On Saturday I visited New York City for the first time and I saw it as few people get to see it ... by kayak. Shannon and I joined Susan, Kathy, Laura and Chris for the annual circumnavigation of Manhatten by kayak which is organized by Jerry Blackstone. To see a map of our route click here.

I decided to paddle the Mirage because Susan had warned me not to bring the surfski. In her earliest email about doing the Manhattan circumnavigation she wrote, "the water is absolutely, totally, utterly, fantastically, DISGUSTING all the way around. I think they found a dead body one year and sightings of dead animals are frequent. BUT don't let that deter you (from bringing the surfski) ... " Hmmm. Well the thought of dangling my legs down in the surfski and perhaps brushing the top of a dead body made it easy for me to choose the Mirage.

Because the Manhattan paddle started at 0800 Saturday morning, we left Friday afternoon and drove to New Jersey for the night. Susan's friend Chris had volunteered the use of his sister's condo as a crash pad and honestly if we hadn't had a place to stay the night before and after the paddle I doubt I would have gone. So ... THANK YOU CHRIS!

The most direct route from DC to New Jersey is I-95. In fact it's almost a straight shot. But both Shannon and I have "issues" with I-95. Years ago I had a head-on collision on I-95 so if given a choice I prefer another route. Shannon dislikes the tolls. So it was an easy decision. We decided to go up I-83 to Harrisburg, PA to I-81 to I-78 to New Jersey. On a map this looks quite ridiculous. But at the time it seemed pretty logical to us. We figured it would be longer distance-wise but quicker and cheaper. And less stressful for me. And if it hadn't been for the traffic around Baltimore, Harrisburg and all the points in between there and New Jersey ... we would have been right!

After a less than restful sleep we all woke up early and headed out to Pier 96 for the launch. I'm a southern girl and this was my very first visit to "Sin City" ... or so I had been warned. My first impression was that it was just big and crowded. And the water at Pier 96 smelled ... like sewage. After we unloaded the kayaks Susan took me over to a railing and showed me the nasty, smelly water. "Now aren't you glad you're not paddling the surfski?" she said. I was indeed!



Jerry Blackstone was the organizer of this interesting paddle and his friend Steve was serving as trip leader while Jerry provided ground support. All total I think we had something like 31 paddlers signed up for Saturday. In fact, so many people signed up for the circumnavigation that he had another paddle set for Sunday. The total mileage for the circumnavigation was about 31 miles. Jerry had very carefully planned this trip out to work around the tides so we had the tides in our favor through each leg of the trip. At some points we were cruising along at over 7 mph!



Shannon lived in NYC for a several years so she was my unofficial tour guide. She also had the only laminated map between us. So throughout the trip she kept showing me where we were and which bridge we were passing under. It was cool to see all these bridges I had heard about ... the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge and the others.



At one point around the Williamsburg bridge we hit a section with 3 foot waves. For Shannon and I this was just pure fun. Having paddled mostly on the Chesapeake Bay we're accustomed to waves and surf action. But we heard later that some of the other paddlers were really scared by the big waves. I think I clocked our speed in that section at close to 7 mph!

After another mile or so we all stopped for lunch at a sculpture park. And there we got to see some of the wildlife that Susan had talked about. Shannon found a dead rat washed up next to her kayak! See photo to the left. Although this looks like a calendar shot of Shannon she's actually posing with the dead rat. Look closely under the kayak! She also found a large dead bird in the water but I didn't get a photo of that one.

After lunch we continued out on the East River past a section called Hell's Gate. Hell's Gate is a narrow section of the East River between Manhatten and Long Island. It can be dangerous due to strong tidal currents and rocks but we made it through without incident.

We stopped at a boathouse in Harlem for another break. After the break Shannon and I took off in our kayaks ahead of Susan and Kathy. A few hundred feet from the launch I saw what appeared to be another dead thing in the water. As it turns out it was just a cabbage patch type doll. But as we were poking it in the water Susan yelled out, "What's that?" Because we had been talking about dead bodies floating I yelled back, "Oh nothing just another dead body." From afar it really looked like a dead body and I think I had her fooled until she got right up on it. Chris placed the dead body on Susan's kayak for transport to the morgue which we thought was quite funny. I don't think Kathy got the humor because she eventually threw it back to the river with a poke of her paddle. Although this sounds quite tasteless ... it seemed hilarious at the time!

We passed by Columbia University and headed back to the Hudson River for the final 7 miles to Pier 96. We were paddling around 6 mph which I thought was a decent pace, but Jerry had another planned break for us at a waterside bar on the Hudson River. We stopped there for about half an hour and waited for the tide to turn more in our favor. The idea was to give the group the maximum tidal push back to the Pier. Shannon beached herself on the rocks like a seal. I explored the bar and took a gatoraid break.



And he was right. A half hour delay meant the Hudson was rushing past us and we made the final paddle back at around 7.25 mph. This meant that even the slowest paddlers had an awesome speed coming in to the Pier and probably could have just floated back in! Here is the final speed graph from my GPS.



It was an awesome paddle! I got to see Manhattan and some of the famous landmarks from a perspective few people ever see. I would definitely do it again! As usual, I took most of the pictures. Shannon did bring her very serious waterproof camera and took some great city shots of me paddling. Unfortunately it's one of those old fashioned cameras. It uses film! So it will be awhile till I get to see some photos of me.

When we got back to DC we unloaded all the gear and washed the kayaks. There was so much crud from the river still on the boats. Here is a final shot of Shannon inspecting her kayak. She has a lot of black marks on the bottom which we were unable to remove. Any advice on cleaning scuff marks on a fiberglass kayak would be greatly appreciated!

-Susanita