By Vladimir Brezina
When kayaking in New York Harbor, you can’t avoid getting close—
A contribution to Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge, Close.
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 
Do you ever feel overwhelmed at the enormity of other vessels?
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All the time, Ruth! That’s part of the fun of paddling in NYC.
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Yikes…far too close for comfort!
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Vlad only posts the photos from the most dramatic angles :-).
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Oh ok… It’s a man thing… 😊
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Exactly! ;-)
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Wow that is close! Stay safe!
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It is safe if you do it right (post in preparation) :-)
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I can see about ten heart attacks happening in this post.
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Yes, in all those boats and ships around us… No joke, actually. To paddle safely in traffic, one of the main things we have to do is to paddle so as to keep those driving the big boats from freaking out when they see us. They tend to freak out because they realize that running us over would be a career-ending event for them… for us too, I guess ;-)
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To be honest the penalties involved for running over a kayaker or small boat are minor compared to trying to avoid them and running a loaded oil barge aground. If given the choice most mariners will run over 50 kayaks paddled by nuns before they risk a petroleum product spill.
I and most mariner’s in the harbor freak out because we don’t want to kill some kid, or someones husband, wife, brother, sister etc. We also can get frustrated because there is a general lack of understanding, situational awareness, and ignorance of the effects of wind and current on both parties involved.
I’ve read your blog a bit, and am a fellow sea kayaker, and you are definitely in the minority of paddlers who are cognizant of whats going on. If only everyone was.
My best advice to any of the students I had during my guiding years was to carry a small pair of binoculars, and a good waterproof VHF radio. Also look over a chart before a trip in a new area and learn some of the landmarks/buoys. So if you are concerned about a meeting situation you can attempt to call a vessel either by name or with a geographic reference.
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I think I would be a bit scared but I bet its quite exhilarating at the same time
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It’s even urban on the water. :-)
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