i just love the picture, man!
I'd say your day of paddling has to be worth at least 10 days out of my 100! Besides, I'm paying for it now as I look out over frozen lakes and rivers... Great post!
Looks like a great day. Everyone else was at the pool?
How do you get your kayak to the pool? Here all the buses have bike racks, maybe time to lobby for kayak racks?
Mostly people carpool up to Greenwich (the main pool session that the Sebago membership tends to attend). It was actually interesting moving from a Manhattan-based storage facility, where almost no one has cars, to a Brooklyn based one, where a larger percentage of paddlers do have wheels. Changes the dynamics of trip planning quite a bit.
With the pool session, it does sometimes happen that there are more people riding in cars than boats. People are pretty generous about sharing. The AMC sessions being very informal ones, people take turns helping each other out & when one person is teaching, usually another person is in their boat. Or people just roll enough that they get tired. That's also fun 'cause it means you get to try new boats.
Great post - seems the water was flat all along the northeast. strange. Today it was still flat, but the wind was blowing hard enough here on the Great South Bay that I didn't venture out.
My GF, new to sailing, wanted to try to anchor out and watch what turned out be an amazing sunset. I was content enough to watch from the dock.
And my after-work sail was solo, too. Strange that my first, and very long awaited solo sail was in January. I reckon I wasn't truly alone - there were two clam boats out and the air and water was still enough that voices from shore carried a long way out to me. And I have a radio (you?).
I intend to sail this weekend. in the 40s and no rain sounds good to me.
Beautiful photos, and surely a great paddle. Now, will you please give yourself the lecture that you'd give someone else about being on the water solo with water temps in the 40's? I remember the first time you posted this link.
Michael's right, of course!
Solo paddling is never the best idea, especially when the water is cold.
In this case, conditions were so quiet that I went anyways - but I did make a couple of concessions to minimize the risk - in addition to my usual wearing of drysuit, hood, carrying a radio (not CG required for kayaks, but yes, something that a lot of us NYC kayakers carry), hot cider,etc. -
1. I paddled the shoreline. Most of the time, I was in 3-4 feet of water, within walking distance of the shore. and there were a lot of people out enjoying the weather - fishermen, horseback riders, a few ATV people ripping up the beach (grrr).
2. I stayed rightside up, even though I got hot & love rolling. My 2 biggest concerns year round when I'm paddling alone are getting hit by a motorboat, and dislocating a shoulder - the latter, I did nearly do one time by rolling, fortunately with a spotter. My technique's about a zillion times better now, but still, that early screwup made me careful. In the winter, there is also the possibility of cold shock. I've been rolling all winter & haven't had any problems - in fact I've never experienced cold shock, but there's always the first time & why chance experiencing it with no one to help? The other thing is that a lone kayak turning over draws the attention of anyone on shore, and they pull out their cell phone & next thing you know, the harbor police is there asking if you're OK and you're saying yes & if it were me, I'd be feeling like an idiot for wasting their time. It is nice that strangers DO get concerned, though. New Yorkers are a little infamous for not wanting to get involved, but people will help.
3. I turned around at the bridge. I really did want to keep going but in the wintertime, I do prefer to be back at the dock by sundown. Night paddling has certain risks, cold water paddling has certain risks, solo paddling has certain risks - it was tempting but when I'd already combined 2 risk factors, I wasn't going to add a 3rd.
I'm glad to hear you took the precautions you did!
The water shots are very beautiful. What a stunning way to look at NYC.
How do I hitch a ride...
Hi, BIB! That's actually easy!
Wait for springtime & come on out to Canarsie for one of Sebago's open paddles.
Those are 2 hours long, and they aren't always speedy, but they're an inexpensive, no-experience-necessary way to come check out the club and Jamaica Bay.
If you like what you see - new members are always welcome!
Our season-opening open house is sometime in May - I'll find out the exact date & post it here.
Oh, yes, and Michael, my favorite paddles are the ones I come back from, preferably without causing any other human beings undue concern.
I absolutely do my best to make sure that happens, even if it means not having quite as much fun as I might really want to.
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