By Vladimir Brezina and Johna Till Johnson
After returning from a week’s eventful paddling in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, Vlad is sorting through hundreds of photos and Johna is turning over the stories in her head. It will take some little while for the report to come together, but it will feature:
Long open-water crossings!
Exciting surf landings!
Unexpected encounters with low tides…
By Johna Till Johnson
Photos by Vladimir Brezina
“Why is camping fun?”
I’ve been asked that many times through the years. Even active, tough, and healthy people, folks who glory in the feel of a strenuous workout, often wonder about it. Hard physical activity is a joy when it’s followed by a hot shower, a good meal (preferably cooked and delivered by someone else), and a clean, soft, safe bed. But where’s the fun in ending a hard day’s workout by erecting a tent, attempting to cook dinner, bathing (if at all) in unheated water, and attempting to sleep on rocky ground? (Let’s not even talk about stinging and biting insects, itching poison oak and ivy, and the smallish-but-real risk of being attacked by a wild animal—or person.)
Why is camping fun?
It’s hardly a rhetorical question when you’re standing drenched to the skin, watching raindrops bore holes into the curry you’re desperately trying to heat over a flickering camping stove. Your muscles ache, but you can’t sit because the picnic table and ground are sodden. Darkness is all around you, lit only by the stove and the weak ripple of LEDs from the camp lamp through the rain. Behind you, the tent is battered by rain: Rivulets are pooling on the top and running down the sides, and you’re pretty sure the inside is damp as well. And the plummeting raindrops are cooling the curry as fast as you’re trying to heat it.
Tagged Albany, Hudson River, Kayak Camping, Kayak Expeditions, Kayaking, New York City, Rain
By Vladimir Brezina and Johna Till Johnson
Lately we’ve developed a fascination with the legendary toxic waterways of New York City. Previously, we’ve traversed the Gowanus Canal and Newtown Creek, both Superfund sites. On July 2, we decided to explore the mysterious Bronx River.
Unlike the other two, the Bronx River isn’t truly toxic. In fact, by all accounts, the river is surprisingly bucolic as it winds under a leafy canopy, a narrow green ribbon through the concrete and asphalt of the Bronx.
But it’s not particularly paddler-friendly. Photos from Bob Huszar’s pioneering trip show numerous weirs, dams, and waterfalls. Paddlers pose with car carcasses half-submerged in the river, and rafts of floating trash collect behind a skim boom. (This last feature was one we should have paid more heed to!)
Since then, the river has apparently been substantially smoothed and civilized. The Bronx River Alliance has worked hard to institutionalize kayaking and canoeing on the river, running regular trips and producing a very useful map and paddling guide to the “Bronx River Blueway”. But the guide still shows three portages, some “challenging”, and warns that the water “can be very shallow at times. Paddlers may need to disembark and pull boats for short distances.”
Most paddlers come down the river in old beaten-up plastic river kayaks or canoes. We were headed up the river in our tender sea kayaks—his a soft-skinned folding kayak, hers pampered carbon-kevlar. How far up the river would be make it through the obstacles? Not so far, as it turned out.
Posted in Kayaking, New York City
Tagged Bronx River, Kayaking, New York City, New York Harbor
By Vladimir Brezina
Anyone paddling a kayak very soon discovers the power of wind. Even a modest breeze pushes the kayak briskly along. A headwind cuts progress right down. And, once the difficulties of controlling the kayak in wind and waves are mastered, a good tailwind makes the miles fly by.
Since expedition kayaking is all about using the available natural forces to complete the journey in the most economical manner, why not use the power of the wind most effectively, by putting up a sail? Even purists who consider this cheating will sit up straighter in a tailwind, or hold up a jacket, or even open an umbrella. Why then not a real sail?
Kayak sailing has caught on! There is now out there a huge variety of kayak sail rigs, both home-made and commercially produced, ranging from simple sails that are not much more than umbrellas to serious rigs. Most of the simpler sails are downwind sails, offering little or no cross-wind, let alone upwind, performance. True upwind performance, comparable to that of a small sailboat, takes a true aerodynamically efficient upwind sail, and usually outriggers or stabilizers of some kind that allow a much larger sail to be mounted and used aggressively without fear of capsize. Some of the most powerful and elegant such rigs are made by Balogh Sail Designs.
Posted in Kayaking
Tagged Balogh Sail Designs, Hudson River, Kayak Sailing, Kayaking, Long Island Sound, New York City, New York Harbor
By Vladimir Brezina
Also in conjunction with my kayak-sailing post, here’s a slideshow of a kayak sail—or rather, paddle-sail—in August 2007. During the hot, humid New York summer, I much prefer to paddle, and sail, at night. I left Pier 40 on the West Side of Manhattan before sunset, sailed up the Hudson River to the Tappan Zee, then returned to Manhattan before dawn. A waterproof camera, mounted on an aka of my outrigger sail rig, automatically took a photo every five minutes. These are selected images from the series.
Posted in Kayaking, New York City
Tagged Hudson River, Kayak Sailing, Kayaking, New York City, New York Harbor
By Vladimir Brezina
In conjunction with a post on kayak sailing, here’s the story of my very first kayak sailing trip, way back when in September 2002… I and Mark Starr sailed in a double kayak from Stonington, Connecticut, clear across Rhode Island, through Vineyard Sound and Nantucket Sound, to Chatham, Massachusetts, a distance of about 100 nautical miles.
Posted in Kayaking
Tagged Cape Cod, Kayak Sailing, Kayaking, Nantucket Sound, Rhode Island Sound, Vineyard Sound
By Vladimir Brezina
In October 2010, Liz Fry swam in NYC Swim‘s Ederle Swim, a 17.5-mile tide-assisted swim through New York Harbor from Manhattan to Sandy Hook, New Jersey. Yet when she reached Sandy Hook, she wasn’t all that tired. As all the swimmers were getting onto their accompanying motor boats to return to Manhattan, Liz thought to herself, “Isn’t the tide soon going to turn back toward Manhattan again? Why don’t I just swim back?” And so in 2011 she did.
On June 14, 2011, Liz became the first person ever to complete a Two-Way Ederle Swim, the 35-mile swim from Manhattan to Sandy Hook and back again, in 11 hours, 5 minutes, and 7 seconds. And on top of that, she set new records for each direction. She made it from Manhattan to Sandy Hook in just 4 hours, 59 minutes, 6 seconds, beating her 2010 time and, by 7 minutes, the previous record of Tammy van Wisse of Australia. And she made it back in just 6 hours, 6 minutes, 1 second—also a record, and not a bad time for someone who had already completed a 17.5-mile swim!
I was one of the two kayakers who accompanied Liz as she completed this feat. Here’s the swim from a kayaker’s perspective:
Posted in Kayaking, New York City, Sports
Tagged Ederle Swim, Kayaking, Long-Distance Swim, Manhattan, New York Harbor, NYC Swim, Open-Water Swim, Sandy Hook
By Vladimir Brezina and Johna Till Johnson
On Saturday 11 June, 2011, along with our friend Runar, we visited Figment NYC 2011, a free-form art festival that takes place annually on Governors Island in New York City (and in several other US cities). The vibe is half Woodstock, half Burning Man, with a dash of Magic Kingdom.
According to its organizers: “FIGMENT is an explosion of creative energy. It’s a free, annual celebration of participatory art and culture where everything is possible. For one weekend each summer, it transforms Governors Island into a large-scale collaborative artwork – and then it’s gone.”
“Participatory art—what’s that?”, you ask. Read on: It can be anything—but most of all, it’s fun! That was our biggest takeaway from Figment… it was a hell of a lot of fun, despite the cool rainy weather.
Posted in Art, Culture, New York City, Society
Tagged Art, Figment, Governors Island, Kayaking, New York City
By Vladimir Brezina
The Other Islands of New York City: A History and Guide, by Sharon Seitz and Stuart Miller. Third Edition 2011. The Countryman Press, Woodstock, VT; distributed by W.W. Norton, New York.
How many islands are there in New York City? Even lifelong New Yorkers would have trouble answering this question. Several of the islands, of course, are home to millions. A few other islands have mythical fame: Liberty Island, Ellis Island, Rikers Island… But next to them, sometimes just a stone’s throw away, are many other islands. Some have long supported their own small human communities; others have colorful histories but today are inhabited only by birds and rats. This unique book tells the histories and human stories of 45 of the “other” islands of New York City.
Posted in Book Reviews, History, Kayaking, New York City, Society
Tagged Book Review, Book Reviews, Hart Island, History, Islands, Kayaking, New York City, New York Harbor, Shooter's Island, Swinburne Island
By Vladimir Brezina
In New York Harbor at any moment, there are probably thousands of barges of all shapes, sizes, and colors, being moved around by tugs, anchored, or just rusting away in odd corners. Kayaking around the Harbor, we often find ourselves close enough to them to touch their towering steel sides, to rest in their lee before heading out into the wind again, and even to see them as objets d’art…
... 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 