By Vladimir Brezina
This week’s Photo Challenge is Resolved.
Cape Cod Bay, July 2011. We are Resolved!
Resolved to reach the water, no matter how long it may take
and to set out over the turquoise sea
to “fresh woods, and pastures new.”
And that makes a fine resolution for this New Year as well!
(The story of that day on Cape Cod Bay is here; more photos are here.)
By Vladimir Brezina
The popular paddling site Paddling.net runs a Photo of the Week contest. Over the past couple of years, I’ve submitted a few of my photos. The first three photos that were successful were here. Now here are three more winners.
Sailing my kayak with Balogh Batwing sail and BOSS outriggers on Long Island Sound. Sail is double-reefed in a 25-kt wind. Photo was taken by camera mounted at the top of the mast.
Paddling down the Hudson River (NY) along the West Side of Manhattan at sunset
Landed at sunset on the North Shore of Long Island, NY, during a kayak circumnavigation of Long Island in the summer of 2012
Posted in Kayaking, Photography
Tagged Contest, Kayak Photography, Kayaking, Photography
By Johna Till Johnson
Photos by Vladimir Brezina
At the time, it didn’t seem like a big deal: On a sunny weekend in late October, we decided to circumnavigate Manhattan.
We didn’t anticipate, though, that, thanks to Hurricane Sandy, it would be our last circumnavigation of the year, indeed our last major trip in New York waters. And so this trip has a special resonance in our memories.
A Manhattan circumnavigation is usually a pretty predictable trip, though always a treat. It’s not particularly long by our standards, but packed with variety. The scenery ranges from the urban…
In the East River: the Empire State Building, with Vlad in the foreground (photo by Johna)
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to the bucolic…
Fall colors in the Harlem River
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Riding the chop and keeping an eye on the ferries down by the Battery
and the paddling conditions vary nearly as much: The water down by the Battery is often exciting (enhanced by ferry and other shipping traffic)…
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Heading up the Harlem River
but the long glide up the Harlem River is usually tranquil.
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All in all, we looked forward to a lovely, if unexceptional trip.
Unexceptional except for being our last long trip of the year. The following weekend, we toured the Gowanus Canal—a scenic, but short, excursion.
And the Monday after that, Sandy arrived.
Our Manhattan paddling home at Pier 40 was shut down, and the pier itself remains closed (though we’re hopeful it will reopen soon). In addition, there continue to be some restrictions on paddling in New York Harbor. So we haven’t been out (in New York waterways, at least) since.
Which made this “unexceptional” trip rather exceptional, after all.
So our recollection of this circumnavigation is tinged with a bit of melancholy and a sense of loss. As the graffiti has it:
“Alas this bitter life filled with sweet dreams” — Poetic graffiti in the East River
But even an “ordinary” trip has moments of incandescent beauty, which will live on in our memories…
The George Washington Bridge: Yellow and blue nocturne
We hope to be back on the waters around Manhattan in 2013!
The individual photos are here.
Posted in Kayaking, New York City
Tagged Fall, Manhattan, Manhattan Circumnavigation, New York City, New York Harbor, Photography, Sea Kayaking
By Vladimir Brezina
This week’s Photo Challenge is Surprise.
Kayaking around New York Harbor, we see many surprising things. And one of the most surprising, hidden in a narrow Brooklyn creek, is the wreck of an entire, respectably-sized submarine. The Yellow Submarine of Brooklyn has a fascinating history—involving a crazy but surprisingly well-developed scheme to salvage valuables from a famous sunken ocean liner—that I’ve already written up here and here. So I’ll just post a few photos—
Posted in Kayaking, New York City, Photography
Tagged Kayaking, New York Harbor, Photography, postaday, postaweek, postaweek2012, Submarine, Surprise, Weekly Photo Challenge, Yellow Submarine
By Vladimir Brezina
Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge this week is Transportation.
It’s amazing how much stuff can be transported in a sea kayak! When setting out on a kayak expedition, there’s no need to leave the creature comforts at home. Compared to a multiday backpacking or bicycle trip, a sea kayak expedition is a positively luxurious experience
… until each morning, when all that stuff has to be fitted back into the kayaks
We put off the packing as long as we possibly can and stand around drinking coffee
It’s such a relief to have the last bag in the boat, to snap on the sprayskirt and push off into new waters…
(Photos from our 2011 Albany to New York trip and our 2012 Long Island circumnavigation)
Posted in Kayaking, Photography
Tagged Kayak Camping, Kayak Expeditions, Photography, postaday, postaweek, postaweek2012, Sea Kayaking, Transportation, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge
By Vladimir Brezina
On Saturday, October 27, with Hurricane Sandy just offshore and aiming, it seemed, directly for New York City, we went for what we (correctly) suspected would be our last kayak trip for some time.
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We paddled down the harbor to visit the Gowanus Canal, our favorite Superfund waterway. There one can encounter sights and smells like nowhere else—except perhaps in Newtown Creek, another Superfund site…
Everything was calm. The calm before the storm…
When Sandy hit the next day, the Gowanus Canal overflowed its banks and flooded a wide swath of industrial and residential land around. No doubt, as elsewhere, this caused much destruction. But in addition, of course, the Canal’s water is not just any ordinary water—it is laced with “toxic sludge, heavy metals, oil and—when the sewer system overflows—good old human excrement.” The city issued an advisory that “residents should wash their hands and practice proper hygiene if they come into contact with the canal’s water or sediments.” Sediments that it may take years to clean up…
So the chances are that the Canal and its surroundings will never be quite the same again. These may be some of the last photos of what Gowanus Canal looked like in the good old days before the flood…
Here’s a slideshow of all photos from the trip:
The individual photos, and a much larger-format slideshow, are here.
Posted in Kayaking, New York City
Tagged Gowanus Canal, Industrial Landscape, New York City, New York Harbor, Photography, Pollution, Sea Kayaking
By Johna Till Johnson and Vladimir Brezina
It started like any other kayak trip.
The night before, we prepared. We made sure we had our paddling equipment (life jackets, spray skirts, tow ropes, pumps and sponges). Navigation gear (compasses, GPS, charts). And clothing: it’s definitely the season for drysuits now, with plenty of insulation underneath. And pogies–can’t forget the pogies! (Pogies are kayaking “mittens” that allow your bare hands to grip the paddle, but simultaneously sheath them in delightfully warm neoprene.) The Jetboil, so we’d be able to make hot coffee during the trip. And food, water, all the usual.
Posted in Art, Kayaking, Nature
Tagged Art, Hudson Highlands, Kayaking, Photography, Sculpture, Storm King, Storm King Art Center
By Johna Till Johnson and Vladimir Brezina
Photos by David Hupert
The Hudson – Athens Lighthouse (photo by David Hupert)
There are star-crossed lovers. And then there are star-crossed paddlers….
All autumn, we’ve been trying to get up north to paddle in one of our favorite parts of the Hudson, around Stockport, not far south of Albany. In summer, it’s breathtakingly beautiful. But Vlad’s favorite time there is fall, when the autumn foliage blazes like fire and the air is cool and clear.
This year, we had added incentive to make the trip: Our fellow paddler David Hupert suggested getting together up there. That dovetailed perfectly with our idea of heading up by train late Friday or early Saturday with our folding kayaks, and camping for a night or two while we took a leisurely sightseeing paddle around the area.
So we made plans…
The first weekend—the 20th/21st of October—we had to cancel at the last minute because of work pressures. David advised us that we missed a spectacular weekend of paddling up there, with the fall foliage colors at their peak. (We were happy to miss, however, a darker discovery that another fellow paddler made that Sunday right at the island where we planned to camp.)
Still, David assured us that the fall foliage was not yet over. The second weekend was October 27th/28th. We planned to go until we read about the prospect of Hurricane Sandy making landfall in New York City on Monday—and decided that we didn’t want to risk Amtrak shutting down and leaving us stranded for days in a tent upstate somewhere. (Good call, as it turned out—the trains shut down about midafternoon on Sunday).
The remains of fall foliage with Olana on the hill (photo by David Hupert)
The following weekend, November 3rd/4th, we spent in post-Sandy cleanup at Pier 40 and providing assistance to folks in the Rockaways. The weekend after that Johna had to travel; then there was a “recovery” weekend after an intense week in California. And David is away this upcoming weekend…
The trees are rapidly shedding their leaves, and there are only a few more weekends left before winter sets in. So who knows if we’ll ever make it up to Stockport this year?
But in the meantime, David was kind enough to send us some of his recent photos from up there. Where we are not… but wish we were!
Reflections: Which Way is Up? (photo by David Hupert)
By Vladimir Brezina
This is a second post in response to this week’s Photo Challenge, Green. The first Green post was here.
On the second night of our kayak trip down the Hudson River from Albany to New York City in May 2011, we camped on the thickly wooded Magdalen Island. As the sunlight filtered through the fresh spring leaves, it was one of the Greenest sights I’ve ever seen…
Posted in Kayaking, Photography
Tagged Green, Hudson River, Kayak Camping, Photography, postaday, postaweek, postaweek2012, Sea Kayaking, Weekly Photo Challenge
By Vladimir Brezina
Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge this week is Mystical. And it makes me very happy to learn that, in choosing that theme, she was inspired by a photo that I posted recently. Unfortunately that means, too, that I can no longer respond to her Mystical challenge with that, my most Mystical photo…
Never mind. Here are a few photos taken at a moment that truly came close to being mystical during one of our paddles in New York Harbor—
Posted in Kayaking, New York City, Photography
Tagged Mystical, New York Harbor, Photography, postaday, postaweek, postaweek2012, Sea Kayaking, Weekly Photo Challenge
... 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.
... 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.
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Wind Against Current 