Tag Archives: Sea Kayaking

A Brisk Paddle Up the Palisades

Posted on September 22, 2013 by | 16 comments

By Johna Till Johnson
Photos by Vladimir Brezina

IMGP7239 cropped small“Do you think we can make it to Piermont Pier?”, I asked.

“I know of no reason why not,” Vlad replied. A small alarm bell rang at the back of my head: he hadn’t exactly said, “Yes.” And Vlad is a man who uses words very precisely.

But I brushed it off. We’d come quite a distance up the Palisades—just over 19 nautical miles, in fact.  Aided by a stiff flood current, we were almost at Italian Gardens, and we were deciding whether to stop there or continue onwards.

Piermont Pier, the long finger of land extending into the Hudson just south of the Tappan Zee Bridge, was only two miles away. We hadn’t been there yet this year, and the summer was almost over.

And though we’d had a brisk northerly breeze in our faces the whole way, we’d come thus far with no trouble. As Vlad said, there was no reason why we couldn’t make it the rest of the way.

So we set off into the wind-against-current chop ahead of us.

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Travel Theme: Through

Posted on September 21, 2013 by | 27 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge this week is Through.

In our kayaks, we may find ourselves traveling through

— airy mangrove tunnels

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— labyrinthine salt marshes

Milton Harbor

— dark urban tunnels

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— rocky passages…

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… guarded by wild animals :-)

Dry Salvages

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Exploring Long Island Sound with 2 Geeks @ 3 Knots

Posted on September 3, 2013 by | 54 comments

By Johna Till Johnson
Photos by Vladimir Brezina

IMGP6776 cropped smallA couple of weekends ago, we set out to visit our friends and fellow kayakers Alex and Jean, who are also fellow bloggers at 2 Geeks @ 3 Knots (check out their lovely blog!). They live in New Rochelle, just outside New York City, and just off Long Island Sound.

Heading out to the Sound on a summer weekend is pretty typical for New Yorkers.

IMGP6852 cropped smallWhat’s a little less typical is getting there by kayak.

But hey—we’d been there quite a few times before and knew the route pretty well. And this time we’d have the luxury of spending the night with our friends—so we’d have the chance to explore more than we usually can on an out-and-back trip. We’d been eagerly anticipating this trip for several weeks.

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Paddle to Long Island Sound

Posted on August 14, 2013 by | 36 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

Last weekend, the currents took us on another of our favorite paddles—from Pier 40 in Manhattan round the Battery, up the East River, through Hell Gate, and round Throgs Neck into Long Island Sound.

Rounding Throgs Neck is like entering another world. The towers of Manhattan are still visible—all this is still within the borders of New York City!—but they are tiny in the distance. The broad blue Sound opens up. Shoals of white sailboats cruise past. Rocks are crowded with cormorants. We paddle past lighthouses and round islands—City Island, Hart Island, Pea Island…

Here are a few photos (click on any photo to start slideshow).

We paddle down the Hudson, with the Statue across the harbor
North Cove
Jersey City across the river
Round the Battery
Downtown architecture
South Street Seaport
… has a certain 19th-century look
Under the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges
Looking back at Downtown
Williamsburg Bridge
Midtown Manhattan
Two towers and a sail
We pass the UN
Into Hell Gate
Good current!
Off Rikers Island
Prison barge
The next two bridges: Bronx-Whitestone and Throgs Neck
Just before rounding Throgs Neck, we look back at tiny Manhattan
Stepping Stones Light
Grim Hart Island
We land on Pea Island for lunch
Green vista
Red and green
Siesta
Fishermen offshore
Time to get back into the boats…
Cormorant (and gull) rock
Off City Island, we paddle between hundreds of moored sailboats
The wind is freshening, and the sailboats are going out
Back into the East River
Hell Gate again
Under the Hell Gate bridges
… toward Manhattan
The Domino sugar factory and the Williamsburg Bridge in the late afternoon light
Under the Willliamsburg Bridge
Moody skies
Downtown vista
Brooklyn Bridge
South Street Seaport once more
Into the sun
Round the Battery
Dramatic skies over Jersey City
Sailing at sunset
The glass towers above North Cove reflect the light
Silhouettes
Evening light
Can’t get enough of the sunset!
Sunset cruise
We head home
Last look

More photos are here.

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Friendly Creatures: Kayak Camping in Florida, Part 2

Posted on August 13, 2013 by | 55 comments

By Johna Till Johnson
Photos by Vladimir Brezina

<— Previous in Friendly Creatures

Day 2

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We awoke to a beautiful dawn spreading across the sky, mistily lighting up the graceful lines of the Tampa Bay Skyway.IMGP1625 cropped smallIMGP1667 cropped small

Well, technically, Vlad awoke to the dawn… I arose somewhat later, once the coffee was ready. We sipped it, watched the sunrise, and IMGP1630 cropped smallremarked on the steady progression of birds flying north—for all the world like commuters starting the day!

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We agreed that Egmont Key, though an unplanned stop, was a wonderful place to start our real adventure.

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A Paddle Among the Islands

Posted on August 5, 2013 by | 77 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

IMGP3727 cropped smallFor kayakers, islands exert a special allure. There is the attraction of  a circumnavigation, returning to the very same place from which you started from the opposite direction and completing the magic circle. But even more romantic is the idea of paddling out to that remote, preferably deserted, island that you can see on the horizon—or just on the chart!—which can be reached only by boat…

In New York Harbor, we have plenty of islands—even apart from the world-famous ones. But there’s no denying that they all offer a decidedly urban paddling experience. No matter what remote corner of the harbor you are in, the city is always there when you look up. And the city is exciting. But sometimes the country calls.

So in mid-May, we drove up to Westport, MA, on the south coast of Massachusetts just past the Rhode Island border. While Johna was enjoying a couple of days of surfing and rock-gardening (which I hope she will write up, as she did last year), I set out to paddle to my favorite deserted islands.

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Yesterday’s Sandy Hook Paddle

Posted on August 4, 2013 by | 31 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

It’s our routine. Weekends, we paddle. And when the tidal currents say go south, we go south. And, unless we can think of something more ambitious, that means Sandy Hook.

But each trip is different. The sea and the sky have a different look and feel each time. We see different ships in the harbor. I can’t resist taking photos to capture it all. Here are a few from yesterday’s trip.

(click on any photo to start slideshow)

We inspect a new, a very useful, green buoy that the Coast Guard has placed in the harbor
We pass over the Bay Ridge Flats, among the anchored barges
A yellow buoy, for a change
Looking back at Manhattan
Who will win this one?
It wasn’t at all clear which ship was closer to us… now we have the answer
We follow the Maersk container ship out to sea
We pass under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
We wait for traffic to pass in the Ambrose Channel
Even bigger traffic!
Time to start across
Lonely Romer Shoal Light
On Sandy Hook…
… we climb up to our favorite ruins for lunch
Ruins with a view
Prickly pear cactus now grows in the gun emplacements
View in the other direction, toward Atlantic Highlands
In the salt marsh below the ruins, crab holes
… and fiddler (?) crabs
With terns wheeling above, we paddle back
Cormorant apartment building
… with plenty of tenants
Sun on the sea
Water texture
Romer Shoal Light again
… all alone in the sea
Red buoy
It’s hard to capture the feel of the waves, but sometimes it’s something like this
Late afternoon seascape
We pass Coney Island
… and back under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
The city is in sight
Sunset light on the water
Just at sunset, the red sun appears from behind the cloud on the horizon, next to the Statue of Liberty…

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The Dry Salvages

Posted on July 25, 2013 by | 61 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

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… the ragged rock in the restless waters,
Waves wash over it, fogs conceal it;
On a halcyon day it is merely a monument,
In navigable weather it is always a seamark
To lay a course by: but in the sombre season
Or the sudden fury, is what it always was.

T.S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages

The Dry Salvages is the third of T.S. Eliot‘s Four Quartets, a landmark of 20th-century English poetry. In a prefatory note, Eliot tells us that the Dry Salvages are a group of isolated rocks offshore in the Atlantic Ocean, but in the body of the poem they are never  mentioned again by name. Rather, their symbolic reach expands immediately to encompass one of the larger themes of the poem, that of water as the eternal agent of birth and death. It might seem, therefore, that the Dry Salvages are a mythical place.

But they are real, and a couple of days ago we paddled out to see them.

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What to Do with Visitors to NYC? A Round-Manhattan Paddle!

Posted on July 17, 2013 by | 61 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

Heading homeWe are constantly racking our brains trying to come up with new things for people who visit us in NYC to do.

Empire State Building? They’ve been there. Statue of Liberty? They’ve done that.

But how about… a round-Manhattan paddle!

Here are some photos from last Saturday’s Manhattan circumnavigation on which we took our friend R.

And I think she got all the excitement, as well as the unexpected quiet beauty, that she could have wished for.

(click on any photo to start slideshow)

Launching at Pier 40
We paddle down to the Battery
The Freedom Tower towers above…
Off North Cove
The Statue, as always, across the harbor
We wait for the Staten Island Ferry to depart
Goodbye!
Now it’s safe to go on…
In the East River
East River traffic
In sync
In sync, too
We pass South Street Seaport
Downtown skyline
We leave Downtown behind
Williamsburg Bridge
Having fun!
Coming up to Midtown
One tower…
Two towers…
Traffic…
… safely met
Roosevelt Island tram overhead
WTF??!
It’s the Staten Island Ferry!!
An apparition in the East River… (photo by Johna)
But the wake is real
On top of the wave
We bounce up and down
Synchronized diving
The wakes slosh…
… back and forth
At Mill Rock, in the domain of the gulls
They REALLY want us to leave
Mulberries
Spuyten Duyvil
Under the George Washington Bridge
Paddling to Manhattan
Somber sky
Hello to Midtown
Intrepid with Concorde
The Beast
BIG traffic
We pass Chelsea Piers
… with the Empire State Building behind
Goal in sight
The Statue once more
Back at Pier 40 before sunset
Freedom Tower

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If It’s Summer, It’s Time for a Sandy Hook Paddle!

Posted on July 8, 2013 by | 55 comments

By Johna Till Johnson
Photos by Vladimir Brezina

Across the Lower Bay

Yesterday was a perfect summer’s day.

Well, if your definition of  “perfect” includes placid weather, blue skies, and hot sunshine.  Mine does—if I’m on the water and can cool off with a roll or two. Vlad is not so happy in the heat—and prefers more exciting “conditions”. As you’ll see, we both got our preferences…

We decided to go for a long trip—“long” being anything more than 30 nautical miles—not something we’ve done much of lately. The currents dictated it would be to Sandy Hook and back, returning after dark—again, a pleasant change of pace.

And the conditions were calm—a light breeze from the south, which would be in our faces on the way down, cooling us down, then helping us along on the return.

Well, not “helping”, exactly. As you’ll hear…

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