Category Archives: New York City

Touched By Fire: An Early-Autumn Kayak Trip Along the Palisades

Posted on October 20, 2011 by | 5 comments

By Johna Till Johnson
Photos by Vladimir Brezina

Autumn is a time of melancholy, of dreams and mists. It’s also a time of intense beauty—and a reminder that everything in life is transient.

That’s particularly true when it comes to catching the leaves turning along the Hudson: Bare hints of color one day, blazing the next, and then fading—all in the space of a week or two.

For New York City kayakers with day jobs, the challenge is that the currents are right for a weekend trip up the Hudson only once every two weeks—which means there are only two October weekends to catch this ephemeral color.

The first weekend with a daytime flood current was October 15-16. Either weekend day would have worked, but since I’d just gotten back from an intense week of traveling, Sunday was the better fit. Plus, Saturday’s winds were pretty severe—predicted and ultimately proving to be over 20 knots. So we agreed to go Sunday.

By then, the winds had calmed somewhat. Vlad and I set off on a crystalline, perfect, early-autumn day.

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An Exciting Manhattan Circumnavigation

Posted on October 18, 2011 by | 1 comment

By Johna Till Johnson

Note: None of the four of us remembered to bring cameras, so you’ll have to do with a few similar photos from other trips—and your imagination!

This story begins like all good stories: “It was a dark and stormy night…”

Well, no. Actually, it was a dark and stormy morning. Except it didn’t start out that way, but we knew it was headed in that direction. And it got there with a vengeance.

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Later Flowers for the Bees, and Butterflies: A Photoessay

Posted on October 10, 2011 by | 5 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

… to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease …

John Keats, To Autumn

This past weekend was beautiful: dry, calm, sunny and warm—Indian Summer weather. In New York City’s Central Park, still mostly a fall-denying green, a fresh crop of flowers was out. And the park’s bees and butterflies, like the city’s human inhabitants, were out in force.

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Ederle Swim 2011, Round Three

Posted on October 6, 2011 by | 15 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

NYC Swim‘s Ederle Swim, the ~17-mile open-water swim through New York Harbor between Manhattan and Sandy Hook, NJ, has become very popular. This year, there have been no fewer than three of them. And each one set a new record.

First, in June 2011, Liz Fry swam from Manhattan to Sandy Hook and back, becoming the first swimmer ever to complete a double Ederle Swim—and, in the process, setting records for both individual directions as well.

Then in August, Lance Ogren, swimming with a fast ebb current in the wake of Hurricane Irene, shattered Liz’s Manhattan-to-Sandy Hook record by almost an hour.

I was one of the kayakers accompanying both Liz and Lance on these swims (see my writeups and photos here and here).

And now, Round Three! Last Sunday we had the main, yearly Ederle Swim for multiple swimmers—19 swimmers started—but in the other direction, from Sandy Hook to Manhattan. The winner of this race was looking to beat Liz’s other individual record!

This time I was the kayaker for Janet Harris, in her very first Ederle Swim. Here are some annotated photos from my kayaker’s perspective. Janet has posted her own account of her swim here.

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Dawn and Sunrise in New York Harbor

Posted on October 3, 2011 by | 6 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

Yesterday I got up early to go kayaking with NYC Swim‘s Ederle Swim.  It was dark and cold. Why do these swims always begin so early? (Don’t tell me: time and tide wait for no man…)

But there was an unexpected bonus:  a prime view of a spectacular dawn and sunrise over New York Harbor, from the motorboat that transported us from Manhattan to Sandy Hook, NJ, for the start of the swim. A few photos:

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Posted in Nature, New York City

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Kayak Trip: Manhattan—Sandy Hook

Posted on September 27, 2011 by | 7 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

On Sunday, Johna and I went kayaking. As usual, we looked up the tidal currents and went where the currents would take us that day. That turned out to be Sandy Hook, NJ.

The trip from Manhattan to Sandy Hook and back is one of our favorite trips. We do it often. It’s a full day’s trip but, with favorable current both ways, not overly strenuous: about three hours there and four hours back, with plenty of time between for lunch. I will give details of how to plan the trip so as to use the currents to best advantage in a future post. But in the meantime, here are some photographic highlights of Sunday’s trip.

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Happy Fall!

Posted on September 23, 2011 by | 10 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

The September Equinox occurred today, September 23, 2011, at 09:04 UTC, or 5:04 a.m. in New York City. And with it, the first day of Fall!

“Autumn in New York
Why does it seem so inviting?
…
It’s autumn in New York
It’s good to live it again.”

To celebrate and anticipate the joys of fall, here is a gallery of fall foliage photos that I took in NYC’s Central Park last year on one spectacularly beautiful day, October 28 (late in the year for peak foliage color, it might seem, but not so in NYC’s urban heat island).

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Twin Towers

Posted on September 11, 2011 by | 11 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

“The … most prominent landmarks, which can be seen for a long distance at sea, are the twin towers of the World Trade Center …”

New York Harbor and Approaches
United States Coast Pilot Volume 2
30th Edition, 1998

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This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The individual photos are here.

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Irene and Lee Have Left Quite a Mess in New York Harbor…

Posted on September 9, 2011 by | 9 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

These tropical storms have certainly stirred things up! Hurricane Irene came through ten days ago and deluged the entire region, and a couple of days ago Tropical Storm Lee repeated the performance. This morning, looking out of the window on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, we saw a strange sight in Hell Gate…

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Posted in Nature, New York City, Science and Technology

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A Post-Hurricane Swim Into the Record Books

Posted on September 4, 2011 by | 8 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

NYC Swim‘s premier long-distance swim, the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim, has become an institution in the world of long-distance swimming.  But its younger sibling, the Ederle Swim between Manhattan and Sandy Hook, New Jersey, is still growing, full of surprising twists and turns.

In October 2010, the top two finishers in the Ederle Swim were Lance Ogren and Liz Fry. This year, each of them went on to swim their own exclusive version of the Ederle Swim. In June 2011, Liz completed an unprecedented 35-mile double Ederle Swim from Manhattan to Sandy Hook and back. In an amazing swim, she set records not only for the overall course but for each of the two individual directions as well.

A few days ago, in August 2011, Lance set out to break the record—now Liz’s record—for the Manhattan to Sandy Hook direction.

I was one of the two kayakers accompanying Lance on his swim. Here are some photos and a brief account.

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