Travel Writers Bill & Mary Burnham

by Bill Burnham

The mantra of NYC kayaking could very well be a rip-off of Bill Clinton’s economic slogan. In short, “It’s the current, stupid!”

Fast-moving ebbs and floods are the rule in New York Harbor, the lower Hudson, and the East River. Yes, tides are a factor. Avoiding tugs and container ships is important. And most definitely, water taxis are a hazard. But current can make or break a trip.

This much we learned when Mary and I hooked up with Jerry Blackstone, a “snowbird” who’s a regular with both the Paradise Paddlers when he’s in Ft. Lauderdale and the Yonkers paddling club in New York.

After meeting by chance on a NYC kayaker online listserve, Jerry offered himself as a guide for our first NYC adventure. We agreed on an early October weekday launch from Red Hook, Brooklyn. Our 6:30 a.m. start was dictated by – what else – the current. Predictions for that day had it turning from ebb (outgoing) to flood (incoming) at 11 a.m. at The Narrows. As such, our plan was to ride the ebb through out to Coney Island. There, we’d enjoy a hotdog on the beach (a.k.a. “Coney Island Brunch”). When the current turned, we would ride the flood back to Red Hook via the Erie Boat Basin, a graveyard of ships on Brooklyn’s waterfront.

Red Hook is an industrial and commercial area famous as the inspiration for the movie “On the Waterfront.” Loud and noisy all day and night, it is slowly showing signs of being “discovered.” Green grocers, art galleries and hip bars service homeowners who are renovating small row houses along cobblestone streets near the waterfront. At the end of one such dead-end, we found Valentino Park and a pebble beach sheltered by breakwaters and a fishing pier. What Valentino lacked in paddler amenities – namely a bathroom and loading/unloading area – was more than offset by the view it offered: A mile or so offshore stood the Statue of Liberty. It occurred to me as I stared at the statue, how easy it would be to launch and paddle around Liberty Island.

It’s a long drive from Yonkers to Red Hook, but Jerry was game. Paddle day dawned pitch black at 4 a.m. The cafe next door to the apartment didn’t open for another hour. Mary scrambled about looking for a cup of coffee. I drove over to Brooklyn’s Waterfront Museum and retrieved our boats (there was no way I would leave two composite boats on our car on the streets of Red Hook, no matter how trendy it was becoming. Robbery wasn’t the issue; I was worried they would get a paint job a la the NCY subways.)

We all met at 6:15 a.m. and had our kayaks in the water a half-hour later. Jerry had scheduled a rendezvous with Steve Blumling from Staten Island near the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. We paddled south, the sun rising on our left and lighting glass buildings on the far Jersey shoreline. Soon, the Statue of Liberty was bathed in a pink glow. Mary took a moment to appreciate her view. Eighty years ago, her grandparents entered New York harbor enroute from Europe to Ellis Island, and eventually Upstate New York. Her reverie lasted only a few minutes, rudely broken by a high-speed water taxi. These oversized water roaches kept us on our toes. Every few minutes, we’d shout out the direction of one approaching – “Looks like a taxi coming from behind, 6 o’clock,” I yelled. “It’s heading right for us,” Mary said after a few minutes. Finally, “Go right, go ri— no, go left, left, left.” The wakes lifted our boats a good three or four feet.

Ahead of us loomed the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Water here runs through a squeeze less than a mile wide, the narrowest point in New York’s harbor between Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn and Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island. The bridge is a beauty, a double-decker with a length of 4,260 feet – 60 feet longer than the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. We reached it in an hour, aided by a current that had our boats running at nearly 6 knots, according to Jerry’s GPS. We beached directly beneath the span and waited for Steve, but after 15 minutes or so, he was a no show. We moved on to Gravesend Bay; onshore to our left, cars crawled along in rush hour on the Belt Parkway. As we paddled around Norton Point at the western tip of Coney Island, Jerry called out our speed: “5.4 knots, 5.7...”

By water, Coney Island’s carnival skyline is easy recognizable: there’s the Cyclone, a bungee jumping tower, roller coaster, ferris wheel. The amusement park had shut down a weekend before. Restaurants and shops were boarded up. Older Russian men walked alone or in groups, shirts off, enjoying temperatures that would climb to the upper 50’s.

We'd been hoping for a Nathan’s Famous Hotdog, but it was closed. We settled instead for a spicy Italian sausage for our Coney Island Brunch. The final piece of our day came into place when Steve paddled up to the beach in his Feathercraft Kahuna.

Jerry’s calculations had the flood starting about 10:30 at Coney Island and near 11 a.m. at The Narrows. Current can do some funny things, however. The flood had indeed started offshore, but nearshore waters were running counter, creating an eddy. Steve, who learned to paddle in New York Harbor, clued us into the local dynamic and we moved farther out to take advantage of the flow. At Norton Point, we had no choice but to cross the eddyline again. At that moment, I felt my boat slow, like a drag had been attached. Jerry checked his GPS and announced our speed had dropped well below three knots. It lasted an hour or so; not a trip-killer, but another reminder of how current can make or break your day in these waters.

We picked up the flood again at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. From there, it was a hop-skip-and-a-paddle to the Erie Basin. A tug passed us as we entered, it’s captain shouting out a warning of an approaching barge. We scooted out of the shipping lane, moving toward a giant sugar refinery. This cone-shaped relic, rusted and half-fallen down, had been our landmark from a good ways off. Now, bobbing at its foot, I was struck by its immensity and, it seemed to me, instability. Three masts stuck out from the water, the visible remains of an old lightship with too many leaks in its hull. Farther in were old World War II dry docks. In one moored a gambling boat made up like a Mississippi paddle boat.

It was 3 p.m. when we glided up alongside the Valentino Park fishing pier. We’d been on the water roughly eight hours (not counting an hour’s restover at Coney Island), and covered 23 miles. A great day’s paddle – one I’d be remiss if I didn’t say was entirely “current aided.”