By Vladimir Brezina
On Sunday, the currents were right for a kayak trip through the East River out to Long Island Sound. Here is a slideshow of the highlights:
Copyright
Wind Against Current by Vladimir Brezina and Johna Till Johnson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.Authors
Vladimir Brezina (RIP)
... kayaked the waters around New York for more than 15 years in his red Feathercraft folding kayak. He was originally from (the former) Czechoslovakia and lived in the U.K. and California before settling down in New York. He was a neuroscientist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. He died in 2016.Johna Till Johnson
... is a kayaker and technology researcher at Nemertes Research. She's an erstwhile engineer, particle physicist, and science fiction writer. She was born in California and has lived in Italy, Norway, Hawaii, and a few other places. She currently resides in New York City.Recent Comments
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Wind Against Current 
Gosh, another trip I need to make with you guys :>)
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You totally do!
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These photos are outstanding. WOW!
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Thanks, Cee!!
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That was fun paddling with you…albeit at my computer. Great pics.
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Much faster and you don’t get wet! Although the time of the year is now here when it feels wonderful to get wet…
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I was wondering all weekend if you two were out on the water – such great weather! Whenever I watch your slide shows, I wonder about the following:
Do you worry about coming back in the twilight in terms of visibility? (seeing/being seen)
Are smaller speedboats more of a threat than the larger boats and ships that you can see/anticipate more easily?
Do you return the same way you went or do you follow more of a circular path on your return?
Do you enjoy the return trip or is it more anxiety provoking (getting back in time, having enough energy to finish the trip, etc.)?
As always, it seems that the two of you have this enormous playground in a crowded urban area and that this is the perfect way to live in New York!
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It was great weather!—actually it was already a bit too hot in the afternoon, heat being the bane of kayaking as far as I am concerned…
To answer your questions briefly (it would take a book! :-)):
1. Do we worry about coming back in the twilight, or for that matter at night?
Not really. We actually love night kayaking—it’s quite a different, fun experience, and going out in the evening and returning in the morning certainly beats the summer heat! We have lights, which appear to be reasonably visible judging from the reaction of boats crossing our path (they are often very confused about what we are, but they clearly do see us). Heightened caution is definitely in order at night, but we never assume that boats see us even during the day—see #2:
2. Are smaller speedboats more of a threat than larger boats?
They are each threats in a different way, and require a different response.
Tugs and barges and large ships move fairly predictably, most of the time through particular channels through the harbor, so we can easily keep out of their way. And we do have to keep out of their way—they might not even see us, and even if they do, they often can’t stop or even deviate from their course and will just run over us.
Small motor boats, on the other hand, are everywhere—they are like flies in the summer—and often move in unpredictable ways. But they are highly maneuverable and can avoid us. Since they are so many, so fast, and so unpredictable, we can do nothing but essentially ignore them, while still watching them as they get close to make sure they really are avoiding us. This has worked so far…
Ferries are somewhere in the middle between the two extremes…
3. Do we return the same way?
A different way is much preferable. That’s why we love circumnavigations! But sometimes—as in this trip to Long Island Sound—time or currents dictate a return along the same route. There are only so many waterways…
4. Is the return trip enjoyable or anxiety-provoking?
If getting back before dark is not an issue, and running out of energy is not really an issue—once you can paddle ten or twelve hours, you can always paddle another few hours—then: enjoyable, of course! ;-)
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Not the common tourist tour. It seems so wonderful to go by kayak in NY. Fantastic photos//Veronika
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Thanks, Veronika! Yours are too, incidentally :-)
Going by kayak is certainly a great way to see the city!
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Great slide show!
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Thanks, Russel!
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OMG great pics. I love looking at them. Maybe someday I can convince the both of you to come up to Branford and kayak around the Thimble Islands. I love going really early in the morning and making a day out of exploring all the nooks, crannies and rock outcroppings around here.
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Thanks, Vicki!
I’ve seen your early-morning kayaking photos on Facebook :-) And I’ve actually kayaked in the Thimble Islands once—or rather through them on the way from somewhere to somewhere else. Didn’t do them justice! It would be fun to go back and spend more time.
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Oooh, those cormorant photos are brilliant, Vlad!
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I thought you might like them…
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thanks for naming the familiar sites. I always wonder what it is i’m seeing. I’m adding that trip to my list for the future
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It’s one of our standard trips. Actually, this is a somewhat abbreviated version. The full version returns from Hell Gate to Pier 40 up the Harlem River and down the Hudson, instead of straight down the East River, as described here.
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These are not the typical views you get to see when visiting New York City. Great captures!
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It’s looking at the familiar sights—and a few that you just can’t see any other way—from a new angle :-) Thanks, Jennifer!
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thank you for taking us all on another great adventure- stunning shots! the cormorants alone were worth a blog post. I love the slideshow format… See u tomorrow!
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Thanks, Philip! Next time we go by, we’ll let you know and you can watch us from your window! You have such a good view…
The slideshow format is nice, but (as implemented by WordPress at present) a little limiting—fixed size, can’t expand the individual photos, can’t vary rate of progression through the photos, can’t select just a subset of the photos associated with the post to show…
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