Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Fabulous weekend (mostly), fabulous pictures & video, and a whole lotta links

There was an unfortunate, but necessary & productive, stint in the office on Sunday, but before that, on Saturday, I got my dad (who was in town last week for another adventure in campanology) out for a ride on my favorite tugboat, a walk on the High Line, and a Full Moon Paddle at Sebago, and after that, on Monday, I went to the Wharf, how else but by kayak, another great club paddle by Phil (thanks Phil!) & TQ was here for that one (yay).

Yes, of course I took my camera along on all of the above & took a ton of pictures as usual - but no, the fabulous pictures & videos to which my title refers don't happen to be mine. I did get some nice ones & I do hope that eventually I will have time to get some of them up, but in the meantime, remember the big Tugboat Competition I'd mentioned last week? Well, I did not get to attend, partly because of the aforementioned necessary stop at the office --

But you know that Tugster Will would never miss it, so for us who couldn't make it, there's vicarious enjoyment to be had here and here. Turns out that the Old Salt (one of the bloggers whose blogs I shall definitely be adding on that theoretical day in the future when I next get around to updating my blogroll) was also there, Will advised a viewing of his video & I heartily second that suggestion.

Back to work now, I am scrambling to wrap up everything I need to wrap up before the 4-day weekend I'm taking for Leg 3 of our big 5 Years Around Long Island trip. This year's goal - Georgica Pond to Orient Point. I'm looking forward to it, but I do have to say that if we have to postpone - well, there's something fun I am plotting on one of the days of our alternate weekend that I'd be sorry to cancel, but this coming weekend is going to be another wonderful weekend on NY Harbor & I wouldn't be too upset to be around for the culminating days of NY400 week. Yes, we're STILL celebrating Henry Hudson's quadricentennial, and what a harborwide bash it's going to be on Sunday! Why did the hoogaars and botters cross the Atlantic? To get to Harbor Day!

As it is, I'll probably just have to keep relying on Tugster to see what I'm missing while I'm out seeing the lighthouse from the other side (fingers crossed, knocking wood) - but if I was going to be in town, I'd definitely be following PortSideNY's suggestions on how to see our unusual visitors!

Oh - slightly unrelated p.s. - I just wanted to mention that the discussion in the comments after the life jacket law got really interesting. I've followed or participated in the local life jacket debates a thousand times & the discussion tends to follow a pretty well-worn path. I don't think it's ever actually a bad discussion to have - it does get people thinking about safety, and that's always a good thing - but I guess I've watched it play out enough times that I'm afraid don't get a whole lot of new thoughts on the issue from the replays. I posted the rule here, and suddenly I was getting a good eye re-opening as people from far far outside my usual paddling venues started weighing in. Worth a read if you enjoy that sort of safety discussion.

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