Hope everyone's holiday was happy & safe!Monday, July 06, 2009
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Getting in the swim!
In honor of Tugster Will's Swim Day on the Net, I would like to share a few pictures from one of my favorite swimmin' holes in the whole wide world.
Ladies and gentlemen, Hanauma Bay:
Ladies and gentlemen, Hanauma Bay:
Me, possibly even happier than I get in a kayak or a sailboat. I LOVE snorkeling, and TQ was the one who took my picture. What's better than snorkeling in Hanauma Bay? Snorkeling in Hanauma Bay with him. I honestly don't know if I ever would've taken up paddling if I'd ended up back in Hawaii - kayaking was a means to an end for me, and the end was just plain being on the water.
Uhu, or parrotfish. This one is having lunch. They're called parrotfish both because of their beautiful coloration and because their teeth are fused into a hard beak, with which they literally chew on coral. The coral polyps are digested; the ground-up coral goes through the fish and comes out as sand.
A fish of many names - people call it trevally, crevalle, but in Hawaii, it's the ulua.
A pair of Achilles' tang (orange spot by the tail), a couple of butterflyfish (ornate, I think) and I think that's a filefish that's alone & behind one of the tang.
I'd actually planned to share the story of how getting competitive with a squad of Marines at one of the on-base pool finally cured me of my attachment to my "bubble" swimming aid, way way back in "small-kid time", but it was yet another long long long day at work & I got home pooped & still needing to pack (heading off to see TQ for the holiday weekend). I hope this glimpse of one of my favorite places in the world to swim will suffice!
However, there's still occasional sun here.
Post-storm sunset at the Hudson River Greenland Festival 2009, Croton Point, NY.
I don't know what they're sacrificing, but the Yonkers Paddling & Rowing Club & other assorted organizers have certainly had the cooperation of the weather gods for this event, at least the times I've attended -
let's have a comparison sunset from 2008:
And I've just gone through & done some captions for all the 2009 pictures I posted to a Flickr set on Sunday night. Check out the set here! It was really a fantastic weekend.
I don't know what they're sacrificing, but the Yonkers Paddling & Rowing Club & other assorted organizers have certainly had the cooperation of the weather gods for this event, at least the times I've attended -
let's have a comparison sunset from 2008:
And I've just gone through & done some captions for all the 2009 pictures I posted to a Flickr set on Sunday night. Check out the set here! It was really a fantastic weekend.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
You know it's been a rainy time...
when people from NY City go to a city famous for fog & end up commenting on the sun instead!
(taken Friday night at the Hudson River Greenland Festival)
(taken Friday night at the Hudson River Greenland Festival)
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Nice Animals in Michigan And A Nice Trip Report.
Sorry no time for real posts this week, got back from Michigan to an unexpectedly crazy situation at work. Mostly wrapped up now but now I've got a lot of catching up to do on the work I'd actually planned to do this week that didn't happen.
In lieu of a real post, here are some nice animals in Michigan:
Peacock and sheep.
In lieu of a real post, here are some nice animals in Michigan:
Peacock and sheep.
Sheepdog and sheep. More specifically, Shetland sheepdog seeing sheep for the first time. By pure coincidence, the sheep are also Shetland. Now if we'd only had a pony, we'd have had the complete Shetland barnyard scene. The dog did seem quite interested in the sheep, but a little bit later he was nose to nose with a very tense kitty looking about the same...
Dog and very tense kitty. Don't worry, nothing bad happened to either of them, actually dog was displaying the exact same sort of friendly interest as dog was giving to sheep - he's a very mild-mannered, sweet-natured little guy, pretty much greets everyone he meets with the same sniff sniff sniff & a gently wagging tail. Kitty wasn't interested at all but stood his ground - he loves people & there were enough people around that he was not gonna leave the party on account of some visiting dog. 
Frog.
Baby robin (fell out of nest).
Fortunately there is somebody out there in the paddling & rowing world who did something fun last weekend & actually had time to write about it!. Sounds like the Village Community Boathouse (including their sommelier...dang, is that a classy club or what?) had a good time despite the downpour. Oh, man, I made it out to my garden for the first time in 2 weeks this morning (needed to get my PFD mostly) & I wish I had had my camera - I've got sugar snap peas & they have gone so completely bonkers with this cool & rainy weather that they overwhelmed the bamboo I use for a climbing trellis & fell down. Entire garden is going crazy, could really use some intensive weeding thinning & staking. Too bad it's not getting any of that for quite some time - it was a dreadful week at work, but part of dreadfulness was having to get 5 days worth of work done in 4 so I could head off to Croton Point myself tomorrow for the Hudson River Greenland Festival, and then next weekend I'm heading off to see TQ. Garden will just have to fend for itself. I just hope it doesn't start actively snaring clubmates or anything in the meantime.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Hana hou with those Waves of Waikiki...
One mo' time:
Been away in Michigan for a few days, didn't realize that Weather Channel video links are somewhat impermanent until yesterday. But the Honolulu Advertiser has the story - which included this photo of the aforementioned poor Laser.
The general rule is "Stay with your boat", but most rules have their exceptions!
Been away in Michigan for a few days, didn't realize that Weather Channel video links are somewhat impermanent until yesterday. But the Honolulu Advertiser has the story - which included this photo of the aforementioned poor Laser.
The general rule is "Stay with your boat", but most rules have their exceptions!
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Red Hook Pie Quest.
This wasn't why I was in Red Hook on Sunday but since I was there...
it seemed like a good time for my first visit to Steve's.
Won't be my last. Oh no.
it seemed like a good time for my first visit to Steve's.
Won't be my last. Oh no.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Bingbong machine
Kinetic sculpture by artist George Rhoads, on display outside the Waterfront Museum in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Beautiful Things At Sebago
Butterfly!
Flower!
Antique Danish K-1!
The racing committee got a display grant to refurbish the boat & it's been on display at the Sean John store on 5th Avenue. The race committee chair was about to take it out for a spin - I was sorry I was sort of rushing to leave & didn't get any pictures of the launch!
Flower!
Antique Danish K-1!
The racing committee got a display grant to refurbish the boat & it's been on display at the Sean John store on 5th Avenue. The race committee chair was about to take it out for a spin - I was sorry I was sort of rushing to leave & didn't get any pictures of the launch!
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Blessing #2 - Jamaica Bay Blessing of the Fleet, Saturday, 6/5/09
So after going to the New York Harbor blessing of the fleet on Friday night, I went to the more low-key feeling but long-running Jamaica Bay Blessing of the Fleet on Saturday. This was the 55th; it's run by the United Inter-Yacht Club, which was founded when the boating clubs that lined the bay in the day of Robert Moses found their treasured bay access directly in the line of fire of some of the "Master Builder's" big plans for the bay*. He'd thought it would make a wonderful Marine Transfer Station, I believe it was. Fortunately the Bay was at least partially spared, although I was looking at an antique map of the bay recently & was amazed at how completely the shoreline has been altered - but then, that's true of a lot of the NYC shoreline.
For this one, I was actually in a boat!
Much nicer day than Friday, I thought we'd have a whole troop, but it seems like an unusually small group for this - I hear that usually there's a whole crew that turns up, and they bring out the war canoe & all. Not enough this year, just this set.
We got there a bit early - there were a few of the officials who were in attendance.
Special message for the audience...
Andy was kind enough to play camera guy for this one - the Optio screen is really hard to see in broad daylight, but you get the general idea.
We were sort of the warm-up act - they had us go first, the priest wasn't ready so we had to do it again. We'd kinda forgotten to warn the CG auxiliary folks who were on the water that we were going to roll - they were a bit freaked out but "Sebago" (Phil Giller, former commodore & still one of the leaders of the club) knows 'em & managed to talk them into letting us do it again.
After that, the yacht clubs start through. I referred to this event as "low key", and from the canoe-club member's point of view, it was - no tall ships or marching band or governor making a speech - but I'm told this is a pretty serious event for them, the presentation of each club is actually judged based on even spacing, proper attire, proper demeanor (no waving, and the folks on the pier try to mess with the boaters by calling out names of people they know to try to get them to look) - the winner gets to lead next year's blessing. Sebago got a special award one year when almost everyone in the club turned out - that sure didn't happen this year!
A couple of people went back to the club; the rest of us decided to paddle on to the Mill Basin Basin Bridge.
Paerdegat to Canarsie Pier & back just doesn't count as a paddle!
Lots of people & animals out enjoying the day.
Canada goose family:
A fortunate horse with a kind rider - earlier, I'd enjoyed watching them doing some nice dressage-y exercises on the beach, figure 8's & serpentines at a collected canter, quite graceful, horse & rider nicely balanced & looking happy to be out there on the beach on a beautiful day. The workout ended & the rider slipped from the horse's back & then proceeded to just take her horse for a walk on the the beach. The horse wasn't lame or anything - it just looked like he'd done a good job & it was time for a nice long cool-down walk by the bay. So rare to see horses on that beach without people on their backs. Big day for trail rides, Saturday, I think at one point I counted about 20 horses on the beach.
A bunch of kids doing a beach clean-up at Floyd Bennett Field. Hooray for the kids!
I'll just close with a few more shots of our "club banner" & the participants -
Thanks Minh -
And Phil -
for being game enough (Minh was "Canoe") -
to take me up on my silly idea (I was "Club")!
*I never did find a website for the United Inter-Yacht Club, but the nutshell history I offered here was gleaned from a very interesting article I found on the Gotham Gazette".
cross-posted at the Sebago Canoe Club Blog
For this one, I was actually in a boat!
Much nicer day than Friday, I thought we'd have a whole troop, but it seems like an unusually small group for this - I hear that usually there's a whole crew that turns up, and they bring out the war canoe & all. Not enough this year, just this set.
We got there a bit early - there were a few of the officials who were in attendance.
Special message for the audience...
Andy was kind enough to play camera guy for this one - the Optio screen is really hard to see in broad daylight, but you get the general idea.
We were sort of the warm-up act - they had us go first, the priest wasn't ready so we had to do it again. We'd kinda forgotten to warn the CG auxiliary folks who were on the water that we were going to roll - they were a bit freaked out but "Sebago" (Phil Giller, former commodore & still one of the leaders of the club) knows 'em & managed to talk them into letting us do it again.
After that, the yacht clubs start through. I referred to this event as "low key", and from the canoe-club member's point of view, it was - no tall ships or marching band or governor making a speech - but I'm told this is a pretty serious event for them, the presentation of each club is actually judged based on even spacing, proper attire, proper demeanor (no waving, and the folks on the pier try to mess with the boaters by calling out names of people they know to try to get them to look) - the winner gets to lead next year's blessing. Sebago got a special award one year when almost everyone in the club turned out - that sure didn't happen this year!
A couple of people went back to the club; the rest of us decided to paddle on to the Mill Basin Basin Bridge.
Paerdegat to Canarsie Pier & back just doesn't count as a paddle!
Lots of people & animals out enjoying the day.
Canada goose family:
A fortunate horse with a kind rider - earlier, I'd enjoyed watching them doing some nice dressage-y exercises on the beach, figure 8's & serpentines at a collected canter, quite graceful, horse & rider nicely balanced & looking happy to be out there on the beach on a beautiful day. The workout ended & the rider slipped from the horse's back & then proceeded to just take her horse for a walk on the the beach. The horse wasn't lame or anything - it just looked like he'd done a good job & it was time for a nice long cool-down walk by the bay. So rare to see horses on that beach without people on their backs. Big day for trail rides, Saturday, I think at one point I counted about 20 horses on the beach.
A bunch of kids doing a beach clean-up at Floyd Bennett Field. Hooray for the kids!
I'll just close with a few more shots of our "club banner" & the participants -
Thanks Minh -
And Phil -
for being game enough (Minh was "Canoe") -
to take me up on my silly idea (I was "Club")!
*I never did find a website for the United Inter-Yacht Club, but the nutshell history I offered here was gleaned from a very interesting article I found on the Gotham Gazette".
cross-posted at the Sebago Canoe Club Blog
Sunday, June 07, 2009
New York Harbor Blessing of the Fleet 2009
Wasn't sure right up 'til the last minute, but I did escape my cubicle on time to get down to Friday night's NY Harbor Blessing of the Fleet.
It wasn't a pretty night, but I'm so glad I made it!
More pictures on my Flickr page!
It wasn't a pretty night, but I'm so glad I made it!
More pictures on my Flickr page!
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Surf's Up (And Lots of Other Stuff Too!)
Memorial Day Weekend 2009 - "Dumbo Cove" in the Brooklyn Bridge Park
Almost too tired to post tonight, but I have just got to put up some links - it's going to be quite a weekend in around New York Harbor!
It all starts on Friday evening with the New York Harbor Blessing of the Fleet. There are going to be some fancy people there, but I'm mostly looking forward to seeing some fancy boats, particularly the one who's making her grand debut! Of course I'll have my camera. It's still year-end close at work this week and it is quite possible I'll get stuck, but I've been working my tail off & doing some crazy late hours in hopes of being able to make it. The boats & ships will be gathering near the Statue of Liberty at 6:15, heading north up to around North Cove at 6:30 & then traveling south down the Battery. Looks like anywhere from North Cove down to the Staten Island Ferry terminal should offer good views. Full details can be found here on the New York Harbor Sailing Foundation's website.
BTW I was a little dissappointed to hear that although that page clearly says "all vessels are welcome", the organizers were originally somewhat reluctant to allow some of my NY harbor kayaking friends to join in, but apparently they were able to work something out in the end, hooray!
Saturday is both Opening Day for the sailors of New York Harbor and the beginning of the Great River Day Flotilla, which will include the Onrust (just mentioned) and other replicas of historic vessels and which will be traveling north along the Hudson to Albany from Saturday morning until the following Saturday. It's part of the celebrations of the Quadricentennial of Henry Hudson's voyage along the same route, and the flagship of the flotilla is the Half Moon, a replica of Henry Hudson's vessel. All in all, it should be a spectacular Saturday on NY Harbor.
Information about Opening Day can also be found on the New York Harbor Sailing site, and the Flotilla's full schedule from upper NY Harbor to Albany is available on www.ny400.org (LOVELY shot of the Half Moon there btw - first time I saw that ship I thought she was from Narnia).
In an interesting bit of scheduling, the 6th is also going to be the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim. The swimmers start at the Battery at 7 am & will be swimming counterclockwise around Manhattan for the next seven and a half or more hours. If you happen to see any of 'em & you think you're in earshot, give 'em a good hearty cheer - they might not hear you but if they do, they'll love it (and of course their kayakers & boat crews will enjoy it too).
I'll be missing all the fun around Manhattan & the upper harbor on Saturday to go to a much lower-key Blessing of the Fleet in Jamaica Bay, starting at 11 a.m. at Canarsie Pier in Brooklyn. It's so very low-key that I can't even find a website for the sponsoring United Inter-Yacht Clubs (although the Google searching did come up with a good post on the Sebago blog), but this will be the 55th annual blessing, Sebago always attends this but I haven't made it yet & I'm looking forward to it, should be lots of fun.
Going to be a full weekend on the water for me too - Sunday's a workshop for the club's trip leaders & although I think last year I was bad & blew it off to go sailing, this year I'm being good & going.
If I wasn't going though, I'd be going to the Sunday half of yet another really great-sounding event that I heard about through the busy busy kayak grapevine - the Red Hook Waterfront Arts Festival! The Red Hook Boaters will of course be offering free kayaking - just one of several of the free kayaking programs I mentioned in the big list last week that are in full swing now!
Oh...and there's one more event which I'll mention even though it's next weekend & right now I can hardly see past this weekend. PortSide NY is having a fundraiser to help raise money for a permanent home next weekend. It's a good cause. Even if you can't make it, you can still bid on some really interesting auction items. Now, I used to actually like buying stuff, but a few years of living in a situation where my entire private living quarters consisted of a ten by ten foot room with a single small closet pretty much cured me of that, I'd thought permanently. However, I just looked at the auction items & suddenly found myself stricken with moment of that long-dormant acquisitiveness! Full info about the auction & fundraiser over on PortSideNY.org!
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Wednesday Wave...
Probably not the kind of wave you'd expect to find here, but wotthehell, archy! :D
(Sunday 5/31)
(Sunday 5/31)
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Sebago Snowstorm, Open House 2009
Incredible but true!
Drifts piling up in the lee of the containers -
OK, OK, as most of you easterners have probably already guessed -
It was a cottonwood snowstorm we had on Saturday. Not an H20-snow-storm. Aside from a little fluff in noses & eyes, it didn't slow things down a bit.
Funny thing - I don't think I'd ever seen this spectacle until after I'd moved to New York, and the first time I saw it, I was so confused! It was a fine, sunny, early-summer day, and yet there they were, big fluffy snowflakes, dancing lightly in the air in a perfectly natural snowflakey way. I'm serious, my first thought was "Snow? But how could it possibly be snowing?".
I don't think they had cottonwood in the two mainland states we lived in that I remember clearly (California and Washington). We certainly didn't have it in Hawaii.
Special thank-you to John for playing Director of Photography - the only video that came out was the one from the spot where he told me it would work! :D
cross-posted at the Sebago Canoe Club blog
Drifts piling up in the lee of the containers -
The Vice-Commodore left his windows open & look what happened!
OK, OK, as most of you easterners have probably already guessed -
It was a cottonwood snowstorm we had on Saturday. Not an H20-snow-storm. Aside from a little fluff in noses & eyes, it didn't slow things down a bit.
Funny thing - I don't think I'd ever seen this spectacle until after I'd moved to New York, and the first time I saw it, I was so confused! It was a fine, sunny, early-summer day, and yet there they were, big fluffy snowflakes, dancing lightly in the air in a perfectly natural snowflakey way. I'm serious, my first thought was "Snow? But how could it possibly be snowing?".
I don't think they had cottonwood in the two mainland states we lived in that I remember clearly (California and Washington). We certainly didn't have it in Hawaii.
Special thank-you to John for playing Director of Photography - the only video that came out was the one from the spot where he told me it would work! :D
cross-posted at the Sebago Canoe Club blog
Monday, June 01, 2009
Phil Bolger in the NY Times
One more quick thing here while I'm taking a short lunch break -
Phil Bolger's name has been coming up a lot on the boat blogs. I didn't know as much about him as some of the people who've been posting, but I'm adding this today because there is an obituary for him in today's New York Times that I thought well worth a link.
A sad ending - but what a marvelous life.
Phil Bolger's name has been coming up a lot on the boat blogs. I didn't know as much about him as some of the people who've been posting, but I'm adding this today because there is an obituary for him in today's New York Times that I thought well worth a link.
A sad ending - but what a marvelous life.
Free Public Kayaking in Yonkers!
Well shoot. I knew I was gonna leave somebody out of my big list last week & it turns out that I left out some old friends. Boo! So here, they get their own post:
The Yonkers Paddling & Rowing offers free public kayaking at the Kennedy Marina in Yonkers. Various weeknights from 3:30 to 8:00. For full details, click here!
This really was an oversight of the most inadvertent sort - Yonkers is one of my favorite clubs, and I'd actually thought about mentioning them, but I was doing very quick browses of websites to get links for the list. I looked at the YPRC site, because I did know that they'd been doing something like that for a while, I didn't see info about that happening this year. I did think of emailing but that got lost in the shuffle of other stuff I'm wrapped up in - but their commodore checked in & left a comment over the weekend. Turns out the public program info was in the "Kennedy Marina" link, which I'd thought was going to be about storage & boatbuilding (Yonkers does have an accomplished boatbuilder, Jack Gilman, on the roster - he's guided a lot of club members through the process of building kayaks & although the official club boatbuilding had been on hiatus due to lack of a workshop for a while, I think there was a possibility that that would resume in the new space at Kennedy Marina). Fortunately their commodore happened to check in over the weekend & gave me the proper link in comments. Thanks, Bob!
BTW, the comments on the original list took on a life of their own & there are a number of very good clubs in there that I hadn't mentioned because I was just listing stuff that anybody with a couple of hours (and maybe a little money) to spare could do. There's a whole next level of options for people who are ready to get a little more committed - many (although still not all) of those got mentioned in the comments.
The Yonkers Paddling & Rowing offers free public kayaking at the Kennedy Marina in Yonkers. Various weeknights from 3:30 to 8:00. For full details, click here!
This really was an oversight of the most inadvertent sort - Yonkers is one of my favorite clubs, and I'd actually thought about mentioning them, but I was doing very quick browses of websites to get links for the list. I looked at the YPRC site, because I did know that they'd been doing something like that for a while, I didn't see info about that happening this year. I did think of emailing but that got lost in the shuffle of other stuff I'm wrapped up in - but their commodore checked in & left a comment over the weekend. Turns out the public program info was in the "Kennedy Marina" link, which I'd thought was going to be about storage & boatbuilding (Yonkers does have an accomplished boatbuilder, Jack Gilman, on the roster - he's guided a lot of club members through the process of building kayaks & although the official club boatbuilding had been on hiatus due to lack of a workshop for a while, I think there was a possibility that that would resume in the new space at Kennedy Marina). Fortunately their commodore happened to check in over the weekend & gave me the proper link in comments. Thanks, Bob!
BTW, the comments on the original list took on a life of their own & there are a number of very good clubs in there that I hadn't mentioned because I was just listing stuff that anybody with a couple of hours (and maybe a little money) to spare could do. There's a whole next level of options for people who are ready to get a little more committed - many (although still not all) of those got mentioned in the comments.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Sebago Canoe Club Opening Day Saturday May 30th (yikes, that's tomorrow!)
Bored in Brooklyn? No plans for Saturday?
Don't be bored, come boating! Come on out to Canarsie tomorrow for the Sebago Canoe Club's Open House. Canoeing, kayaking, dinghy rides, burgers & lots and lots of fun.
Don't believe me about the fun? Well, here, maybe last year's winner of the Cutest Attendee Award* can convince you:
There you go! Can you argue with that? And it's even more fun when the boat's in the water.
Full details on the Sebago Canoe Club website.
*ok, so there was no actual contest for the cutest attendee. But if there had been, she totally woulda walked away with it, right?
Don't be bored, come boating! Come on out to Canarsie tomorrow for the Sebago Canoe Club's Open House. Canoeing, kayaking, dinghy rides, burgers & lots and lots of fun.
Don't believe me about the fun? Well, here, maybe last year's winner of the Cutest Attendee Award* can convince you:
There you go! Can you argue with that? And it's even more fun when the boat's in the water.
Full details on the Sebago Canoe Club website.
*ok, so there was no actual contest for the cutest attendee. But if there had been, she totally woulda walked away with it, right?
Thursday, May 28, 2009
24 Great Ways to Get On the Water in NYC (plus a couple of spots in Jersey) Without Your Own Boat
One last boat-list! Yes, I think Lord Tillerman's deadline is past, but I'd thought of this right at the start & with summer underway, I thought this might be even MORE useful than my fabulously useful (ha ha, ha ha ha) 5 Things A Sea Kayaker Needs to Pass A Vessel Safety Check in New York State and the even more helpful 10 Things I Won't Leave My Urban Dock Without.
I'd say that at the very least, it will be more widely useful - the ways to get on the water that I'm going to list are all things that I have done or given serious consideration to doing at one time or another; me being a very squarely middle-class, middle-aged person, none of these require either a huge amount of money (some are free, some easily affordable, some I'd consider a bit of a splurge but worth the money) or any particular physical prowess (although a basic level of fitness & coordination will make some of the more active options more enjoyable).
OK, enough (ka)yaketty-yak. On with Twenty-Four Great Ways to Get Out On The Water in New York City Without Owning Your Own Boat. Since it came out kinda long, I've divided by type (Kayaking, Rowing, Canoeing, Passenger Schooners, Speedboats, and a few other miscellaneous craft) to make it easier to follow.
I'll start with my favorite, of course -
********************************************************************
KAYAKING!
I'll be the first to admit that kayaking the way I kayak does eat up a good bit of money over the years. For me, though, it works out - I do it for fitness & for my own sanity, among other things, and it's a heckuvalot cheaper than a gym membership & therapy! :D
But the way I do kayaking is the way people who've long since fallen in love with a sport or activity do it. For people who just want to try it out, the city is now positively rife with opportunities to do so for free (or very low cost), no experience necessary, just basic comfort with being in the water. Here are some of my favorites, starting with my own club of course!
I'll give a very brief description of the programs but for full info, check the websites I'm linking to.
1. Sebago Canoe Club, Canarsie, Brooklyn. $10.00 insurance fee. Our Open Paddle program (2 to 3 hour paddles in Jamaica Bay) kicked off tonight, Wednesday May 27th, and continues on Wednesday nights & Saturday mornings throughout the summer. We're a little harder to get to than some places, but many of the paddles feature guest speakers & our club may be the only one around where a complete novice is going to be given a true sea kayak & be taken out on a guided tour for a couple of hours. If you've made the trip, you deserve the time!
Much more common in NYC are free walk-up programs where people can try out a stable sit-on-top for 20 minutes or so in a sheltered area between piers or in a cove. It makes for a fun part of a nice day in one of the city's waterfront parks, but keep in mind that on not-so-nice days, the lines will be shorter and the volunteers will have more time to talk story and give pointers & might be less concerned about holding you to the official tryout time. Some of these places have boats big enough for parents to take out small children & a lot of city kids get their first taste of boating this way. Many of them also offer longer trips for people who've developed some basic skills.
The grandaddy of all of these programs is
2: Manhattan's Downtown Boathouse - not sure exactly when that group was founded but they'd been around for a while when I started kayaking in 1999 - they've got pictures on their website dating back to 1995. The original Downtown Boathouse was actually downtown, not far north from Battery Park City; that building, an old piershed, is long gone now but the DTBH carries on just fine at 3 locations - 2 in the Hudson River Park & 1 in Riverbank State Park.
Over the last decade, a number of similar programs - most founded by DTBH "alums" - have sprung up in other boroughs (and I'm including Hoboken too 'cause it's just not right to leave them out). In no particular order, here are the most established ones (notice to local paddlers - if I'm leaving anybody out it's an oversight, I'm not shooting for comprehensive here but feel free to add links in the comments):
3. Kayak Staten Island
4. Hoboken Cove Boathouse
5. Long Island City Boathouse
6. The Red Hook Boaters
Those are all great places to go get your feet wet (and your okole too). Want to get a little more serious? All of those places welcome & train volunteers, so that's one way to do it (and I will mention that some of the more stalwart volunteers at these groups are very, very good paddlers); if, like a lot of people in the city, you're busy enough that your leisure time is a scarce & precious resource, you might well find it worth the money it takes to patronize the local outfitters,
7. Manhattan Kayak (where I used to be a partner) or
8. New York Kayak.
Of course there are other places I love & would recommend in a heartbeat but I am trying to keep this in the actual NYC area - so that I can move on to
***************************************************************************
ROWING:
Where things should move on a little better because I have a lot fewer silly opinions about the rowing groups, just know who's out there, that it seems like a lot of fun & that the Whitehall gigs these groups build & use strike me as possibly the best way for kids who are old enough to start getting serious about boating to start learning the skills a person needs to enjoy NYC's waterways safely - they can even help build boats if they're so inclined! Pretty cool. I seriously mean to try this out myself this summer, one of these organizations is about a 15 minute walk from my office & I don't know why it took me so long to figure out that I could join in on their Wednesday night rows really easily. It would totally be learning something new, too, which would be neat.
I'll start with that one:
9. Village Community Boathouse, located at Pier 40, where Houston Street hits the Hudson. This was the group that sent the gigs that were in the Water Dance of Boats, by the way, and all the "backstage" pictures were taken at Pier 40, which is also the home of New York Kayak & one of the Downtown Boathouse branches.
Others:
As was the case with a lot of the free kayaking programs in NYC, a lot of the groups that build & row the Whitehalls were inspired by and/or spun off from one original, which was:
10. Floating the Apple, which was founded by Mike Davis, who passed away last year but left quite a legacy. One of the earliest thoughts I had of ways to get on the water around here was seeing one of their boats as I walked past the old green McGraw Hill Building in midtown. That particular spark of an idea failed to take hold, but it was definitely there. I think that they are open for business at Pier 84 but that website has not been updated in a very long time. I'll see if I can get an update.
Hopping back over to Jersey again, there's
11. Weehawken based WeeRow, and up in the Bronx we've got
12. Rocking the Boat.
**************************************************************************
CANOEING
Canoes don't quite seem to be the craft of choice around here but there are a couple of places where canoeing is offered regularly, both pretty unique -
13. the Gowanus Dredgers will take you on a canoe trip on the Gowanus Canal.
14. The Bronx River Alliance will show you the wonders of the Bronx River (and I'm not joking, folks, the Alliance has been working their Bronx buns off cleaning up that river and I tell you with a straight face, it is beautiful).
**************************************************************************
PASSENGER SCHOONERS (plus a nice motor yacht & a cool old tugboat)
Afraid this is where things stop being free - but this is where you stop having to do the work to move the boat - the wind & a well-trained captain & crew see to that - and start getting to stay dry. It's a much more leisurely experience!
I'm going to start with a plug for my old employer,
15. Classic Harbor Lines, now operating the schooners Adirondack & Imagine out of Chelsea Piers. The schooners are designed as sightseeing boats, but in the spirit of the old pilot schooners who would race to meet vessels approaching the harbor (whoever got there first got the job). They're very fast & a lot of fun to sail, and the captains and crews love to show what the boats can do. I LOVED working on the Adirondack. Sails start at $40 for a 2-hour afternoon sail to the Statue of Liberty & go up from there. The least expensive sails include complimentary beer & soda, evening sails add better beers, wine, and champagne. Going up from there...whoa, sake and sushi? That's new since I left! Classic Harbor also offers Manhattan circumnavigations & other more far-flung trips aboard the 1920's-inspired motor yacht Manhattan.
For a grittier but still grand experience, how about a genuine antique freight schooner?
16. The schooner Pioneer was built in 1885 & after a long working life, she's now enjoying a genteel retirement as a prized part of the South Street Seaport Museum's collection, taking passengers on sails in New York Harbor. Sailing schedule & prices here. The museum has two other vessels that operate regularly - the Lettie G. Howard, a beautifully restored fishing schooner now used for educational sails for adults (2008 fall schedule, just to show the sort of stuff they do) and then the coolest old tug, the W.O. Decker - that picture seriously does not do justice to that boat!
17. I'll add one last schooner that's been offering public harbor sails out of North Cove in the World Financial Center for a long time - the schooner Shearwater. Not as fast as the Adirondack (there was one mischievous Adirondack skipper who used to like to sail a circle around the Shearwater, because he could) but a genuine classic luxury yacht, circa 1929. I've always wanted to go out just to see what she looked like up close.
BTW, Bowsprite did a fantastic post on the various schooners that you might see out in NY Harbor recently. Worth a look!
3 More Categories (and I'll try to make these ones snappy 'cause it's past my bedtime now).
****************************************************************************
GREAT BIG SPEEDY SPEEDY SPEEDBOATS!
Right, you wouldn't think a kayaker would approve but these guys can actually be a really fun way to see the harbor. Great for people with kids who might like a little more excitement than the normal sedate Circle Line cruise. You might even get wet. There are 3 that I know about.
19. My favorite doesn't look like it's resumed public operation yet but they used to share dock space with the Adirondack & every now & then, on a hot day, when we didn't have a sail for one reason or another, some of us liked to sneak off & go for a ride on the Chelsea Screamer. You'd get totally soaked. It was awesome. Plus they actually gave a very nice harbor tour as they were drenching you.
20 & 21. The other two also looked like good rowdy noisy fun - they were basically identical boats with different paint jobs, Shark and Beast. They liked to hire redneck-looking skippers with mullets, and the two speedboats would always meet at the Statue, strong words (although rated PG)would be hurled across the water & then they'd drag-race up the Hudson. We on the Adirondack liked to pretend we thought we were gonna race too, we'd be adding our own challenges, and they'd yell at us to give them our beer, and it was all just good silly salty fun.
22. BTW, both of those speedboats are operated by Circle Line. You could call it the ultimate tourist cliche, maybe, but I think you could also call it a classic.
****************************************************************************
ALMOST DONE, JUST 2 MORE!
Each in a class by themselves!
23. Having just put the ultimate tourist cliche on the list, perhaps I can redeem myself with this one - the Working Harbor Committee's Hidden Harbor Tours. I simply cannot explain how frustrated I am with myself that I have never gone on one of these, they just sound great. Maybe this year.
And for the grand finale - It's Free. It's Big. It's Orange. It's #24, the Staten Island Ferry! How could I leave that out?
:D
You might not think of it but it's got some points - aside from being free & sailing A LOT, seriously, you can jump on board on a whim, you can go out on it to see what the harbor looks like when the weather's too bad for anything smaller, and it's got the best views of downtown NYC that money can't buy!
I'd say that at the very least, it will be more widely useful - the ways to get on the water that I'm going to list are all things that I have done or given serious consideration to doing at one time or another; me being a very squarely middle-class, middle-aged person, none of these require either a huge amount of money (some are free, some easily affordable, some I'd consider a bit of a splurge but worth the money) or any particular physical prowess (although a basic level of fitness & coordination will make some of the more active options more enjoyable).
OK, enough (ka)yaketty-yak. On with Twenty-Four Great Ways to Get Out On The Water in New York City Without Owning Your Own Boat. Since it came out kinda long, I've divided by type (Kayaking, Rowing, Canoeing, Passenger Schooners, Speedboats, and a few other miscellaneous craft) to make it easier to follow.
I'll start with my favorite, of course -
********************************************************************
KAYAKING!
I'll be the first to admit that kayaking the way I kayak does eat up a good bit of money over the years. For me, though, it works out - I do it for fitness & for my own sanity, among other things, and it's a heckuvalot cheaper than a gym membership & therapy! :D
But the way I do kayaking is the way people who've long since fallen in love with a sport or activity do it. For people who just want to try it out, the city is now positively rife with opportunities to do so for free (or very low cost), no experience necessary, just basic comfort with being in the water. Here are some of my favorites, starting with my own club of course!
I'll give a very brief description of the programs but for full info, check the websites I'm linking to.
1. Sebago Canoe Club, Canarsie, Brooklyn. $10.00 insurance fee. Our Open Paddle program (2 to 3 hour paddles in Jamaica Bay) kicked off tonight, Wednesday May 27th, and continues on Wednesday nights & Saturday mornings throughout the summer. We're a little harder to get to than some places, but many of the paddles feature guest speakers & our club may be the only one around where a complete novice is going to be given a true sea kayak & be taken out on a guided tour for a couple of hours. If you've made the trip, you deserve the time!
Much more common in NYC are free walk-up programs where people can try out a stable sit-on-top for 20 minutes or so in a sheltered area between piers or in a cove. It makes for a fun part of a nice day in one of the city's waterfront parks, but keep in mind that on not-so-nice days, the lines will be shorter and the volunteers will have more time to talk story and give pointers & might be less concerned about holding you to the official tryout time. Some of these places have boats big enough for parents to take out small children & a lot of city kids get their first taste of boating this way. Many of them also offer longer trips for people who've developed some basic skills.
The grandaddy of all of these programs is
2: Manhattan's Downtown Boathouse - not sure exactly when that group was founded but they'd been around for a while when I started kayaking in 1999 - they've got pictures on their website dating back to 1995. The original Downtown Boathouse was actually downtown, not far north from Battery Park City; that building, an old piershed, is long gone now but the DTBH carries on just fine at 3 locations - 2 in the Hudson River Park & 1 in Riverbank State Park.
Over the last decade, a number of similar programs - most founded by DTBH "alums" - have sprung up in other boroughs (and I'm including Hoboken too 'cause it's just not right to leave them out). In no particular order, here are the most established ones (notice to local paddlers - if I'm leaving anybody out it's an oversight, I'm not shooting for comprehensive here but feel free to add links in the comments):
3. Kayak Staten Island
4. Hoboken Cove Boathouse
5. Long Island City Boathouse
6. The Red Hook Boaters
Those are all great places to go get your feet wet (and your okole too). Want to get a little more serious? All of those places welcome & train volunteers, so that's one way to do it (and I will mention that some of the more stalwart volunteers at these groups are very, very good paddlers); if, like a lot of people in the city, you're busy enough that your leisure time is a scarce & precious resource, you might well find it worth the money it takes to patronize the local outfitters,
7. Manhattan Kayak (where I used to be a partner) or
8. New York Kayak.
Of course there are other places I love & would recommend in a heartbeat but I am trying to keep this in the actual NYC area - so that I can move on to
***************************************************************************
ROWING:
Where things should move on a little better because I have a lot fewer silly opinions about the rowing groups, just know who's out there, that it seems like a lot of fun & that the Whitehall gigs these groups build & use strike me as possibly the best way for kids who are old enough to start getting serious about boating to start learning the skills a person needs to enjoy NYC's waterways safely - they can even help build boats if they're so inclined! Pretty cool. I seriously mean to try this out myself this summer, one of these organizations is about a 15 minute walk from my office & I don't know why it took me so long to figure out that I could join in on their Wednesday night rows really easily. It would totally be learning something new, too, which would be neat.
I'll start with that one:
9. Village Community Boathouse, located at Pier 40, where Houston Street hits the Hudson. This was the group that sent the gigs that were in the Water Dance of Boats, by the way, and all the "backstage" pictures were taken at Pier 40, which is also the home of New York Kayak & one of the Downtown Boathouse branches.
Others:
As was the case with a lot of the free kayaking programs in NYC, a lot of the groups that build & row the Whitehalls were inspired by and/or spun off from one original, which was:
10. Floating the Apple, which was founded by Mike Davis, who passed away last year but left quite a legacy. One of the earliest thoughts I had of ways to get on the water around here was seeing one of their boats as I walked past the old green McGraw Hill Building in midtown. That particular spark of an idea failed to take hold, but it was definitely there. I think that they are open for business at Pier 84 but that website has not been updated in a very long time. I'll see if I can get an update.
Hopping back over to Jersey again, there's
11. Weehawken based WeeRow, and up in the Bronx we've got
12. Rocking the Boat.
**************************************************************************
CANOEING
Canoes don't quite seem to be the craft of choice around here but there are a couple of places where canoeing is offered regularly, both pretty unique -
13. the Gowanus Dredgers will take you on a canoe trip on the Gowanus Canal.
14. The Bronx River Alliance will show you the wonders of the Bronx River (and I'm not joking, folks, the Alliance has been working their Bronx buns off cleaning up that river and I tell you with a straight face, it is beautiful).
**************************************************************************
PASSENGER SCHOONERS (plus a nice motor yacht & a cool old tugboat)
Afraid this is where things stop being free - but this is where you stop having to do the work to move the boat - the wind & a well-trained captain & crew see to that - and start getting to stay dry. It's a much more leisurely experience!
I'm going to start with a plug for my old employer,
15. Classic Harbor Lines, now operating the schooners Adirondack & Imagine out of Chelsea Piers. The schooners are designed as sightseeing boats, but in the spirit of the old pilot schooners who would race to meet vessels approaching the harbor (whoever got there first got the job). They're very fast & a lot of fun to sail, and the captains and crews love to show what the boats can do. I LOVED working on the Adirondack. Sails start at $40 for a 2-hour afternoon sail to the Statue of Liberty & go up from there. The least expensive sails include complimentary beer & soda, evening sails add better beers, wine, and champagne. Going up from there...whoa, sake and sushi? That's new since I left! Classic Harbor also offers Manhattan circumnavigations & other more far-flung trips aboard the 1920's-inspired motor yacht Manhattan.
For a grittier but still grand experience, how about a genuine antique freight schooner?
16. The schooner Pioneer was built in 1885 & after a long working life, she's now enjoying a genteel retirement as a prized part of the South Street Seaport Museum's collection, taking passengers on sails in New York Harbor. Sailing schedule & prices here. The museum has two other vessels that operate regularly - the Lettie G. Howard, a beautifully restored fishing schooner now used for educational sails for adults (2008 fall schedule, just to show the sort of stuff they do) and then the coolest old tug, the W.O. Decker - that picture seriously does not do justice to that boat!
17. I'll add one last schooner that's been offering public harbor sails out of North Cove in the World Financial Center for a long time - the schooner Shearwater. Not as fast as the Adirondack (there was one mischievous Adirondack skipper who used to like to sail a circle around the Shearwater, because he could) but a genuine classic luxury yacht, circa 1929. I've always wanted to go out just to see what she looked like up close.
BTW, Bowsprite did a fantastic post on the various schooners that you might see out in NY Harbor recently. Worth a look!
3 More Categories (and I'll try to make these ones snappy 'cause it's past my bedtime now).
****************************************************************************
GREAT BIG SPEEDY SPEEDY SPEEDBOATS!
Right, you wouldn't think a kayaker would approve but these guys can actually be a really fun way to see the harbor. Great for people with kids who might like a little more excitement than the normal sedate Circle Line cruise. You might even get wet. There are 3 that I know about.
19. My favorite doesn't look like it's resumed public operation yet but they used to share dock space with the Adirondack & every now & then, on a hot day, when we didn't have a sail for one reason or another, some of us liked to sneak off & go for a ride on the Chelsea Screamer. You'd get totally soaked. It was awesome. Plus they actually gave a very nice harbor tour as they were drenching you.
20 & 21. The other two also looked like good rowdy noisy fun - they were basically identical boats with different paint jobs, Shark and Beast. They liked to hire redneck-looking skippers with mullets, and the two speedboats would always meet at the Statue, strong words (although rated PG)would be hurled across the water & then they'd drag-race up the Hudson. We on the Adirondack liked to pretend we thought we were gonna race too, we'd be adding our own challenges, and they'd yell at us to give them our beer, and it was all just good silly salty fun.
22. BTW, both of those speedboats are operated by Circle Line. You could call it the ultimate tourist cliche, maybe, but I think you could also call it a classic.
****************************************************************************
ALMOST DONE, JUST 2 MORE!
Each in a class by themselves!
23. Having just put the ultimate tourist cliche on the list, perhaps I can redeem myself with this one - the Working Harbor Committee's Hidden Harbor Tours. I simply cannot explain how frustrated I am with myself that I have never gone on one of these, they just sound great. Maybe this year.
And for the grand finale - It's Free. It's Big. It's Orange. It's #24, the Staten Island Ferry! How could I leave that out?
:D
You might not think of it but it's got some points - aside from being free & sailing A LOT, seriously, you can jump on board on a whim, you can go out on it to see what the harbor looks like when the weather's too bad for anything smaller, and it's got the best views of downtown NYC that money can't buy!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
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