Being the Continuing Adventures of a Woman and her Trusty Kayak in New York Harbor, the Hudson River, and Beyond.
(with occasional political rants just to keep things lively!)
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
NY Harbor's First Ever Holiday-Lit Boat Parade!
That's this Saturday, 11/28/09, starting at Chelsea Piers at 6:30, winding down around the Battery, up to South Street Seaport, back down & over to Liberty State Park in Jersey & then back to Chelsea Piers. Full details here!
A few comments!
1. What TOOK us so long!!!!???
2. Three cheers for Classic Harbor Lines! for getting it going! Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!
3. Three more cheers for PortSide New York for spreading the word! Rah! Rah! Rah!
and last but not least -
4. DANG! I'm most likely going to miss it. Well, hopefully this is just the beginning!
To TQ. Said "c u in Beacon 2nite, ps I have my cell phone".
Yep, I have joined the ranks of cell phone owners. Finally broke down & got one last month. Friends will gasp (my real estate broker friend who found my place for me once joked, "Bonnie's cell number is LUD-DITE"). I'm notorious for being the one who refuses to break down & get one of these things. For some reason I just have no desire - and in fact have some aversion - to being as constantly in touch as most people seem to need to be these days. I always laugh at the almost synchronized checking of messages that goes on around me when the B or Q train comes out of the tunnel onto the Manhattan Bridge.
Actually, it's not going to be a big life changer at all for the simple reason that I mostly don't carry it, I really only wanted it for travelling after a really truly horrible bus trip out to see TQ on the day before the 4th of July. Apparently it didn't occur to Greyhound that there might be a few more passengers than usual that weekend. Who'da thunk, eh? I haven't particularly enjoyed my new familiarity with long-distance bus travel, but it's definitely the best way to get out to where TQ is these days, so I do it, and ordinarily it's tolerable & reasonably reliable. But that trip? UGH. There we were, just waiting and waiting and waiting for hours in Philly, in the middle of the night, with no idea what time they'd find a bus for us, and a cranky jerk at the station trying to tell us that we weren't allowed to use the restrooms because he'd already cleaned them*. I was able to call TQ from the pay phone there to let him know what was up, but the last update I was able to give him was the dispatchers actuallY DID find a bus for us & we were about to board. Yeesh. Never again.
Anyways, that was the trip during which I really decided that it would be a good idea to get one of these things, so last month I trotted off to t-mobile, got a prepaid package & the 2nd cheapest cell phone they had.
Why not the cheapest? Well, being a good couscous-nibbling chardonnay-sipping east coast liberal elitist, yeah, I went for the one that was advertised as "carbon neutral". Why not?
At any rate, I used it for the Mayor's Cup, I carried it when I went to PA in Ocober, and it is going to be really nice to have today when TQ & I are meeting someplace neither of us have really been before.
Have cell phone. Have Gorilla Coffee (Peruvian and Ethiopian both, Am's gonna go "ape"! :D). Have train ticket (I FINALLY got smart & got that beforehand, can't wait to breeze on past those ticket queues tonight)! Have book (just turned up yesterday, what perfect timing!)
Will travel!
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
*I have to add that with that one glaring exception (who I just ignored, anyways, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go), the rest of the Greyhound staff at the Philly station was incredibly patient, professional, sympathetic to their passengers' plight & I would even say almost as frustrated as we were. Apparently the terrible handling of days when they are likely to be overloaded is due to decisions about operating procedures that are made by people on high at corporate headquarters, who of course are not the people who end up having to deal with the passengers who are stuck waiting for a bus when they were supposed to be well on their way to their final destination.
WARNING: NSFW (unless you've got headphones, but still...). The following video contains foul & explicit language. If you are under the age of 18, please send permission slip before hitting play. If you are a parent of mine, do not hit play, period, just surf off & come back in a couple of days when I will have a nice wholesome report on the great Thanksgiving TQ & I are going to have - this year with my old friend Am & her family (yay!) near Poughkeepsie, and woohoo, I think our usual Escape from Black Friday hike is going to be Breakneck Ridge! So come back & check that out. You'll like that one.
There, parental control duties done. If they hit play, they can't say I didn't warn 'em, right?
And now, for the rest of you - you all remember Lonely Island's I'm On A Boat, right (link to original, just in case you were actually somewhere without internet during the couple of weeks this was going viral on the boat blogs - like, say, on a boat, maybe)?
Well...I just stumbled across a version that I think cracked me up even more.
I think that this VERY live crew (blue or gold? dunno!) may have beaten Lonely Planet at their own nautical-themed (pashmina afghan!) game!!!
And for this guy too, who's been flying in slow-motion for me here at home since September, but seemed to get stage fright & speed back up when sent to the Web - finally figured out the bit I wasn't doing in my Quicktime edit, one extra save & here he is, black skimmer in slow-mo for the whole world. Look at him snapping at the little fish that he's hunting in that long, shallow tidepool!
I think the black skimmers are some of my favorite birds out in Jamaica Bay. I remember reading about them in a bird book my folks had around when I was a kid, and thinking that their fishing technique was the neatest-sounding thing. Seeing my first skimmer a-skimming & discovering that they are regular summer denizens of my new home waters was a good moment!
Here's a young one that we got very close to on Ruffle Bar on Labor Day. We're not sure whether he was asleep or unwell or maybe just young and trusting, but with those mottled patterns on his feathers, he blended in so that we didn't notice him until we were on top of him.
My birder friend Prof. M. told me a funny story about seeing a group of these asleep on a beach one day early in her birding career. She said that they were actually lying flat on the beach, legs tucked under, heads extended in front of them & beaks actually resting on the sand. She said she thought that they were sick until a more experienced friend explained it. Turns out that's just how they sleep sometimes - those big beaks are heavy enough that sometimes they just to lay that burden down. Who can't relate? I would enjoy seeing that sometime.
Those are a couple of the common summer denizens of Jamaica Bay. Today, I joined a pleasant group of 8 paddlers on a beautiful paddle that was primarily for the birds! We met at the club at 10:30 & by 11:30, we'd set out. Destination: West Pond in the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge!
We got a lot of questions about what we were up to. Can't quite figure out why. Hmmm.
Mostly, we were there for the birds.
Partly for the turkey. I'd called for this paddle a few days ago because I just wanted to get a good brisk paddle in, get some exercise before the big feast this week! Actually, when I started planning the trip around midweek, the weather was sort of on the less-than-inspirational side - wind 15kts, cloudy, think there was a chance of rain - but over the course of the week it just got prettier & prettier.
Which made it a perfect day for my secondary goal for the paddle - seeing who's arrived for the winter on West Pond!
The brants, of course, have arrived in force.
They were well in evidence on the Great Tamale Paddle. The buffleheads are here too, we saw one lone one flying over the Paerdegat & the sailing co-chairs had mentioned seeing rafts of them on their great sail on the same day as we had tamales.
Two of the folks I was paddling with today got a nice close encounter with a loon in gray winter plumage, so they've clearly arrived from their summer homes on northern lakes.
Best sighting for me today was a first - snow geese! Those are the white ones here. I'd been wondering what they were & then a passing birder identified them for us, and also told us that the big raft of little ducks further out (click on the picture for full-sized & you might be able to make them out) were ruddy ducks (I'd thought buffleheads because that's the small duck with the white cheeks that I knew about). He also told us that the snow geese are just beginning to arrive & so are considered "a good sighting" right now. We couldn't quite make out the ruddies but his description of the way the males are marked was delightfully memorable - "Like a baboon, only on a duck."
Back in the Paerdegat - well, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! And although the incessantly cheery Christmas carols they had playing in a deli I stopped in early this week just set me on edge, somehow seeing this boat's owners break out the annual decor has the opposite effect.
This post for the birds inspired by Tugster and A Movable Bridge. Thanks for the idea - a perfect one for me to play with, as I'm lucky enough to keep my boats simultaneously in New York City, and in a wildlife sanctuary & major stopover for the birds who follow the Atlantic flyway!
And by the way, thinking of paying a visit to the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge yourself? You don't need a boat, you can get there by car, bus, train, or bike, and the Brooklyn Bird Club has got a really nice page with all sorts of helpful info!
Upcoming Events - Fundraiser on Sunday 11/22/09, Public Hearing on Tuesday 11/24/09
Sorry, I lied. These are absolutely not for the birds, but there are 2 events I thought worth mentioning -
1. Already mentioned it here, but don't forget, this coming Sunday the Hoboken Cove Boathouse folks are holding a fundraising shindig in Hoboken, which sounds like a lot of fun. My plans for the day don't include a trip to Hoboken - I've decided that even though I could and probably should work both days this weekend to get to a comfortable point for the Thanksgiving weekend, darn it, I am going paddling with my friends on Sunday, and it would be tough to squeeze in a paddle and a trip to Jersey on the same day. But doesn't a Pirate Circus sound like fun? I should be embarrassed, that's supposed to be the kiddie entertainment, but honestly that's what I'd really like to see! - and it's a nice bunch, so I just figured I'd mention it again.
2. Nowhere near as much fun as a Pirate Circus, but shoot, I reallyreallyreally WISH I wasn't so crazed at work, 'cause I'd really like to take a long lunch break for this public hearing. ********************** RE: Oversight: Improving Public Recreational Boating Access in the New York City Waterfront
Please be advised that the Committee on Waterfronts will hold a hearing on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009, at 1:00 p.m. in the 14th Floor Hearing Room, 250 Broadway, New York, NY regarding the above-referred topic. **********************
Rob at the Village Community Boathouse (and also the guy behind the New York Harbor Beaches site, which is a good one) was curious for a little more detail, checked in with someone in the know & came back with the following additional info -
"...hearing was a followup on one they held three years ago, at which time they asked the parks department to explain their vision for expanding access to the water. this hearing is an 'oversight' hearing to see how they've done and what their plans are for the future."
I'd like to note that it says "Recreational Boating Access", not "Kayak Access" - we're not talking just kayak launches here, this should be of interest to folks with all sorts of craft, from SUP-er to yachtie & everything in between. We kayakers have done well with access in the last few years, we've got this whole great network of access points now in the NYC Watertrail, in part simply because a kayak is hands down THE easiest craft for which to provide access (if there is any way for a person to actually get down to the water on foot, you can probably launch a kayak there) but also because there are a lot of us and we all go say our bits at these things & people at parks listened (and oh, yes, one key person who was listening & in a position to do something also happens to like paddling herself, yay!). Still, I know that people with larger craft (helloooooo, Puffin people, non-Peconic variety!) find places to tie up to be few & far between, and as far as trailer sailors (hellooooo, Dennis G!) - well, I'm not sure exactly where you could put one of those in the water around here. Sebago is a public launch site & when we're open in the summertime, we can accomodate hand-launchable dinghies up to a certain size, but Liberty State Park in Jersey is the only place I'm sure of where there is an actual launch ramp for cars with trailers.
If you plan to attend, don't forget to bring your photo ID, & don't forget to leave the cutlery at home, as they usually xray your bag & have you go through a metal detector when you enter a government building here. I did get through security with a pocket knife in a backpack once, didn't realize I had it until later, but it's really better to be unarmed when you turn up there!
Further to the dredging - sad sad story from up the river - two of the men who were working on the dredging went over a dam. One died.
Terrible addition to the cost.
Now, I suspect that my returns to the subject of the new NYS lifejacket law may be getting annoying, but I do find myself wondering if the one who survived could possibly be the first person who owes his life to that law. Of course the dredging company may have had their own workplace safety rules on the matter, plus they may have known that they were in trouble early enough that they would have had time to don the pfd's anyhow (you aren't always given that when things go wrong out on the water, but I suspect the two knew the stretch of the river where they were disabled & would've known the drop was coming), but the point is that both were wearing lifejackets, one made it to an island & was able to call for help, and the other was alive when they pulled him from the water -- it sounds like whatever chance he did have, he had because he was wearing his lifejacket. And as it is, they were able to get him out of the water on the spot, without anyone else having to take the risk of going in themselves, and at least his family & friends are spared that awful wait. I know it's not much - but it is something.
No lifejackets, and I just think that the chances are good that that article would have ended with "Divers are searching for both".
Sorry. Frogma will return to normal cheeriness with the next post, which will be for the birds.
Harper's Magazine December issue - looks worth picking up
cover courtesy of Harper's
The December '09 issue of Harper's Magazine should be on newsstands any day now, if it isn't already there. I plan to buy a copy. The editor is one of my clubmates at Sebago & the last time we paddled, he'd mentioned that the December issue included a well-researched and very sobering look at the status of the Hudson River PCB's.
Subscribers can read it online now. For the rest of us, especially those of us who take a very personal interest in the well-being of the Hudson River, it sounds to be worth the cover price.
ps - Dennis G. Moonstruck has been saying all along that the dredging was a waste of money, if not a downright scam. I won't know where this article goes until I read it but it does sound like it's going to make the dredging look like a horribly insufficient band-aid, at best.
ps latest word is that the on-sale date is next week (Thanksgiving week) but that there's a newsstand at Bleecker & Broadway that might have it already. That is not far from my office & fits right in with my current effort to get myself back into doing some good regular post-work walking (more on that one of these days).
11/20/09 update -The Bleecker & Broadway newsstand had it & I read it last night. I'd call that six dollars well spent. I think that is one of the most incredibly depressing & infuriating articles I've ever read.
I really had no idea of the extent of the problem up there. I'd always pictured the PCB's as being concentrated in the riverbed. I'd pictured there being a lot in the riverbed, enough that you won't find any particular celebration of GE's beginning dredging on my blog - it wasn't that I was opposed to it, it was just that I'd read the arguments on both sides & they both sounded plausible & I try not to take sides when I don't have any idea which one is right.
But if what that article says is true, it's not a matter of dredging being wrong or right as much as dredging being an utterly misdirected response to the problem.
Like treating a deep infection with alcohol wipes.
Pretty pretty sunset tonight. Took a moment to appreciate when I ran up to the cafeteria to grab a cup of tea. Thought I would share! Here it is, I think from the top of the Empire State Building.
I do have to say that I'm perturbed by the fact that it was happening at 4:30. Sigh.
I'm A New York City kayaking & sailing enthusiast. Finance analyst (or trying to be) by day - and somewhat by accident. Did someone say "river rat"? Why thank you, how sweet!
