Saturday, July 01, 2006

Pier 63 update -

I think I'd mentioned that the June 7th eviction date came & went & nothing happened? Well, I went for a short paddle yesterday & while I was there, I asked somebody who's in a position to know what was going on & he told me that BasketBall City & the police horses had worked out an extension until November. So hurrah, we've got at least the rest of the summer & fall before things change.

About the paddle - I did my most basic after-work paddle of down to Battery Park City & back. When there's an ebb, this favored route of mine contradicts local conventional wisdom of doing the outbound paddle against the current & the homeward leg with, which is smart, particularly for trips involving beginners, 'cause that way if anything happens, you've got the current helping you get home. However, the route I do avoids the ferry terminal, which I just don't like messing around with at rush hour, and there are a couple of places en route that I could get out if for some bizarre reason I had to. Anyways, that's all a little beside the point. The actual point was - you know how I'd recently mentioned reports on the yahoo group that the hold crew uses for trip planning that the runoff was making for a strong ebb? Well, it was powerful - the water was running so fast that there were almost whitewater-y features out there - eddies behind pilings that I was able to park my bow in & quit paddling, eddylines at pierheadw where you could slide up to the pier inside the eddylines & then get your boat to spin like a pinwheel (granted, a 16-foot pinwheel with a total weight in the vicinity of 200 pounds spins in a more stately fashion than some sparkly little toy...) by just nosing your bow across the line & letting that downstream current grab it - whee! Quite entertaining. Even a few standing waves around some of the piers - tempting though it was, I didn't stick around & play more 'cause I was meeting a friend for dinner & the trip back took a bit longer than planned - definitely some feistier than usual water out there after our drenching.

No comments: