Winter Mitsuwa

I recently paddled with some members of my club to Mitsuwa market, in Edgewater, NJ. It's a popular mid-range destination for our club, about four nautical miles each way. Timing with the tidal currents makes it a pretty easy trip. The trick was, this was in winter, December, a day after a significant snowfall.

I've mentioned it before, paddling there solo a couple of years ago.

Clearing the deck.

With temperatures in the 30s F, water about 50 F, everyone was wearing drysuits. At least one member was wearing one for the first time in actual conditions, and a couple others were relatively new to drysuit and cold water paddling. The wind prediction was on the high side - broaching F4 from the west - but turned out to be milder, and more from the south.

Shuffling to and fro.

Mister Cowgirl readies his steed.

We also had sunshine on most of the journey, so after layering up to meet the predicted wind chill, several of us found ourselves warm, in some cases overheating.

While we'd had several inches of snowfall the day before - incidentally, something I drove in briefly, making the rounds of various holiday parties - some was still on our deck, but mostly it had melted. We had "movie snow" decorating the cliffs and trees, but otherwise the water was indistinguishable from any other day of paddling.

Finally ready?

We did spot snow falling off the George Washington Bridge, as it was plowed off, way up high. We could see it streaming in heaps to the water below. That was kinda neat.

Five of us set out. Along the way, we met up with AA, another club member who'd been supporting a swimmer out for a photo shoot. That is, someone swimming in the water, without anyof our fancy thermal protection, near the Little Red Lighthouse, for about half an hour, just for the sake of some photographs. We were amazed. AA came over and said hello, but opted not to join us - he'd worked late the night before, and went back to get some shuteye.

We proceeded, and I found my first navigational challenge. This trip is easy enough to handrail, but one of my favorite marks is no longer in place: the Ferryboat Binghamton, a historic ferry later turned floating restaurant, abandoned years ago and long since demolished by hurricanes Irene and Sandy. Last summer, plans were finally executed to remove the old lady from her mooring, so I took a few minutes to figure out where we needed to go - past that wharf, or farther and around that long pipeline pier? It was the pipeline pier.

Our landing at the beach.

Happy Holidays!

We landed and secured our boats, then went into the market. I had a hot pork and noodle soup.

Nom !

After about an hour, it was time to return. We took in a good view of Manhattan across the way.

From parking lot to Manhattan.

It was a great trip. If you want to see the on-water portions, check out my video with a lil' holiday music set to it.

Happy holidays to all !

Another Rescue

The cowgirl found herself involved in another rescue today, this one in the middle of the Hudson, with some additional challenges.

I led a group of five people south to Mitsuwa, an asian supermarket in Fort Lee. It was my first time paddling this distance with this group, and overall, it was a good trip, even including this minor mishap.

We were coming south from Inwood, and had almost completed crossing the Hudson below the GWB. We were at about 155th street based on the Manhattan grid. Suddenly, I heard one of our whistles blow. I turned around and one of our paddlers was in the water.

She was OK. She managed to hold on to her boat and her paddle. After some maneuvering, we got lined up to pull her boat out and dump the water from it.

The problem was, she was in a boat that had no bulkheads. A typical sea kayak has watertight walls in front of your feet and behind your seat, meaning that as long as the hatches stay closed, only about a third of the boat will fill with water. Her boat was a hand-crafted skin-on-fram boat - a wooden frame with a waterproof cloth sewed on. The entire boat filled with water.

This made the boat heavier and harder to lift out of the water. Even after we dumped it, there was still plenty left in it. On top of that, conditions were such that more water came in once we put it back in. We actually had to get her back out of the boat after the first time we got her in, to try and get the water out.

We did do that though. As rescues go, this took longer than usual, but it did work out. She was able to paddle farther on - against wind and current - and suffered no further mishap on the way out or on the way back.

It did push my knowledge base a bit. I've never dealt with one of these boats, and now I've got a better idea of what to do. First of all, it takes much more effort and time to drain. Second, the boat needs float bags. We were lucky this one didn't completely sink - the bags were only partially inflated.