Tag Archives: Wind

Wind

By Vladimir Brezina

Why did so many other kayaks overtake us in the 2014 Everglades Challenge? Wind power!

Wind 1Wind 2

Next time, we’ll have sails on our kayaks too!

A contribution to Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge, Wind.

A Brisk Paddle Up the Palisades

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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“A Bizarre Boating Accident”

By Johna Till Johnson
(Photos by Vladimir Brezina)

Since we posted our Red Hook adventure a couple of weeks ago, readers have been asking for more. So here’s a real adventure, which until now, for reasons that will become obvious, we’ve been a bit reluctant to post in full…

We’ve drawn upon the initial couple of hours of this story for a previous post. But at the point where that post left off, the adventure was just beginning!

Two further comments: First, we regret that photos are a little thin in this post. During most of these events, photography would have been difficult, or inadvisable.

And second, this is an example of people going “above and beyond” to be human, even when it could potentially threaten them professionally. So to protect the well-intentioned—and much-appreciated—innocent, all names, dates, and other identifying details have been modified or obscured.

This happened sometime last spring…

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