June 12, 2004

Paddle with Pride

Trip Report by Meredith Peruzzi

Pictures

Waking up at 4:00am on a Saturday morning doesn't sound like fun to most people, but it was all part of the plan for the 27-mile trip I was going to take. We arrived at the departure point - Manhattan Kayak's headquarters, on Pier 63 - at a little before 5:00, and had some of the provided snacks before finally getting into the vans around 5:30. We were supposed to leave just then, but we didn't get on the road until about 5:45. The van ride seemed to stretch on forever as we drove through what felt like very secluded areas - we couldn't believe that every mile we drove in the van, we'd have to paddle back!

We finally reached the launch site - Nyack Beach State Park - at about 6:30, and began putting on sunblock even though the sky was barely light. We discovered that the event coordinator would be paddling with us rather than watching from one of the first aid boats, because one of his guides had called in sick the night before. So after months of preparation and stress getting ready for the event, and less than two hours sleep, he was going to paddle close to 30 miles with the rest of us! My friend C. and I would be paddling a Necky Amaruk together, which weighs more than 90 pounds, so a member of the support crew helped C. carry the boat from the rack down to the beach. There were less than a dozen of us launching from Nyack, and C. and I were the first double to hit the water. Except for a terrible trip one freezing Halloween, I had never really paddled a double before, so we just did a few strokes and turns around while waiting for everyone else to get in the water. There were only two women in our group, myself and a young woman in a single kayak.

We finally set off around 7:30am. Because none of the support boats had arrived yet, we all had to stay behind the coordinator and in front of the other guide. This proved to be rather difficult as we wanted to go faster than some of the other paddlers, and eventually the leader gave up and let us go a little bit ahead of him as long as we stayed close by. There was one canoe in the pack, a father-son team who did very well - nobody was certain how well a canoe would manage on the trip, but they were quite successful. Our support boat, complete with Coast Guard, ham radio operators, medics, and experienced guides from Manhattan Kayak, turned up about a mile before we reached the Tappan Zee bridge, and after that we were allowed to go at our own pace. C. and I had been having a bit of trouble going in a straight line because I couldn't seem to learn to steer the boat from the front seat (I'm used to being the master of my own destiny!), and we didn't put the boat's rudder down which meant that C. ended up doing all the ruddering, slowing us down considerably. Of the three doubles to leave from Nyack, we were the last to reach Piermont Pier, which extends a full mile into the Hudson River. The current wasn't quite with us yet, as the tide didn't start turning until around 9:00. One of the other doubles had stopped to use the restroom, and the other was far gone almost all the way to the east side of the river! We didn't stop at Piermont, so we got to see a small dinghy launch from the support boat to keep an eye on the double kayak that had gone out so far into the river.

After Piermont, we had a great view of the Palisades, and I took several pictures there. There were also members of the event crew at various points along the route, whistling and waving from wherever we might be able to see them. I got tired several times but kept drinking from my hydration pack and I ate an entire Powerbar very quickly - I'd never had the vanilla flavor before, but it was pretty good! C. also paddled for a while, as he's a much stronger paddler than I am. We chatted a few times with others in single kayaks along the way, and every so often we'd wind up near enough to the canoe to see how those two paddlers were doing. The coordinator came over to us at one point to relay a funny story about a paddler in one of the other doubles. The guy is known for being an aggressive paddler, so he insisted that he wanted to be out in the middle of the river to take advantage of the current. What he didn't realize, though, was that the tide was turning late, and he was paddling against the current! We stuck close to the west bank and avoided that problem.

By the time we were approaching the Englewood Boat Basin, I was getting really exhausted. We'd already put more than 15 miles behind us in just a few hours, and I wasn't the only one tired - I could see one of the single paddlers ahead of us veering a lot from side to side as he made it up to the beach. I couldn't steer very well at all by that point, and we ended up pointed in the wrong direction from the beach, at which point I panicked and just about cried from the fatigue. But C. got us turned back in the right direction and we managed to make it up to the beach together. There were a lot of rocks there, and a member of the event crew dragged us up out of the water. After what felt like just a few minutes, the coordinator said it was time to get back into our boats so we wouldn't miss the tidal window to arrive back at Pier 63. I quickly finished refilling my hydration pack from the water bottles the crew provided, and got my PFD and skirt back on. We were told to paddle down to a flagpole just before the George Washington Bridge, and then cross the Hudson, aiming for the famous Little Red Lighthouse.

C. and I actually crossed a little before the flagpole, because we could see the boat traffic had picked up considerably. We waited for a break in the pleasure crafts - some of which included waving children, so I waved back - and then sprinted across the river. We headed down along the east side of the Hudson, with C. pointing out various landmarks such as a big church (he thought it might be St. Patrick's, but I think it was the Riverside Church) and Grant's Tomb. We hoped to see some of the rafts or kayaks that had launched from Englewood (for an 11-mile trip), but we never did get to see them as they had left before we even arrived at their launch point. As we approached the North River Treatment Plant, one of the support boats came over with its Coast Guard staff and called to us through a bullhorn that we needed to move away from the plant. C. and I weren't too sure what they were so concerned about - their explanation was kind of garbled - but we angled away from it anyway.

I was very impressed by the trip down the west coast of Manhattan. Most of my urban paddling has been in Georgetown, the view of which gets old after a while. But the remaining miles of the trip were filled with interesting things to look at, from electronic billboards to old buildings. We did have one mishap, though. I suddenly felt my back getting very wet, and I assumed C. had splashed me with his paddle - water that made it past his drip rings had been collecting behind me in the sprayskirt the whole time. He took a closer look at my back, though, and discovered that the hose of my hydration pack had come unscrewed, and the water was spilling out all over! I rested my paddle on the deck in front of me, and struggled to get the pack off, but by the time I had it in my lap it was too late. I opened it up to see what the damage was, and was impressed that the t-shirt I'd had in there stayed mostly dry. My remaining Powerbars, wrapped in foil as they were, naturally survived just fine. I put the Powerbars into my PFD pocket and the t-shirt into my drybag, stuffed the useless hydration pack under my decklines, then picked up my paddle and continued paddling. The coordinator, who had been hanging back with the last paddlers, caught up to us briefly to tell C. that he trusted C.'s experience in the Hudson and that we should go ahead and paddle all the way in - that the support boats would be mostly watching the last paddlers.

We paddled by the 79th Street Boat Basin, where several people were playing in the sit-on-tops that are available for rental there. They are supposed to stay within certain markers, though, so we didn't get close enough to wave at any of them. As we passed the large port, we paddled behind two cruise ships: the Carnival Miracle and the Celebrity Zenith. After that we went behind the USS Intrepid, and we were surprised by how small the Concorde seemed compared to the massive aircraft carrier. We were a little concerned about passing the ferry terminal, but Eric Stiller - owner of Manhattan Kayak Company - was nearby to greet us. We chatted with him for a moment and then proceeded to cross the terminal - we had timed things very well and didn't have to wait at all.

The last moments of our long paddle were spent racing another double that had launched from Nyack with us. We started out ahead of them, but they were much faster than the two of us and pulled ahead. We made the left turn in front of the Frying Pan and set ourselves up to slide right into the dock. There were several crew members standing on the dock cheering and clapping as we approached, and before I even got out of the boat I wanted to know what time it was. A man told me it was about 12:20, which shocked me - I thought it must be at least an hour later! C. hopped right out of the boat onto the dock, but I was pretty weak by that point and I couldn't remember how to get out - my recent launches and arrivals had all been beaches, and I forgot how to climb onto a dock! A support crew member was about to assist me when I finally remembered what to do, and I made it onto the dock myself.

Shortly after changing into dry clothes and getting something to eat, I had a moment to chat with the coordinator. He said that we had actually paddled twenty-eight miles, not 27! Everybody made it back with no problems, and it was a really interesting journey.