Camping in Gateway 3 of 3: The Journey Back

There's a trick to sunrise. Most people experience it in reverse at sunset. Sunrise is not the same as first light, and if you wake up at first light, as MM and I did, you can stare across the scene - the Narrows, in our case, and watch the world come to light. In the summer, even late summer, The sky gradually gets brighter, and you know it's not fully on, but you can see. The world isn't awake but it is visible, no longer hidden in the dark.

If you know what time sunrise is expected, you can count the minutes down. MM wanted to watch for a green flare, a condition that happens in just the right circumstances as the sun rises and catches moisture in the atmosphere to produce a momentary green shimmer. We didn't see that, but we did watch the sun come up, almost literally, only averting our eyes to avoid its glare.

I watched the horizon, checked my watch, drank my coffee, repeat repeat repeat, until there it was, a little orange nub, slowly emerging from the horizon, just like the art on any number of breakfast products. Look away, make breakfast, look back, and there it is in the sky. Eat, talk, look up, and it's higher. It's unreal. It's this giant source of heat and light that is in a different place in the sky every time you look for it.

We needed to get going fairly early to catch the tide. We packed up as best we could, abandoning food we knew we'd never eat. One lesson I learn from each of these trips: it's easy to overpack food. Everything else, I think I've got a pretty good handle on.

EY had left the night before, carting off her boat in her truck. The three of us reversed the previous night's process, carrying boats down to the beach, then gear in shifts, and a final sweep of the camp. I chatted briefly with a fisherman on the shore, casting out line, to let him know where we're aim for as we headed out. I asked him what kind of fish he caught there, on the stretch of beach just south of the Veranzano.

"Fluke," he said. "Sometimes shark."

With that, we were off.

We had some ebb current, with a light breeze blowing against it from the southeast. Rather than retrace our steps coming in, we headed south so as to take in Swinburne and Hoffman islands, two specks of land just off the shore. In decades past, they were considered for private property and also for quarantine or for immigrants - twins of Ellis and Liberty islands further north. They never amounted to much though, and in any case were landfill. Swinburne has the remains of a crematorium, making for a start but ominous landmark.

Back in the Saddle

Apologies and thanks to the estate of Gene Autry. He's my go-to paddle music on the trail.

We enjoyed pleasant waves and conditions on the way out: water splashing over our decks, a little bit of surf here and there, just a bit of effort to stay on course with wind slightly a-quarter. Once at Swinburne, we found it formed a nice windbreak, and we rested before the next phase.

MM in her lovely new Avocet LV.

Unlike our trip over, at this latitude we could paddle out to the last of the markers for the Ambrose Channel, the main shipping lane in to New York City. This way, we'd be more certain of our position relative to the channel, although with wind and current on our sides we got moved laterally a bit. We looked both ways before crossing and paddled with a purpose, and soon enough we were paddling along the coast of Coney Island.

A little further along, we opted for a break, which for one member turned into a "bio-break". We'd already figured out on the way over that in these circumstances, the easiest thing to do was to have one person support the boat while the other hopped out and did what was necessary, and then climbed back in the boat.

As we were doing this though, an FDNY boat came near and slowed down. I gave them the "big OK", an presumably since we didn't look panicked and weren't endangering anyone, they sped along and we finished up.

Fuzzy Picture.

I have to apologize for not having a lot of pictures on the way back. I think what happened was, unlike what I usually do, I left the waterproof housing open overnight and moisture got in, fogging up the insides. At Swinburne I actually removed my camera from the case and gave it a good wipe, nervous the whole time I'd lose either the camera or case. I thought that would settle in, but in subsequent photos it was clear - or rather, not clear - and I didn't have much worth showing.

Still, most of our sites were what we'd seen before. The parachute jump, the Wonder Wheel, various pleasure craft plying along the channel we were in. Shortly, we were passing Sheepshead Bay, then under the bridge, and on into Jamaica Bay.

I looked at my watch, and then at my chart. If we worked it, we'd make it in under four hours start to finish. I paddled hard.

My mates were happy to continue more leisurely. They were having fun. Often, that's my role - fun over performance. But now I had a goal. There it was, the radome, and the old cargo plane behind it. Our original launching ramp would't be much farther.

I landed on the beach with just a minute or two to spare. Victory! I chatted with two passersby on the ramp while MM and DR caught up.

In short order, we were landed and started unloading our boats. It didn't take long to have the clown car line. We parked our cars on the ramp and loaded up, then put on our boats and drove out.

This was a great trip and fulfills most of a dream I've had for more than a couple of years now. After paddling for a decade almost exclusively on the Hudson and East Rivers, it's nice to see the lower harbor and the waters of New York City that are, essentially, right on the ocean. There's not much between we and the sea; those big ships coming up the Ambrose are coming in from all over the world.

This was new territory. I'de never paddled in Jamaica Bay, and hardly ever along Staten Island or Coney Island. Conditions were favorable; I was prepared for worse. And, while I practiced some marker navigation, there were familiar landmarks to use as a handrail in the event I gave up completely on my chart.

I'll go back again, and hopefully with the same bunch of friends. There's nothing like good company on a journey of the sea.

Camping in Gateway 2 of 3: Camping at Staten Island

Once on the island, we made camp and found things to do.

First of all there was the schlepping of the boats. The portage was at least a couple hundred yards, across the sand to a grassy path, then up a short hill and around a fence into what amounted to a paddock. This meant unloading the boats, making several trips for kit, and then trips moving the boats up. Then we pitched camp.

Once our tents were in place, we could put things away. This seems like a curious habit considering we were only staying for the night, but I have to say that for myself at least, putting things away is comforting, a running of the mental checklist, pitching what's not needed and knowing I've got all I came with.

After that we went for a walk.

Fort Wadsworth is a historic site, the western side of a fort system guarding the Narrows, which is the gap between Staten Island and Brooklyn, the southerly approach from the sea. It dates back to the Revolutionary War, when it was used primarily by the British, but for much of its history was a Federal military base, for infantry, for harbor mines, and presently as a US Coast Guard command.

The historic fort.

We walked up a long road that gained elevation behind the fort, at one point affording us tremendous views of the harbor.

Jersey City (left), New York City (right) 

Behind the fort itself is a steep slope full of weeds and other undergrowth. How does the military keep it clear?

Goats.

The goats of Staten Island.

The goats are kept enclosed in an electric fence. They much on pretty much everything they can in the space, and had clearly left a swath of destruction moving from one side of the hill to another.

Back in camp, we visited with one of our camp neighbors, who owned an interesting car.

The Model A.

He was a retired sailor, and his family had bought him the model A. We're not clear how much was refurbished, how much to original spec, and so on, but it looked legit to us.

Lucky !

The talisman out the side was an old fox fur, not a giant rabbit foot. It was his good luck charm.

That night, we roared another campfire and had sausages for dinner and s'mores for dessert.

I kept my toes toasty!

Toasty Toes !

While our stay was short, it was pleasant. The facilities were cleaner and closer than at Jamaica Bay, though there were fewer spots to camp in. The firewood was free but limited in quantity - and after our walk some of our camp neighbors pointed out a man that they said had absconded with some of the bark off our logs!

There were some kids - an asian family across from us, and some young people next to them. We were certainly a novelty to these folks who, city dwellers, camped to get away from it all. For them it was enough to simply be living in a tent, in the woods, away from their neighborhoods.

Why did we go camping? Much the same reason. We could have paddled these distances separately, going home each nigh and coming back. But where's the fun in that? In kayak camping, you know you have everything you need, within limits, in your boat. Food, clothing, and shelter are there, along with paddling kit.

Camping in Gateway 1 of 3: Journey to Staten Island

This past Labor Day weekend I fulfilled a dream I've had for quite a while. Well, most of the dream. I kayak-camped with some friends in Gateway Recreation Area, a set of National Parks spread across the lower harbor of New York City.

There are three major pieces, each on Federal property that was, at various points in history, military in nature. On the easternmost point of Staten Island, just below the Verrazano Bridge, is Fort Wadsworth; in Jamaica Bay, at Bennet Field, is a set of runways that played host to the golden age of aviation before becoming a Naval Air Station; at Sandy Hook, a narrow spit pointing up into the harbor, is a former Coast Guard station, used in the distant past to defend the harbor, and during the Cold War as a missile defense station. Each site has campgrounds and facilities, with reasonable portages to the water.

My dream is to paddle there from my "home" boathouse in Inwood, Manhattan. However, that is a long trip (at least thirty miles to Jamaica Bay, twenty or so just to Staten Island), and it's difficult to find the right combination of time off, people who are capable, available, and fun to paddle with, not to mention cooperative weather. So we cheated: we cartopped our boats out to Bennet Field Saturday,  camped and paddled, then made the journey to Staten Island, where we camped and returned the next day.

My companions were EY, DR, and MM. EY and DY are mutual friends from the Appalachian Mountain Club, under whose umbrella I've taught out at Fire Island. Their experience is more on the whitewater side - EY is an amazing whitewater canoeist, and recently paddled the Colorado river in an expedition. MM is a new acquaintance, whom I met taking an instructor course this summer, and with whom I went to the Paddle for a Cure event; she's also an avid surfer (with boards) and knows the lower harbor pretty well.

We were really fortunate with the weather. The entire weekend was predicted to be sunny in the 80s F, with just a few clouds Sunday, and winds no more than 8 mph, except Monday when we had winds up to 10 with gusts to 20.

As with most of these trips, we ran a little late getting there, but were able to set up camp and go for a little trip on Jamaica Bay itself. Jamaica Bay is a large, shallow wetland, with a few channels running through it.

Day Marker, Jamaica Bay

Bennet Field is a surreal place. In the distance, we could make out lower Manhattan. After a lengthy drive along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and then down Flatbush Avenue, we entered the grounds past unmanned guard posts, then drove up long streets to the visitor's center, which was the original control center, a squat Art Deco building overlooking a giant parking lot. After checking in, we drove down a long taxiway to the campsites - Wiley Post A and B, which were no more than extended yards of grass and trees a two minute drive from the water.

Over cracked asphalt we could make out the Bay, Queens, Brooklyn, even Manhattan, and Coney Island. On the far side of the bay was JFK airport, its tower an easy landmark.

Paddling in Jamaica Bay

We paddled east from an old seaplane launch, past Ruffle Bar, along a channel until we turned north-ish to the Cross Bay Boulevard bridge, and then westward with the current, around Canarsie Pol and back to our destination. It was dusk when we got back, and two rushed ahead to start dinner. We had some roast chicken, salad, rice, and s'mores. EY and DR turned in early, having been up late for work the night before. MM and I walked out to a wide spot and tried to spot planets, stars, and constellations - all while the NYPD took off and landed their helicopters at their base nearby.

The next morning, we packed up everything: tents, pads, sleeping bags, cooking stoves, food, clothes - into our boats and launched off the beach by the seaplane launch. This would be our first full day at sea!

Heading out of Rockaway Inlet.

First Waypoint: Red Number 6.

I'd charted a course to take advantage of the current. One of the challenges is that the water is coming in to Jamaica Bay at a time when you need to leave to be in the right place for it to help carry in to the harbor. So, the first hour and a half was spent paddling against a small but growing amount of current, as we left the bay and headed out of Rockaway Inlet.

EY paddling past Sheepshead Bay.

Onwards we paddled, on a beautiful early September morning.

Along Coney Island.

 Little Odessa.

We took a short snack break before passing by Coney Island. All along the way we stayed out from the swim beaches, though occasionally we found an intrepid swimmer out near us. Generally we were able to find a lifeguard on a surfboard and go about 40 yards out farther. Private beaches, public beaches - we passed several.

All along the way, the Parachute Jump at Coney Island was our main landmark. This was a little nostalgic for me because when I first moved to NYC eighteen years ago, I lived on Ocean Parkway, much closer to Coney than to Manhattan, and in my first few summers it was easier to head to the beach than into the city. Quite a bit has changed, but the landmarks, for the most part, have not.

Luna Park.

Wonder Wheel.

We stopped for lunch shortly after passing the pier at Coney Island. This is not the pier I remember from when I lived here - this was modern, concrete and steel, not a rickety old wooden contraption. It was still filled with fishermen though.

By this point we were catching a little current carrying us westward - which meant that we were gaining ground while we ate. That was a welcome relief. The idea was, we would head to Norton Point, then turn north with the current, paddle up along Gravesend Bay, and look for a good time to cross the Ambrose Channel - the major shipping channel used by cruise ships, container ships, ferries, and barges.

Norton Point and Verazzano in sight.

Norton Point can be a bit bouncy, as the current makes a relatively sharp turn and the depth changes. We surfed through some fun little waves and began looking for markers - Norton Point Light, and some private yellow buoys in the bay.

Towards the north end of the bay we moved towards a yellow buoy and looked both waves. We also listened to channel 13 for announcements of outbound traffic. Nothing was on the horizon. There weren't any good markers to line up a transit, so I decided we would just head straight at Staten Island, knowing the current would carry us north about a quarter-mile.

"Ready, let's go!" We set out, moving steadily, until we were well westward of the nearest channel marker I could make, a green buoy about half a mile south of us. The water was shallow, and the incoming current was forming little baby surf waves.

Most of our group simply surfed right in. I decided to try, "landing in surf", backpaddling on the receding water to get momentum against the next wave coming in. This failed miserably. I was off-angle and got pushed in at a quarter, skidding in to the beach like a bad car racing movie. Better luck next time.

Once landed, one of our group walked to the registration office, which turned out to be over a mile away. Meantime, the rest of us unpacked, scoped out the campgrounds (which were only three hundred feet away), and used the facilities. Once MM came back, we moved our gear up, and later our boats. EY stowed hers on her truck - she had to do some work on Monday, so she'd staged her truck ahead of time.

Camp at Fort Wadsworth.

We were immediately south of the Verazzano Bridge, looking directly out over the Narrows to Brooklyn. This led to the surreal site above - the Norwegian Breakaway, a "cruise to nowhere", music blaring, en route to party at sea. Mind you this ship is three times the size of the Titanic, one of the ten largest cruise ships in service today, and the largest such ship to operate out of the Port of New York.

Right there, near camp. No big deal. Also crossing the waters we'd paddled just two hours earlier.

View of the Harbor.

Once we had the camp set up, we took a little walk to enjoy Fort Wadsworth. I'll give more detail in a separate post on the sights we saw, but suffice it to say, Fort Wadsworth has defended NYC for centuries, and has a lot of amazing history to it.

Also, goats. More about that later.

Tanker Entering.

Lower on the ground, we saw more large vessels entering and exiting the harbor.

Once EY left, the three of us were left to cook and share stories and enjoy the view. One curious outcome was that all three of us were paddling Valley boats. If you're a Valley fan, here's three boats in progressively smaller sizes: the Argonaut, An LV Avocet, and a Gemini SP.

The Trip You Don't Take

I'm living in an alternate reality right now, imagining what would have happened if my and a couple of friends had pressed on with a camping trip we had been planning for weeks out to Sandy Hook.

What happened was, bad weather was predicted all week, and when it came down to it, lots of little thunderstorms were popping up west of the region, predicted to dot the back half of the weekend with rain, gusts, and electricity. The first two are OK, but the last is not acceptable. Besides, who wants to camp in the rain?

So there we were, at the dock, 0830 in the morning, and we decided to try a day trip instead.

We took off across the Hudson and headed south. We made good time, considering it was slack tide. We were at Hoboken in just about half an hour, when we decided to check the weather.

In its lovely monotone, the weather station told us - I paraphrase here - "severe weather watch in Middlesex, Passaic, and Morris Counties . . .Westchester and Dutchess counties . . .storms moving 15 to 20 miles per hour". We later heard from friends above the GWB that there was quite a downpour, and lightning in the distance. Looking up town, you could almost see a blanket of water enveloping the area north of 125th street, on both sides of the river. Yet, to the south, a ball of light was forming in the same humidity, sunlight relayed through tiny water particles.

We decided to turn back even earlier than we planned. We stopped at Pier 40, then paddled against the current back towards Pier 96. Along the way we caught some awesome tugboat wake, easily 3-4 feet, twice because there were two of them. They were on their way to the annual tugboat race (derby? It's more than a race.), which became an issue for us once we got to about Pier 84. The police, coast guard, and coast guard auxiliary gave us conflicting advice on how to go around it. Ultimately we ended up paddling up the middle of the channel, partly escorted by two very likely bored auxiliary crews.

We got back around noon, played a bit, then unpacked and washed. We compared notes with friends. Apparently there had been lightning further uptown, and some rain, ad more was expected all up and down the harbor area.

"Now begins the second guessing," said one of my friends.

"Now? I've been second guessing for the past hour," I said. "We better get some really terrible weather tomorrow to justify this."

And so, in some alternate reality, we did paddle to Sandy Hook, or South Beach at least, and we did camp, and see the sites, and admire the ocean. But here, in what I know as real life, I went to a friend's birthday party instead, came home and cleaned up, rested. The trip you don't take can be as exhausting as the one that you do take.

Croton Camping Paddle

On the last weekend of July, I took off the following Monday in order to do some kayak camping with my friend MH. We've been meaning to do this for a while. We departed Inwood late Sunday morning and arrived at Croton Point in the evening; camped and hung out, then returned early Monday afternoon, arriving at Inwood as the sun set. It was a great trip.

We crossed the river to the west side and paddled up along the Palisades. We were a little concerned about the weather; there were even odds of rain, and radar showed a major weather front moving east from Ohio. However, as the day went on it also appear to be moving north, so we took our chances and simply enjoyed a cool day in place of the 90+ heat wave that had enveloped the city earlier in the week.

One of my goals for years has been to paddle to the Tappan Zee Bridge, just because it is such a recognizable waypoint. Here we approach the Tappan Zee; along the way we passed a friendly sailor who told us that Irvington, which we had passed already, was friendly to paddlers.

It was hard not to think of a sad story in the news the night before, wherein a bride and another in the wedding party were killed in a nighttime collision between a motorboat and a barge.

As we made our way up the river, we enjoyed generally benign conditions. There was hardly any traffic out, and wind was minimal. We had timed our trip to catch a fair amount of current, so even the paddling wasn't hard - all 5+ hours of it.

We stopped for lunch just above a lighthouse, landing on a small sandy shore. We had to move our boats a couple of times - we were there for less than an hour but the incoming tide threatened to float our boats away.

Lunch was just north of Tarrytown  Light - a retired lighthouse just north of the Tappan Zee. Our lunch spot was just around the bend below the wall in the photo above.

Eventually, we landed at Croton Point Park. We had paddled around trying to figure out the "Hudson River Water Trail" camping site, but as near as we could figure, that "campsite" was just sanctioned guerrilla camping. We found a spot, landed, and set up camp as the rain started to fall.

Here we have Camp MH (above) and Camp Cowgirl (below). The safety sawhorses turned out to be from some planned tree cutting we learned about the next day.

Since I set up my camp in the rain, I used my main towel to dry out my sleeping quarters. The next day I draped it over my boat.

I made the road my kitchen. I figured in the worst case, I wouldn't be able to burn the road down.

When we got ready to leave, I took time to repack my boat. I had a little less food and wanted to see if I could do a better job repacking. I did a little better but not a big difference.

When we were at Croton, I took some shots of the river. Above looking across Croton Bay.

Here, looking south from the southernmost part of Croton Point. The landscapes in this part of the Hudson River Valley are the same as the art style that it gives its name to. It is a dreamy horizon of sky, rocks, and river.

I didn't take as many photos - well, as many good photos - on the way back. We left early and crossed to the western side of the river, paddling down along parkland quite a ways. MH was scouting for possible future guerrilla campsites - though when we asked someone who was official-looking, he did say camping was prohibited.

On the way back, we paddled through a large marina (or two, it was hard to tell) in Nyack. I took a shot at rolling my camping-laden boat. I succeeded, if you count as success "I came halfway up and then high-braced before I rolled back in." I also noticed I had to adjust my sense of where to place the blade in part, as far as I could tell, because the drybag on my rear deck was pushing the boat up a when capsized.

We stopped at Piermont Pier on the way back for lunch - this is a long pier that extends out from Piermont, nearly halfway across the river and acting as a sort of marker to the lower end of the
"Tappan Zee." We rested, talked with another paddler, and then packed up for the final leg home.

There was quite a bit of wind from the west as we passed Piermont Marsh, and we charged past it to take windshade from the Palisades. The current went slack, and we picked up the pace. MH showed off his prowess, speeding ahead and waiting for me. We got home at dusk.

It took about six hours of paddling each way, plus an hour and a half rest, sometimes one stop, sometimes two. It was a pleasant paddle both ways, if a little windy on the way back. Total distance was about 46 miles, about 23 each way. I've paddled about 30-32 miles in a single day, but never such lengthy distances two days in a row.

It was good camping experience. I haven't camped in a long time, and never from a kayak. MH was a great mentor in this respect, and I hope to camp with him again some day.

A map of our route:


View Croton Camping 2013 Actual in a larger map