Me and trusty Romany with Hila (ex ATR-89). Thanks to clubmate Frank Favia for the spectacular photo! Click for a better view. Flickr album links at the end of the post.
The poor blog has been being neglected as I've been busy with other things, and maybe had a touch of blogger's block, but a weekend of being lazy and hiding at home from the heat wave has let me do some catching-up. So hello, here I am!
City of Water day (my last post was a plug for that) was fantastic - we had beautiful weather, I helped out with our beautifully refurbished war canoe and did well enough to get promoted from bow to steerer by my last trip of the day, and I was on a break at the right time to catch the Billion Oyster Project demonstration. Not a lot of pictures from on the water but I definitely will share some photos of the oyster folks, that was very cool!
Today goes a little farther back than that, though. Sebago has not done a trip to Witte Marine Salvage, aka the Staten Island Graveyard of Ships, in several years - in fact the last trip report I can find from there was in 2010. I'd been making noises about getting back there and had been planning on looking for a good day in the fall, and then early in the first week of July, I got an email from Steve the Paddling Chef saying that Sunday the 7th looked perfect tidewise and did I want to assist?
Well, he took care of all the coordinating, all I had to do was join a lovely bunch of clubmates and a couple of guests from other clubs on a very nice paddle from Conference House up to Witte and back, with a lunch break on a little beach at the base of the Fresh Kills landfill. And everybody thanking me for helping Steve with the trip when he did all the work. Yeah, life was indeed good!
I did find I had one little bit of concern when visiting Witte's for the first time in a while - there are always rumors that there just isn't anything left there, so as one of the organizers (not that I did any organizing) I did kind of find myself thinking "What if we drag everybody out there and there's nothing to see?". Of course I've been hearing rumors like that pretty much since I started my NYC kayaking career with a paddling lesson at Manhattan Kayak Company back in (yikes) the late 90's. I know I missed the heyday of the place, and it's true that there aren't as many boats there as there used to be, even since my first visit; Witte's is a salvage yard, not a museum, and with NYC's construction industry booming they're selling all the scrap metal they can. In addition, the Army Corps of Engineers has been doing some clearing out to keep pieces of the boats from coming loose and becoming hazards to navigation as they float off into the shipping channels. Folks who have been visiting for a while may find old favorites gone, but there's still enough there for first-time visitors to be impressed.
Here are a couple of old favorites of mine that I didn't see this time. This old Astoria ferry was not actually at Witte's, it was off by itself a little ways south. I did hear a rumor that this one got cleared out because a development went in and the developers didn't think condo buyers would want to look at a junky old boat. Personally I think it would be cool to have a condo with a view of a sunken ship, but I'm guess I'm probably not representative of your average Staten Island condo buyer.
City of Water day (my last post was a plug for that) was fantastic - we had beautiful weather, I helped out with our beautifully refurbished war canoe and did well enough to get promoted from bow to steerer by my last trip of the day, and I was on a break at the right time to catch the Billion Oyster Project demonstration. Not a lot of pictures from on the water but I definitely will share some photos of the oyster folks, that was very cool!
Today goes a little farther back than that, though. Sebago has not done a trip to Witte Marine Salvage, aka the Staten Island Graveyard of Ships, in several years - in fact the last trip report I can find from there was in 2010. I'd been making noises about getting back there and had been planning on looking for a good day in the fall, and then early in the first week of July, I got an email from Steve the Paddling Chef saying that Sunday the 7th looked perfect tidewise and did I want to assist?
Well, he took care of all the coordinating, all I had to do was join a lovely bunch of clubmates and a couple of guests from other clubs on a very nice paddle from Conference House up to Witte and back, with a lunch break on a little beach at the base of the Fresh Kills landfill. And everybody thanking me for helping Steve with the trip when he did all the work. Yeah, life was indeed good!
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frogma kayak smiley, patent pending
I did find I had one little bit of concern when visiting Witte's for the first time in a while - there are always rumors that there just isn't anything left there, so as one of the organizers (not that I did any organizing) I did kind of find myself thinking "What if we drag everybody out there and there's nothing to see?". Of course I've been hearing rumors like that pretty much since I started my NYC kayaking career with a paddling lesson at Manhattan Kayak Company back in (yikes) the late 90's. I know I missed the heyday of the place, and it's true that there aren't as many boats there as there used to be, even since my first visit; Witte's is a salvage yard, not a museum, and with NYC's construction industry booming they're selling all the scrap metal they can. In addition, the Army Corps of Engineers has been doing some clearing out to keep pieces of the boats from coming loose and becoming hazards to navigation as they float off into the shipping channels. Folks who have been visiting for a while may find old favorites gone, but there's still enough there for first-time visitors to be impressed.
Here are a couple of old favorites of mine that I didn't see this time. This old Astoria ferry was not actually at Witte's, it was off by itself a little ways south. I did hear a rumor that this one got cleared out because a development went in and the developers didn't think condo buyers would want to look at a junky old boat. Personally I think it would be cool to have a condo with a view of a sunken ship, but I'm guess I'm probably not representative of your average Staten Island condo buyer.
And I think this tugboat is gone. Kind of sad as it was fun to see these old wooden tugs, even rotting away in the mud like this - but here, I think you can see pretty well how if pieces of this old vessel were to break loose and get out into the shipping channels, they really could be a hazard. The paddler disappearing behind the bow gives you a little sense of scale, this was a good sized boat and constructed of some big, solid timbers. It's also possible that we just missed it somehow, but at any rate, I'm glad I took the photos I did.
So yes, there are some that are gone, but it's still a fascinating place to visit by kayak. And of course I came back and put together a new Flickr album - actually two Flickr albums. For the "blog version", click here. This one is 25 of my favorite photos from the day. If you were on the trip, or are just some kind of glutton for photographic punishment,click here for the extended version (39 photos, with most of the additional photos being pictures of the paddlers on the trip).
Want to learn more about the Staten Island Graveyard of Ships? Get yourself a copy of the short documentary Graves of Arthur Kill, produced by Gary Kane and directed by my good boatblogging friend, "Tugster" Will Van Dorp.
Want to learn more about the Staten Island Graveyard of Ships? Get yourself a copy of the short documentary Graves of Arthur Kill, produced by Gary Kane and directed by my good boatblogging friend, "Tugster" Will Van Dorp.
5 comments:
Fantastic photos! A condo with a view of a shipwreck does sound romantic!
There's something about an old ship or hull that inspires peoples imaginations. We've finally decided to sell our canoe and replace it with two kayaks. I'm looking forward to being the captain of my own ship!
Ah, glad I'm not the only one who thinks a view might be improved by an old ferry.
Rena, how exciting! I hope I get to read some kayak adventures from you!
Those wooden tugs were there before Hurricane Sandy 2012. Sandy wiped most of the shaky, above water wood out. I have a few distant pictures of Wittes from the 80s. It was a little tougher to get back there then but there was a lot to look at!
Oh, that makes sense. Those old tugs looked to have been out there for a long time.
I've seen photos from earlier days - definitely dwindling.
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