddling gear! 

Weather cleared up beautifully by the time we got back to the club so we had a fine session with beer and cookies and oranges and conversation all at a picnic table in the sun afterwards. I also stuck some old seeds in my garden on the way out, just to see if they'd grow, since I won't be able to do much actual gardening for a couple of weeks here. I'm so glad I got the heavy lifting of getting the bed ready for the season the week before. If my seeds go, great, if they don't, I'll get some seedlings to put in once I'm a little more recuperated. 

Flowers at the club are looking fine!

Sunday was originally slated entirely for cleaning and cooking to prepare for being laid up for a few days, but I changed that in favor of going for a swim with the Coney Island Polar Bears and then doing my cooking and cleaning afterwards. It was another GORGEOUS day and the nice thing about going for a swim with the Polar Bears is that that does still allow time to get things done afterwards. So I swam - 

And then I did some grocery shopping on the way home and then I cooked pernil and black beans, planning to cook rice the following night and have that to cover a couple of meals while TQ was staying with me after the surgery. 

Monday, I unpacked into my new cubicle. I wish I'd taken a picture at the end of the day because the new cubicle is literally half the size of the old one, which I'd been in for over a decade - it didn't look good at all when I left work on Monday, but I had something I really wanted to do at home! Partway through the day, I'd a fantastic surprise delivery from my lovely Aunt Kathy. She'd seen that I had a new cast-iron wedge pan and she sent me two pounds of stone-ground self-rising cornmeal from the Nora Mill, founded in 1876 in the town of Helen, Georgia. As soon as I opened the package at the end of the day, all I wanted to do was run home right away and make cornbread!

My rice and beans plan immediately went out the window in favor of beans over round 2 of Susan Williams' buttermilk cornbread. This didn't come out of the pan as nicely as the first one did (I re-seasoned) but oh boy, was it pretty, and oh boy was it GOOD. 

Tuesday was my last day at work for the month of April. I did actually manage to get my new space in order (YAY, that's why I'd wished I had a camera on Monday, the Monday night vs. Tuesday night shots would've been dramatic), then helped my boss out with his for the rest of the afternoon. Turned off my out-of-office messages at the end of the day, did another grocery trip, ran home, did laundry and more cleaning - it felt EXACTLY like getting ready for vacation, except it wasn't really vacation!

I had my surgery early in the day on Wednesday, and here was my Facebook update from that evening:

"Today I had reconstruction surgery. It went well, I'm a little bit uncomfortable but it's not too bad, and Quint has taken a couple of days off to help me out, starting with picking me up after the surgery today -- it was an outpatient procedure, I checked in at 7 am, operation was at 8:30, and then they had me there for a few more hours for recovery. Quint brought me home a little after 1. We made one stop at the pharmacy for painkillers and then came home. Did a lot more sleeping today and I think tomorrow will be a sleeping/reading day too. There are a couple more "finishing touches" to be done on Left Girl, and I'll be starting on anti-hormone pills soon, but today's procedure should (knock wood, cross fingers) mark the end of the main events of my fall/winter/spring cancer treatment run. WOOHOO! Thanks again so much for all the moral support, especially to those who shared their own experiences with me! I really appreciate all the love and kind words from all of you! 

I still have a little discomfort, but I've still been enjoying my short break from work. TQ stayed with me until this evening, and we just had a nice lazy time reading and hanging out. He's been doing all the cooking for us, he made some great meals with the groceries I'd picked up, and I've just been able to take it very, very easy. We went for a pleasant walk around the neighborhood on Thursday, on Friday he drove me over to the Brooklyn Bridge Park offices to take a look at a room they'd offered for a screening of Sam Low's The Navigators (the room is lovely, we're doing it, it's next Friday, May 6th, details on the Halawai.org events page).

Today we had a little excitement as a fire started in some trash just outside the building, which filled up the place with smoke and brought four or five fire trucks, but they got the fire out very quickly and we were able to go back in after a little airing-out time. We were afraid my place was going to reek because the hallways were really bad and we'd decided to clear out when we started to smell the smoke inside my apartment, but it ended up not being all that bad - I'd shut the windows and the door on the way out, the weather was pleasant and a couple of hours with all the windows opened and a fan running took care of it.

And today I actually got in a little more painting on Araner! Almost done, hooray for an otherwise quiet day at home. Been about the craziest April I can remember - here's hoping for a relatively peaceful May. 

4/16/16 - Paddle to Dead Horse Bay

Dock? We don't need no stinking dock!

Today's forecast had been showing that today would be an absolutely glorious Spring day in NYC, and I'm having a second operation in late April that's going to take me off the water for a month, so when the official Hudson River club trip that was supposed to happen got cancelled, I decided I wanted to go out anyways.

With the dock replacement just getting underway and launching still involving a small scramble, I didn't send out a general invitation, just asked more experienced friends. Ended up heading out at 11 am with two friends with lovely hand-made skin-on-frame boats. It was warm enough that they did some rolling; having decided to leave my hood and noseclip at home, I decided to stay mostly rightside-up, but I did do some sculling bracing to get my hair wet - the water's still cold enough that it made for some bracing bracing all, but it felt very good.

We paddled out to the entrance to Dead Horse Bay, then backtracked and took out on the sandy beach just to the west of the Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge, where we had a leisurely lunch. SO nice when the weather warms up enough to actually enjoy a sandwich on the beach in the sun!

Floyd Bennett Field was well populated with people enjoying the day, the water was surprisingly quiet when we set out, but the motorboats started coming out in the afternoon. We saw a couple of loons, including one who was close enough for Milton to notice that he'd changed out the quiet gray of the winter plumage for the striking black and white of summer (sorry, still not close enough for a photo). The terns are back, and Louis spotted an egret flying towards Canarsie Pol. Winter might be done! Click here for more photos!

Just around 10 miles, and I'm finally starting to feel like I'm getting it back together again.   

One paddle, two paddle

One paddle this weekend, one paddle last weekend, and one the week before, in fact (season opener, where I forgot to take my camera)! Back in the saddle again. I'll have to skip next weekend, that's when the folks from the Polynesian Voyaging Society will be here and even though I'm not an educator, I'm actually planning to attend all three events (click here for details), but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we have nice weather on at least the 24th, because I hope to have my first sail of 2015 that day, when the Sailing Committee holds the first cruise of the season. They've actually been having a Spring Racing Series, and there were at least a couple of those I could've joined in on (not too windy, I mean) but I did want to join the kayak cavalcade on Opening Day, and since TQ will be back on his summer schedule of working weekends soon, I'm glad we got a couple of good paddles together in here before that starts.

I especially enjoy getting sequential paddles in this time of year, when the bay is making the big spring transition, which is such a glorious thing to watch. With thirty people on the Opening Day paddle, I wasn't paying as much attention to the surroundings as I was to catching up with the friends who came out, but we did see that the Canarsie Pol ospreys were back, and the cherry tree by the ramp to the dock was looking very beautiful. Fortunately I mentioned how much I usually like to take pictures when that happens to one of the sailors, and Lissa was kind enough to take out her phone and get a few shots for me. Beautiful! I'm always a little amazed by this cherry tree - it ends up standing in a little bit of salt water every time we get a particularly high tide, and yet it seems to do fine. Tough little tree. 

Such fine weather for the season opener. 

Lovely weather the next weekend, too. TQ and I went out around Ruffle Bar; it was low low water so Ruffle Bar was extra-big; mapping out what I think we did, it came to a little under 8 miles. The water was a little bit warmer; the really notable thing was the massive flock of brants off of Canarsie Pol. We think that they must have just gotten in from somewhere to the south en route their summer nesting grounds and were exhausted; usually brants are rather skittish birds, it's very hard to approach them a kayak and not have the entire flock take to the air with a roar of beating wings and alarmed "hrrrrnk hrrrnk"s. One of my early paddling mentors taught his students that when paddling among waterfowl, your goal should be to stay far enough away from them that they don't take off. With a big flock of brants in Jamaica Bay, that's hard to do, because they'll stretch out across the water as far as you can see. We think these guys must just have been totally wiped out, because they were just swimming fast to to get out of our way. Every now and then two or three would go airborne, but they'd land again just a few yards away and the rest of the flock stayed on the water.

Coming back, we had these little surf waves that TQ's Sparrowhawk just loves, and he went surfing off ahead of me - I realized as he went off that the flock was doing the bare minimum to move to the side ahead of him, leaving a basically brant-free corridor behind him - I followed and there were birds to the left and birds to the right, but not one flew as I went by. 

Yesterday, TQ and I did another very straightforward paddle. If you saw yesterday's post, Foggy Day in Jamaica Bay, you already saw my favorite picture from the day. It was one of those spring days that's actually tricky to dress for - the air temperature wasn't that high, didn't quite get up to 70, but the high humidity made you feel very warm very quickly if you were moving around at all. I ended up in my Farmer Jane wetsuit and a rashguard, with a short-sleeved nylon windbreaker top AND a long sleeved jacket ready to go if necessary. TQ actually put on a paddling jacket while we were getting ready and a minute later changed his mind. It was that weird a day.

We launched around 1. A larger group had launched at 11; we got back just after they did and although we'd seen some fog, it sounds like it had lightened up quite a bit - the larger group had set out planning to go to West Pond, in the  Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge on Broad Channel Island, but when they came out from under the bridge, they changed their plan to a trip that hugged the shore, because they couldn't see across the bay. I'd been sort of thinking the same thing when I suggested that we head for the bridge instead of out into the bay - also, I hadn't been past the bridge in a long time and I do like to get out to where things open up a bit. Conditions were so quiet that you didn't have that sense of a bigger swell that you sometimes get when you pass the inlet, but it was still nice to get out there.

Again, measuring it out, I think we did just under 10 miles, out from under the bridge and around the corner into Dead Horse Bay, then back.

We've still got loons - one surfaced right next to my boat as we were heading out, I mean, like, a foot from the side of my boat, I'm not sure which of us was more surprised! I was laughing hysterically (loonily, you might even say), the loon scuttled off to a safe distance and glared at me. I would argue that it is the one who is coming up from underwater who is responsible for making sure that their surfacing area is clear of vessel traffic (my dad would know that, he's a retired submariner), but I also suspect that waterfowl don't read the Rules of the Road. I'm wondering if the white hull of my boat was hard for the loon to see against the grey of the sky as she was coming up, I've never had a bird come up that close to me before. 

There seemed to be a much smaller number of brants, last week's huge flock has probably moved on. The terns are back in force, though - I think we saw one or two last week, this week they were everywhere.

And speaking of things coming back, it seems that the boat lift operators at the marinas and clubs have been busy - even on a foggy drizzly day like this, I think we saw four times as many motorboats out as we saw on that sparkly sunny day the week before. The time of having the bay to ourselves is definitely over until next Fall. So long solitude, here comes Summer!

Back at TQ's, I made dinner (well, I reheated some homemade pasta sauce and boiled up some rotini) and we toasted the day with a most unusual beer! Quite good, actually - I wasn't sure what to expect but it turns out that Iron Maiden makes a pretty tasty refreshing adult beverage. Who knew? 

The NYS Lifejacket Rule Is Still In Effect - Please wear them

5/1/15 Update: So it seems maybe the normal Spring boating accident wasn't a normal Spring boating accident. The woman who was fished out of the Hudson has now been charged with murder.Most complete writeup I've seen so far here.  

Quick safety request here -

The New York State off-season lifejacket rule -- the one that says anyone who's out in any recreational vessel of 20 feet or less must be wearing a lifejacket between November 1 and May 1 -- is still in effect.

We've got another nice weekend coming up here, if not quite as balmy as last weekend, but the water's still quite cold. Immersion gear (wetsuit or drysuit) is still a very good idea if you are going boating, but at the very least, please wear your lifejacket.

Because stuff like this doesn't need to happen.

PS - Thank you, Point Lookout Bay Patrol (plus Standard Spring Safety Spiel)

The oystercatchers are back, hooray!

Nice little postscript to our paddle - as one of my friends was loading his boat onto his car after we got back, a couple of gentleman from the bay patrol, who were there in a car when we got back and may have watched us launch, too, drove up to him and asked - very nicely, he said - if we were all off the water now. Matt said yes and thanked them for keeping an eye out for us. They really would have been within their rights to quiz us before we launched - they had a boat there at the marina and they would've doubtless been the ones who would've had to come out to save our sorry behinds if anything had gone wrong. I like that they chose to trust us to make our own call, but were still clearly watching out for us. Thank you, Point Lookout Bay Patrol.

And I'll also take this opportunity to get in my first Spring safety plug. We're coming up on the first day of Spring here, the forecast does show a chance of more snow on Friday (noooo!) but we've had a heck of a nice little warm spell here and it's not going to be long before that first weekend when the sky is blue and the air is warm and the boaters who don't go out in the winter start itching to pull the kayak or the canoe out of the garage, sweep off the dust, and get out there. Please be careful if you do, this is actually a terrible time of year for boating accidents, the water here in the Northeast will stay treacherously cold for a couple more months - if a person goes out in jeans and a t-shirt on a nice warm day and doesn't fall in, which would be the more usual case, they'll never know they dodged a bullet, but on the off chance that they do, it can turn tragic far too easily. Here in New York State, the winter lifejacket rule is still in effect - anyone going out in a recreational vessel of 20' or less must be wearing one, no exceptions - and beyond that, proper immersion gear will buy you a lot of time in the event that something goes wrong. 

For more information, follow any of the links in my Cold Water/Off-Season Boating Safety Sites list, over to the right. This is a lovely time of year to be on the water, the birds are starting to migrate through or return (I saw and heard my first oystercatchers of the season on Sunday, wheeet wheeet wheeetweetweetweetweetweetweet!) and the recreational traffic isn't up to full summer swing - let's just be safe out there, though, ok? 

Sebago Canoe Club -- Opening Day 2014, 4/19/2014

Capsize? Naaaah, that's just Mark B., who I think has taken over the polar roller crown I set down after being told that I have surfer's ear. He's wilder about it than I ever was though, he goes in hoodless and without warming up (or really, cooling down) with a side scull! Intense, dude.

And Ha! I got so excited about my fun fun fun Polar Bear Swim that I almost forgot to write about the weekends' other excellent event - the opening day of Sebago Canoe Club's 80th season (yep, we've been around for a while).

We had glorious weather for the morning paddle, which was a nice leisurely one around Canarsie Pol -- we keep the Opening Day paddle pretty easy because the whole point is for people who maybe haven't been in a boat since October to come out and have a good time. We ended up with a great crowd, started out with 17 and then Derek O. joined us, claiming I'd shamed him into coming out (I swear I just asked him if he was joining us when he turned up in the morning - whatever the reason, nice to have him join us on the water) so we finished with 18. Hey, if your head count has to change between launching and landing, that's definitely the direction you want it to go.

Not too many motorboats out there yet. The brant flocks are probably starting to feel the urge to head north, while the spring birds are arriving, we were hearing the wheet-wheets of oystercatchers everywhere, and as we came around the eastern tip of Canarsie Pol we stayed out good and wide to keep from scaring our resident osprey off of the perch. Their nest is well underway. Oh, speaking of ospreys reminded me of the big soap opera I'd written about earlier in the Spring - Real Ospreys of Jamaica Bay, anyone? - and checked in over at JamaicaBayOsprey.org. Looks like Coley 2 has been forgiven for his tardy arrival and his mate's decided to take him back, but there's still an extra bird hanging around there, so it may not be all settled yet. Oh, the drama!

Lovely paddle, and yes, Mark finally shamed me into a little spring roll action of my own (well, I'd been thinking of it anyways)!

Then it was back to the club for the potluck. Well, actually there was something unusual going on in the basin but that's going to get its own post - so there was the unusual thing and then, woohoo, potluck time!

I'd kind of cracked myself up on Friday when I heard myself tell a co-working that my potluck club was having a kayak - those who know the club will recognize that as actually being pretty appropriate! People from Hawaii who have moved to the mainland make jokes about the paucity of offerings at Mainland potlucks compared the onolicious grindz at an island potluck - Sebago's more after the island model though, we've got some good cooks at the club and there's always a really good spread.

I made my relatively new standby again - this is a nice simple chicken adobo recipe that I found on the Ivory Hut blog. I was so happy to find this, the thing I remember the most fondly from small-kid-time church potlucks at Aiea United Methodists was all the different varieties of chicken teriyaki and adobo all the ladies of the congregation would bring. If they'd ever had a cook-off I don't know how anyone would've judged, they were all delicious.  

So I'm very happy to find that I can make this nod to those days even when work's a little crazy...

and my clubmates seem to appreciate it too. :D

Lunch was finished with this terrific cake from the Couture Cake Boutique, a new business being started up by a friend of one of our club members. She did a great job of duplicating our smiling bear logo, and the cake was delicious.

Another good day at the club. More pictures from the paddle over on Flickr, of course!

Spring Boating safety: An idea for what to do when you find the unprepared preparing to launch

Looks like we've got another glorious spring weekend coming up here in the Northeast, one which will doubtless bring out the unwary boaters in droves.

I always feel like a bit of an idiot when I post my annual spring safety rant (see prior post) because I think most of the small group of people who read this blog already know what they're doing, but I always do it anyways just because you never know how people are going to stumble across this important information and I think that the more places it's lying around on the internet, the more likely it is to be found. So I make this one of the places every year. Just in hopes.

But this week I'm sharing something with much less hesitation.

What do you do when you go to your favorite launch site on a lovely soft spring day and find somebody getting ready to launch, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, with their lifejacket chucked in the bottom of their boat?

I've never actually run into that situation myself. I'm usually launching from Sebago, the club is committed to teaching members about boating safety, including cold-water boating, and so you very rarely see somebody setting out improperly dressed. But if I ever did, I think that I would try something that worked well for my friend Bob H. a few years back. He told me the story at the terrific Long Island Paddlesports Symposium that Elizabeth O'Connor used to run every March up until she moved to CT.  

 He'd gone for a paddle right before coming to the event (he turned up in full cold-water gear in fact) and as he returned to the beach two women had driven up with a canoe on their roof, wearing jeans and sweatshirts. He approached them and, as he told me when I asked him to refresh me memory of the story earlier this week, "I suggested that they place their hands in the water and note how long they could hold it until pain and/or lack of function ensued. I guess the sight of me in (dry)suit and hood underscored the point."

They left without even taking the canoe off the roof - a very good outcome.  

Although friends have laughed when I tell them this, I'm actually terribly uncomfortable with approaching strangers with safety suggestions. I would do it because as an educated boater and a kayak instructor, I feel like have an obligation to do so (plus I would feel absolutely horrible if I said nothing and then read about them in the paper the next day), but I really feel awkward when I do. This seems like a really nice non-confrontational way for even a shy person to get people to understand how cold the water still is right now and hopefully rethink their plans. 
A good idea and I thought I'd share it.

Spring Safety Spiel

Well, goodness, have we got a nice-looking weekend coming up here in the Northeast. Temps in the 60's in NYC, light winds and sunshine - perfect weekend to break out the ol' canoe, right?

And of course the answer to that question is, as always for this time of year,

"Yes, of course, but please learn the risks and have the right gear."

I suspect I'm preaching to a combination of choir and fellow preachers here but I always feel like I have to do this this time of year - the air's warming up but that water is still cold to the point that a mishap that would be humorous in August could actually be the last mistake that person makes.

There've already been a couple of the usual late winter/early spring news stories about kayak accidents doing the paddler social-media circuits - a couple of fatalities, plus one really lucky saved-life story. Naturally the story with the happy ending involved a paddler who was wearing their life jacket - I haven't got time to hunt down the link right now but if I'm recalling correctly, the story was that someone spotted the overturned kayak from shore and called for help. The paddler was past the point of being able to move by the time rescuers arrived but the lifejacket kept them afloat.

In NY State, we're still in the time of year when anyone out in a recreational craft of 20' or less is required by law to wear a properly-fitted lifejacket; that's not the rule everywhere, but a boater who doesn't is taking a big and completely unnecessary risk.

Beyond that, dressing properly is also important - remember that we had a very, very cold winter; I was talking to some of my polar bear swimmer friends last weekend and they were remarking on how cold the water remains right now at Coney Island.

Thinking of doing some spring boating, but not sure how you should prepare, or just feel like you could use a refresher? Visit the links in my Cold Water Safety section, top of the sidebar - always good to know before you go!
 

Cold Water Workshop, Saturday March 8th 2014 at the Small Boat Shop

Sorry for the short notice, just found out this week myself. This Saturday, March 8th, from 10:30 am to 3 pm,  the Small Boat Shop will be holding their annual Cold Water Safety Workshop at their shop in the Rex Marina, 144 Water Street, Norwalk, CT. Free, no reservations required!

If you're looking forward to Spring boating, and you're not already familiar with the significant hazards posed by cold water (including understanding that the sneaky thing about Spring boating is that the water stays dangerously cold LONG after the air has gotten invitingly warm), this would be an excellent workshop to attend.

We'll hopefully start seeing some warmer temperatures soon but the water got VERY cold this year and it will stay that way for a while. Spring is a fine time to be on the water if you take the proper precautions - a workshop like this is a great way to learn what you need to know.

The workshop will be broken into 2 sections; the "classroom portion" will be in the morning; they generally have represesentatives from the Coast Guard Auxiliary Norwalk and the Connecticut DEP boating division (Mark Chanski, who's participated in the excellent Cold Water Boot Camp video series and has some great first-hand stories), and TQ's going up to do a clothing talk.

After the morning discussions and videos, there's a short lunch break, then it's time for anyone who wants to to suit up and jump in the icy icy Norwalk River. This is why the SBS's workshop is my particular favorite - there are several shops in the tri-state area who do workshops in the Fall to get people ready for the winter, and they all do a good job, but this one's the only one where you put on the cold water gear and test it out in the conditions it's designed for. It is quite an experience!

This was the iciest I've been to so far, 2011. Photo by Ric Klinger, more from that day at the end. Great fun, but have to say it was nice to have hot showers and a warm shop just yards away!

We've participated in several of these (TQ lots more than me) and I always enjoy them. I can't make it this time due to a prior commitment to bloggers, photographers, and beer, but I did want to at least spread the word.

For more info on the Small Boat Shop, visit thesmallboatshop.com - just note that the Cold Water Workshop info there is old, left over from their originally planned date of February 15th, which had to be rescheduled due to one of the winter's numerous snowstorms.

The rest of Ric's pics from 2011. 

Lifejackets save lives

Amazing story floating around teh intertubes this week about a brother and sister who were fishing on a boat that sank and happily lived to tell the tale. The headlines call it a miracle and they were really lucky -- but some of their luck was that they'd chosen a boat where the captain had lifejackets on hand and accessible in case of emergency, and then they also made their own luck by doing a mind-blowing job of staying calm. Lifejackets save lives. So does not panicking. Read all about it!

Oh, and as long as I'm talking boating safety - don't forget that here in the northeast, the air's warming up but the water's still cold. Lovely time of year to start the boating season but also potentially treacherous - if you're going to go, there's stuff you should know. I've got a bunch of favorite cold-water safety sites over in the "Off-Season/Cold Water Boating links" in the sidebar to the right that are all good reading (although the last one is actually mine, something I wrote once when a friend who's an actual reporter saw an opportunity to get some cold-water safety info in the press - we jumped at it and it worked).  

And don't forget, if you are out in New York State waters in ANY recreational craft of 21 feet or less here in New York, state law requires that you wear a lifejacket up through May 1st. It's a good law, too - nobody ever plans to fall in, but if they do at this time of year, having that lifejacket on could very well make the difference between a funny story and a sad one. Let's go with funny.

Happy me! (Or, Not Such A Torture Paddle After All)

Bella & Buzz weren't the only ones who enjoyed the J-Bay breezes this weekend!

TQ & I were originally thinking hike Saturday, paddle Sunday, because the forecast was for the wind to be SLIGHTLY less honking, but then he ran into Steve the Paddling Chef during the week & Steve mentioned that he wanted to go paddling but had taken on double holiday cooking duty of a Seder on Friday & Easter dinner on Sunday, so only had Saturday.

TQ & I were so antisocial with our paddling planning this winter (it's not that we don't like paddling with other people, we just like to be lazy sometimes about trip planning, you know, leisurely breakfast, another cup of tea, head to the club whenever we're ready), and I love paddling with Steve, and when I asked what he had in mind & he came back a nice reasonable start time of 11 am and a nice reasonable paddle for a windy day, I was sold.

Although I knew it was gonna be a tough one. Couldn't resist going on Facebook while TQ took the dogs out for one last potty opportunity and saying:

Today: NW wind 15 to 17 kt, with gusts as high as 23 kt. Sunny. Seas around 2 ft.

Wind straight out of the Paerdegat - perfect conditions for a Torture Paddle! Woohoo, let's go!



Windspeeds ended up being even higher than forecast (iWindsurf.com, which offers free forecasts & also actuals as recorded at JFK, right on the shores of J-Bay, gave the actuals as starting out around the forecast, but building to close to 20 steady & gusting to close to 30 in the afternoon). So many ways it could've been a day we all wished we'd just stayed home. If Steve had planned a longer trip. If it had been colder. If it had been raining. If my shoulder had chosen the middle of the slog back to decide that it wasn't as fine as I've been assuming it is (well, that's why you go with friends).

Fortunately none of those things happened, and in fact we started with a nice surprise when Pete (another person who's great to paddle with) turned up out of the blue - he'd been planning a cautious solo trip along the shore & was happy to join us as we headed for Ruffle Bar. We had a totally awesome (duuude!) high-speed surf run out. We stopped for a nice break on the south shore of Ruffle Bar; Steve brought chili chocolate (yum) to share, I'd brought a thermos of green tea with honey that TQ and I found hit the spot and we all had a bit of food to fuel the long paddle back. Steve found us a nice spot for our break that offered a little shelter from the wind, but even so there was still a wind-chill factor - base-temperature-wise you would've thought this would've been a day when a drysuit was suffocating, but you would think wrong, a drysuit with a light layer underneath was perfect and the hot tea, which I'd thought was probably going to be total overkill, actually tasted delicious.


Somewhere in here there was another one of those proxigean tides I always get such a kick out of - don't know if it was Saturday or maybe a day before or after, but we landed on an unusually wide beach for Ruffle Bar & sat there watching the water recede further & further. It was actually funny paddling home, there was one point when I swear I was half a mile from any of the islands but the water was still about 2 feet deep. There was a Sebago foliage trip on the Hudson that went a bit wrong one time when the wind against the current kicked up heavier chop than some of the paddlers could handle - I wasn't on that trip but Pete was on it, and he totally cracked me up when he said "We forget how spoiled we are here in Jamaica Bay - most of where we paddle, if anything goes wrong, you just stand up!". I think that was my first year at Sebago, but I still think of him saying that on these days when you practically have to go to the dredged channel to find even enough water for a kayak!

The trip home was indeed a lot slower - but this was where the mindblowing gorgeousness that Steve had been kind enough to arrange came into play.

The Manhattan skyline was about as clear as I'd ever seen it (click on this one for a full-size view)-


and with the wind & the sun, everything was just so sparkly...


Yes, it was much longer trip home that out - but on a day that nice it just wasn't the torture paddle I was expecting - turned out to be a fine spring day on the water.

Salty, though! Not that I'd thought twice about it, but I really was glad I was wearing my drysuit, I wasn't noticing the spray that much but the caked salt says that it could've been a very damp & chilly paddle home without it!

Perfect First Weekend of Spring Part One - Ahh, Salt Water.

Oh, how I'd been looking forward to last weekend. That it was the first weekend of Spring was nice - but more than that, it was the first weekend in WEEKS where I didn't have any particular responsibilities or prearranged plans and could just go with whatever whim and weather said to do.

I said on Friday that I hoped to smell of either saltwater or dirt or if possible both before the end of the weekend - I actually managed both and it was maaaahvelous, absolutely maaahvelous!

Part 1: Salt Water


Of course over the last couple of weeks, the weather had been whispering strange stories of May, shorts, t-shirts, flip flops...

Oops. Well, maybe it was a little soon for the flip flops.

Still, TQ and I were itching to get some time in out on the bay. Between my job, his job, my trip to Philly, bad weather, and other things we just couldn't work around, we actually hadn't paddled since mid-February, when we'd squeezed in a short paddle on a lovely but slightly breezy day when we were teaching at the pool in the evening. That was kind of a funny one, I don't know, I was feeling bored with the usual places that day so I ended up leading us off to Spring Creek, totally ignoring the fact that it was low water. Actually I thought it was kind of fun (if a little stinky) but I'd definitely switched around the usual trip planning norms! :D


Anyways, according to the Pentax info, that was February 18th, so by last weekend, as I said, TQ & I were just itching to get in a good paddle.

During the week, the forecast was ALMOST looking like we might be able to get in a first sail of the year. Winds 9-11 kts, low 60's, no problem there. I was still sort of leaning towards kayaks because low water was going to be in the middle of the afternoon, and it looked like it was going to be a pretty low low, too --


(which it was - when you can see the ribs on the old wreck by Carnarsie Pol, there's not much water in the bay)

TQ was still sort of leaning towards sailing, but as the weekend approached, the windspeed forecasts started getting revised in an upward direction, and when we finally checked on Saturday morning, iWindsurf was showing gusts in the 20's.

And that's exactly what we found out there and we were glad we'd chosen kayaks, which we're both able to handle much better than sailboats when there's a blow. This was definitely not a first-sail-of-the-season day.

We both had a couple of things to do (he had to take a delivery, I wanted to stop at Dragonetti's for compost on the way to the club) so we didn't get to the club until around 2:30. We'd originally talked about going to the Marine Park Bridge (a nice afternoon's paddle) but we changed our plans when we got out of the basin & found exactly what we'd seen on iWindsurf in the morning. Steady 15 kts, gusting to quite a bit more, and from the southeast. We decided to do a straight shot to Ruffle Bar. That put us heading straight into the wind and meant fun potential for a good surf-driven scoot home when we turned around.

It was a heck of a workout getting there. We forgot to time it but estimating things later, we think it probably took us an hour and a half to travel the 3 miles there.


TQ decided to stop for a bit of a break when we got there. I joined him. After clawing our way over there, it actually felt really good to get out of the boats. The sun had come out, it was very pleasant onshore, and so instead of going around the island in our boats, we decided we wanted to walk around. We brought our boats up to the high-water mark (we were past low water and on the gently sloping shores we have in the bay, a rising tide can eat up a beach with surprising speed) and set off.






With the water that low, it was a perfect day for beachcombing. Here was the first thing that caught my eye:

I think it's a lump of coal, but look how pretty!

I try to restrain myself while beachcombing these days, there's a very satisfying collection of treasures on the windowsill in the kitchen where I keep most of my finds, but I'll still pick things up if they are a nice color or a possibly identifiable antique. It's not the value (I could probably get a couple of bucks for the best ones I have, but not enough to make me want to sell), it's the fun of coming home and looking online to see what I can learn about the bottler. In this case, the Milk of Magnesia bottle was a neat find - the embossing on the bottle gives the maker as "The Chas. H. Phillips Chemical Company" - but the Jacob Ruppert beer bottle led me to an entire essay on BeerNexus.com. Turns out that up until Prohibition, this was one of the greatest beer companies in NY, and the son of the founder, who took over the business from his father, bought the New York Yankees in 1914. Fun to find out that this really is a bit of local history.


Here's the entrance to the marsh on Ruffle Bar, a favorite high-water destination.


Back on the south side of the island - liked the skies (excellent "god-rays" going down) and the ripples on the sand.


We blew home in half an hour. Good fun!

So that took care of smelling of saltwater. The next day I took care of the dirt.