Updated Charts

A couple of years ago, when I took an assessment, part of it included some basic navigation. The other candidate was asked to locate where we were on a chart, and then to identify a buoy.

He pointed at one, and the assessor shook his head. Later on though, we had a bit of fun trying to find that buoy. It wasn't on any of our charts!

The buoy is off the northwest corner of Governors Island in New York Harbor. Here is a picture from my paper chart:

The Paper.

A year or so ago I bought an app for my iPhone (iNavx, also available for OS X). This downloads maps from NOAA, and so can be more up to date.

iNavx.

There it is: Green #1.

So, the next most obvious question is, what is it doing there? It's green, so marking the right side of the channel to see - but that doesn't make sense if you've coming down the Hudson to see, because the buoy would be to your left.

My theory is, it's to keep traffic from the East River (to the right and up on the images above) farther out from the Statue Cruises at Battery, and also wide if they're coming around Battery - that area can be something of a blind corner.

I actually contacted the Coast Guard, and got the following response - more or less confirming my theory, with a little more detail. Apparently this is a newly marked path that replaces Deep Water Range - if I read my old chart correctly, that dashed line from a flashing light on one of the Brooklyn piers to Green 35, east of Ellis Island.

"Good Afternoon [Kayak Cowgirl]  Deep Water Channel LB 1 (Light List Number 27350) is the first of three buoys (1, 2 and 3) that replaced the Deep Water Range that brought deep draft vessel into and out of the East river past Dimond Reef, north of Governors Island. LB 1 ensures that outbound vessels from the East River are past and clear of Governors Island before turning south. And it does help deep draft heading into the Hudson R avoid the 30 foot curve off the Battery."

If you look closely on that old chart, in my snapshot above, you can see what they mean about the "30 foot curve off the battery". There's a faint line kinda looping south and then east to include a 29' depth mark. The old chart marked a pretty generic path through the area. The newly-placed buoy basically marks the end of that bar - if you're a deep-draft vessel, you'd definitely prefer to keep to the left of it on the way out.

So, mystery solved. Charts, and the markers and channels they document, can change over time. Be sure to check for updated information before heading out to sea!

Update: On further review with a fellow chart enthusiast, we noticed that the old path - the dashed line indicating a range - was based on a straight line between flashing read markers at the northernmost Brooklyn-side piers and Green 35 near Ellis Island. And, the new channel is almost exactly that - draw a straight line through the new Green 1 and Green 3 buoys and the new Red buoy near Dimond Reed, and it's an exact match to the old range.

However, those markers are not on the new chart - are they gone, perhaps as part of the refurbishment of that waterfront?

So little had changed for vessels heading to and and from the East River and the sea, other than how they are marked, but my original hypothesis is supported - vessels making that corner 'round the Batter will want to know where the edge of that 30' bank is.

Maine Challenges

One of the reasons I wanted to return to Maine was the array of challenging conditions in close proximity to each other. From the camp were easy paddles to a nice tiderace, multiple eddies to work with, and islands and channels for navigation. Add in some cartopping and there was rock-hopping, surfing, and choppy conditions. We did a little of each, a couple every day.

For example, when practicing some trip leading, we found some nice little arrangements of rocks to paddle over. The trip leader had to scope it out the path, then give simple instruction and shepherd us through. This we an elbow-shaped loop behind a rock. We each went through, twice, and on the last go, the paddler capsized (on purpose, for practice). The trip leader had to rescue him.

Another scenario had us landing in surf. Not "surf landing", but landing in surf. This was novel to the Cowgirl. The idea was to approach the beach in a controlled manner, rather than riding a wave to be deposited on the beach. Well,the surf reflexes of yours truly meant that she kept paddling forward in the trough to catch a wave. In so doing, her boat broached on the wave, yawing about sixty degrees, and she capsized in about a foot of water.

What was meant to happen, and which was eventually attempted, was to paddle backwards in the "big suck" of water rushing back from the beach. This gave the boat momentum into the next wave approached from behind, making it more stable, and then paddling forward to get closer to the beach. In this manner, a successful landing was obtained.

We also did a fair amount of cliff surfing - as water rushes past cliffs, a little wave can push along but not into a cliff. That was a neat way to paddle - catch a wave but don't hit that wall!

The local tiderace was something we didn't get to until the very last morning, and it was an early one at that. To get the tides right, we had to be on the water and 0500! It was worthwhile though. There's a spot, called Lower Hell Gate, where the river kinda makes a little jog to the side, with a long slope narrowing down to a point at the water. There's an eddy to shelter in and a prime viewing spot for an instructor to do some land-based coaching.

Marc Parsons, at Lower Hell Gate.

Last year, I capsized here once. I wanted a rematch. While the tide was a bit higher and I didn't try side-surfing, I did managed to keep in the stream and practice moving from side to side, saw my bow drive into the standing wave, and then back out with the current. It felt great. I then crossed the river and practiced moving sideways in an out of eddies.

The area of Knubble Bay, the Kennebec and Sheepscot rivers near Bath, are great an varied placed to practice sea kayaking. I fully intend to return.

Maine Navigation

A fair amount of time was spent on practical navigation and trip planning. Toward these ends we engaged a number of activities.

One was simply landmark navigating the waterways near the camp. Along with the Kennebec, there are several smaller rivers and tributaries streaming through the rocks to the sea, resulting in numerous islands and bay and headlands, and requiring various day markers and buoys. So, with a chart, we ought to have been able to easily find our way around on a simple trip.

With a chart. This cowgirl's problem was that she lost her chart case on a previous training event, and and the "water resistant" charts she had printed may as well have been on newsprint. They were shredded under the bungies within minutes of contact with the water, and completely unusable after the fourth re-folding.

Luckily one of the coaches loaned her a chart - which was promptly washed away in surf.

In any event, on a separate exercise, we learned to use our compasses, taking bearings, putting "red in the shed', determining our position from various bearings, and so on. Having read up on this skills it was exciting to practice them, finally, in an environment that offered up the full range: markers, buoys, landmarks, magnetic variation.

We had an indoor lesson as well. Now, no longer learning how to determine where we were, we'd learn to determine where we wanted to go. Here's a chart, here's a topo map, here's an ordnance survey, oh and here are some photocopies of a pilot book. Now, plot a course around Anglesey, or something. We all managed to, but I have to say course plotting by committee is vexing.

From it all, I obtained a more robust understanding of how to use a compass. Plotting courses I felt familiar with, but the work in the field was something I haven't had to contend with to date.

A Sound Idea, Pt. 2

Part of the original plan was to meet up with some friends of mine - Jean and Alex from the 2 Geeks 3 Knots blog. The 2 Geeks paddled up to meet us from their home base in Larchmont, arriving in the evening and setting up camp next to ours.

We traded stories and talked about gear, especially the keeping-warm kind, as we shared dinner and a little wine. Kayak Dov shared a story from his hiking days, about a man he met on the Appalachian Trail who always built a fire, and always attracted company. "Fires are the center of community," the man had said. "Build a fire and you pull people together."

As warm as it was during the day, the temperature dropped considerably overnight, into the low forties. Our nighttime dinner was fortified with hot tea, dry clothes, and a storm cag to keep the wind off.

The original plan was to leave early the next morning, but we all decided to sleep in. Kayak Dov and I were in no hurry, and the geeks had only gotten to the island. We took our time Sunday morning, before packing all our things and heading out on the sound.

Breaking Camp.

Good Morning !

We headed out to exit the islands.

Threading through the islands.

Past nice houses on the shore. . .

. . .and a nice house on an island.

Up around a little point.

And finally, back out on the sound.

Our first major landmark - a flagpole on a point.

We passed a lot of nice and very interesting houses along the shore.

House with gazebo.

Seawalls and townships.

Jean on the shore.

Eventually we approached Stamford, peeking in the harbor and passing to the interior of the eastern breakwater.

Coming on Stamford.

We paddled along the breakwater.

The channel between breakwaters.

 

Heading back out.

We spotted Osprey hatchlings high in this marker.

A marker and a home.

Passing an old lighthouse.

We paddled past Stamford and over to Greenwich Point, which is the southeastern point of Lloyd Neck. There's a wide wading beach there with facilities and concessions. Closed to kayakers except during the off-season, we pressed our luck and landed away from the crowds, making use of the facilities and taking a prolonged snack and water break.

I learned a new term on this trip: diaper streak. It's not something I see on the Hudson or the harbor, whether because boaters are better behaved or the water flushes more. Diaper streaks, the 2 Geeks informed us, are where vessels discharge their human waste into the sound, an it spreads out in a long, brown stripe on the surface of the water. They look as appealing as they sound, and they can be quite long and unavoidable. We saw quite a few - more than is typical, the 2 Geeks said. It was disgusting and we encourage all boaters to be cognizant of how to manage their waste properly.

Sound Keeper offers free pumpouts to boating vessels. Give a hoot, don't pollute.

A shady shack.

There were a few little kids who side-eyed our boats as they scooped sand near the surf with their parents. We saw a lot of people in swim clothes and bikinis, mostly just sunning themselves. They were quite a contrast to our drysuits and layers underneath! We got a few looks but nothing more than, "there's something you don't see every day."

Kayak Dov paddling close to shore.

Once rested, we continued our voyage. In short order we were at the Captain Islands.

Wee Captain.

Little Captain.

Great Captain.

The Captain Islands were actually our first choice for a trip like this. They're far from our home base in Inwood, the northern tip of Manhattan, New York City, but can be reached in a good day's paddle. However, everyone we talked to indicated that 1) they're all private property except Great Captain and 2) the township of Greenwich is very strict about people landing on their shores, and there is no sanctioned camping at all. Having seen the landscape I don't think there is a way we could have avoided being seen.

The funny thing about the lighthouse at Great Captain is that the light atop the house is no longer in service. It's been replaced by the tower out front.

Paddling past the light at Great Captain.

After this, the clouds started obscuring the sun intermittently, and our headwind started to pick up and gust a bit. We were close, but our pace slowed. The last few miles would be challenging, partly because we were growing tired but more because the conditions increased against us.

We gradually passed Rye, New York, where we could see parts of the Rye Playland amusement park. Then on a bit further to Peningo Point.

Passing into a cloudy later afternoon.

Approaching a pass.

Off in the distance, we could start to make out the Manhattan skyline. What was really curious here, more easily seen later than when I took this picture, is that our angle had us seeing from left to right the Throgs Neck Bridge, Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, and then lower Manhattan. The bridges made sense because the Throgs Neck is the first one in from the sound. However they're lateral from the Upper East Side. Manhattan seemed very out of place!

Home, in the distance.

The skies lightened up for a bit for the final push in. We were soon paddling through sailing marinas, the American Yacht Club and Milford Harbor, the Larchmont Yacht Club and Larchmont Harbor.

A Big Buoy.

Eventually we arrived at our final destination: Horseshoe Harbor in Larchmont, a tiny little nook of sheltered water next to a sizable boathouse. We unloaded our boats first, and then took a group photo. A park surrounds the cove, so almost as soon as we began a couple stopped and offered to take our photo, so we could all be in it.

I have to say again that this was an amazing trip and I'm so happy it came together. All three of my paddling partners were great company, and as a bonus I saw one friend meet two others for the first time. The weather of the three days was as near perfect as could be for paddling and for camping. While the paddling legs were long, they were rewarding, and the island was very interesting.

It's the first expedition of the season. We're off to a good start!

Epilogue:
At the very end of our journey, once the boats were stowed and we'd all showered, and Kayak Dov was fetching the car for our ride back, the 2 Geeks and I found ourselves overwhelmed with choices in a restaurant:

6 oz steak (with mushrooms? onions? rare/medium rare/well done?)
8 oz steak (with mushrooms? onions? rare/medium rare/well done?)
11 oz steak (with mushrooms? onions? rare/medium rare/well done?)
chicken (grilled, smoked, barbecue)
Half a dozen kinds of beer and half a dozen house coctails.
Choice of two sides.

Camping, and at sea, your choices are very simple:
 do you eat the food you brought now or later?
  do you stop for water now, or later?
  Do you paddle out of your way and out of the wind, or stay on course and fight the wind?

Life at sea, and camping, is very simple. We recognize that we are privileged to be able to live so humbly as a choice, and not a permanent state of affairs, unlike so many in the world who are permanently without a home. "Getting away from it all" here meant the countless decisions, checklists, and short personal transactions that make up our daily lives. It does put in perspective the wealth of choices those of us in the modern first world have. When our only major choices are where to build shelter, when to eat, and how to deal with the weather, coming back to "civilization" and its myriad  options for each of these is a bit jarring.

That said, I'm not complaining. I'll take a hot shower after a long paddle every day if I can.

A Sound Idea, Pt. 1

Martha's Vineyard. Block Island. Captains Harbor. These were all ideas we had for a long weekend paddling off Long Island Sound (or Block Island Sound). We had a few constraints in terms of when we could take off from work, but the major ones were: where would we have a good chance of camping without getting in trouble? After asking around, we settled on another set of islands, based on the advice of some friends.

I won't say specifically where, but basically the incredible Kayak Dov and I started in one place further east, paddled eighteen nautical miles, landed and camped for two nights, then paddled to where our friends lived, also about eighteen nautical miles.

Anyway, who wouldn't want to live on an island all to themselves?

Weight for It
Pouring water takes time - and it's heavy. I bought a couple of collapsible eight liter bags and filled them . . .filled them . . .filled them with water bought at the store.

As I poured, I contemplated that all that water would go into me, and then out of me. It was mesmerizing.

We figured we would need about fourteen liters apiece for the trip. Water weighs 2.2 lbs per liter, which meant that these bags alone added over 35 lbs of weight to my boat. I looked forward to dropping all that weight as the trip progressed.

We both brought along food as well. Snacks, as well as breakfast and dinner. I had a camping stove and fuel for it, as well as some enamel bowls and mugs.

Most of my kit I've looked up the weights and written on them (mugs, 4 oz weight). Of course, the biggest items were my tent and sleeping bag. My tent comfortably sleeps two. My sleeping bag crunches down quite a bit, but is still 3 lbs 3 oz. Weight and volume. Suddenly kayaking involves elementary school math.

Launching
We'd found a little public launch about two miles up a river from the sound, right in front of a shopping center. Kayak Dov would leave his car there, take the train back, and come back to pick me up, when it was all done.

My boat was very near capacity. We could barely lift it fully loaded, and when I slid it into the water off the dock, the wood beneath creaked and groaned. However, once in the water, it was imminently paddle-able. I had good trim, a little biased to the stern. I could edge comfortably, and while it took a bit more effort to get going, I could go.

One kind gentleman questioned out plans. "The river gets up to ten knots. I've pulled people out myself. People just like you." Really? Nothing we researched indicated such strong currents, and we certainly didn't experience them. In a little more than half an hour we'd gotten to the mouth of the river and on to Long Island Sound.

Paddling
We paddled past a lot of lighthouses and markers, including this one at Stratford Point.

Kayak Dov Rounding Stratford Point.

We debated whether to stay near shore or go farther out. I favored the latter, as for me this was a navigation exercise. I'd worked out that a heading of 240 based on a couple of offshore waypoints would get us there. However an offshore tailwind steadily blew us back towards shore, and I spent a lot of this leg of the trip just keeping track of where we were using buoys and landmarks.

We did keep ourselves entertained though. Pretty sure this was Black Rock. If you squint hard you can see that the sailboat is being towed in.

Black Rock, Towing.

Near an area called The Cows, we were a bit perplexed because we only saw one rock-mounted light where we expected two would be in sight. We later attributed this to one compass not being set correctly for magnetic deviation, leading to a lot of head math and a little disagreement about where things were. We took a guess that the lighthouse we saw was the outermost of the two, and in hindsight we were probably right.

Pretty sure Black Rock, near The Cows.

We paddled on. One thing I learned - or had reinforced rather, as I've experienced it before - is that bearing paddling is very much an act of faith. If I keep going in this direction for two hours I will get there. It's not totally an act of faith - have your wits about you regarding the wind and current. However, far from landmarks, there can be little sense of progress, and you just have to trust that as long as you maintain a given course, you'll be near enough to your destination to find it.

We Paddled.

I have to confess a couple of things.

First of all, I was low on energy. I'd carb'd up the night before, and had a decent breakfast, and lunch, and power bar on the way, but I was flagging. I felt slow, though Kayak Dov later pointed out that, along the lines of what I wrote above, without anything nearby against which to gauge speed it's easy to feel like you're going nowhere. I stopped for breaks more frequently than I would have liked, and ten minutes felt like half an hour.

Once we landed, I worked out that I hadn't been especially slow. Despite the deviation from plan, we'd more or less followed the plan and arrived only a little later than expected. It's only that along the way, I hadn't been feeling that.

The second thing was that I misread the horizon. There was one point where we were much farther offshore than I'd intended, perhaps half a mile to a mile. It's easy to fail to distinguish between a piece of land many miles away and a low headland closer by. For the longest time I mistook our destination for a small spit that we never seemed to have passed, when in fact we were just so far out we never crossed it.

In short order we realized we had already passed the easternmost of these islands and could make what we thought were the middle and westernmost. Suddenly I had renewed energy, just like I've seen in clients. The destination is right there. Full speed ahead!

Unfortunately, we had a little more noodling around to do. There are many islands in this little archipelago, and some of them are connected at low tide. What we thought was our destination clearly wasn't, on account of a house being on it, and the next one over was clearly for the birds only - there were signs posted. However by now we were close enough to shore that I orientated myself and got to a beach.

We got out, checked it out, and made camp. Partly as a result of having to paddle around the islands we'd originally mistook for our destination, we landed at the wrong beach. Instead of a sandy beach with fire pits and outhouses, we were about half a mile around a small point, on a beach mixed of short reeds and large pebbles, with a long mound of shells forming a berm.

We didn't know, and in any event decided it was good enough. We set up camp and made dinner, watched the sun set, and went to bed shortly after.

The Island
The next morning, we got up and explored the island.

The interior pond.

The Argonaut after landing.

On Saturday I took a wee paddle by myself around the island - actually two islands, connected at low tide by a land bridge.

Much closer than usual to this gull.

The old lighthouse.

As I rounded the far point of the far island, I saw a paddleboarder putting out to sea from a long soft beach near the lighthouse. Now, I am a friendly paddler, and said howdy as we got close, but I got barely a response.

Maybe he thought I'd criticize him for being underdressed for the water, or maybe I was just ruining his zen. We were vessels passing in the day, and that was all there was to it.

A paddleboarder.

The inner shore of the westernmost island.

On the back half of my circumnav (duo-circ? It was two islands at once) I came across what I dubbed the wishing well and some old structures that I suppose once supported a walkway out to it.

Remains of former grandeur.

Opposite the north shore of the island was a power plant. That stack had been one of our landmarks the last few miles in. It was quiet, and not smoky.

A power plant.

Several smaller islands dotted a small bay just northwest of out island. On the one hand, we thought it was a shame that they'd been turned over to private development. On the other hand, if we had one, we'd certainly put it to use! They seemed to be summer homes though. I didn't see any signs of habitation in any of them.

Houses in the interior bay.

More houses.

Each one unique.

On this last house, the forces of erosion had clearly taken their toll. I don't expect this home has too much longer, relatively speaking.

The high ground - for how long?

When I got back, I joined Kayak Dov for a walk around the island.  At low tide, we saw quite a bit more than our earlier reconnoiter.

Dead Horseshoe Crab.

At times we saw other kayaks in the distance. This fellow was making great speed. We tried to identify the style of his boat. It looked somewhat ski-ish, or race-style sea kayak. Kayak Dov thought it might be a skin-on-frame boat.

We tried hailing him but got no response.

Another Paddler !

You can't stop a boy from frolicking over nature !

Beautiful tidal strands.

As we came around the island, I found that parts of this bay were closed off at low tide.

Those same islands.

A wading bird - white egret, I think.

What really took me about this island was that you could clearly see the effect of tide on the geography and local flora. At low tide so much more of the island was exposed, and at narrow bars of sand and stone you could make out the flow of water, and even visualize the slow erosive effects that must take decades, even centuries, to change the landscape. I really felt like I could see Earth as a living planet, and the effects the tides, and by extension our moon and sun and our oceans and the wind, have on the world we live on.

Most of our isthmus.

This included the mussels and reeds. Most of the island's flora were these short stubby reeds, amongst which sprawling clusters of mussels grew. Our camp awoke each morning to the calls of oystercatcher birds, and we could see them streaming down to the fields for breakfast. The tides, the moon, the sea, they pumped in and out, feeding the mussels, which filtered the water and fed the birds. We were living in a great organism, this little island, on our living planet.

Mussels.

Huge tracts of mussels.

In this next photo, everything greenish was submerged at high tide. Our first trek around the island we'd walked very close to the tree line and only seen the remains of one old dock. This time around, we saw so much more. There was quite a bit of old working equipment, indicating either a formerly working embayment, or that old ramps and docks and other detritus from those houses washed up here.

A formerly working embayment.

As I mentioned, some parts of the bay closed off at low tide.

Grandeur from the shore.

 Kayak Dov checked out the scene of the low tide plain.

Patrolling the remains.

I spotted a little hermit crab. At first we thought he was dead, but he moved a bit. Perhaps he was lost, or got in a bad spot with the tide.

A wee crab, lost in the reeds.

Speaking of grabs - we found this major crab city in a small channel at low tide. There was plenty of mud for them to build homes in, tons of little holes we could watch them crawl in and out from. I didn't take video but believe me, they were scurrying all over the place. I'm not sure what kind they were - they didn't seem to possess the huge claw of the fiddler crab. They seemed very busy - until we got too close and they scurried underground!

Crabopolis.

We ended our little walkabout atop a high point overlooking the north and east. I could spot my little wishing well from there, as well as a light farther out in the sound.

Tomorrow's Horizon from a high point.

Afterwards, we had an early dinner ("first dinner" - we'd eat more later) of bean and rice burritos with salsa, cheese, and bell peppers.

Burritos for dinner!

This was the first part of an amazing trip. It was my first take at long distance trip planning and navigation, and I learned what worked, what didn't, and what to account for once on the move. We had brilliant conditions for paddling - much less wind than expected, sunny, great visibility. It was my first really long trip of the season and I re-learned old lessons on pacing and managing nourishment.