Release Date 2/26/2012

It was still a windy day, but not nearly as bad as the last time. Tides again dictated a North paddle.

Although I planned to meet friends on the NYC side, the wind forced me to go up the Jersey side, then I had to cross over and get their attention because they didn’t get my message.

I have been paddling the Tide Race X-Plore S on all these trips and I’m really liking it. Hard to tell if it is as fast as my old touring boat, but it is very comfortable, and I think it will be good in bigger water. Hopefully I can try it in the surf sometime.

We went back to the sunken restaurant barge, but this time I was able to board by climbing up the side with some boat stabilizing help.

We even found a few cool souvenirs that were left aboard. It’s funny the thing must have just sunk all of a sudden. Some of the pots in the kitchen still have something in them, with plastic wrapped over it, like it was the middle of dinner service when they abandoned ship.

It’s build on a barge, and when I looked down the stairs I can see its on the bottom and full of water.

We then went in for lunch again, and I resisted all samples.

By the time we headed home the wind had dropped way off, and it was a really nice day.

Truth: Marine Salvage is cool.

Release Date 2/12/2012

This was another day when all my friends but one bailed on a trip because of the cold and really high wind.

I paddled up from Pier 40 to Pier 96 on the Jersey side of the river to get a bit of shelter from it. The wind was from the W and NW, so it was much smoother on that side, and when close enough to land there was less wind.

We played around this sunken riverboat/restaurant a bit, but we were too cold to attempt to board it.

I met up with my paddling friend at Pier 96 and we made it up to Misuwa, before the cold and hunger drove us in for noodles and sake.

We had a nice lunch, and a carbonated sake to warm up.

They had a cream-puff stand set-up, but it was too crowded and the line too long for us to get any.

I then got on a kick and went around the store trying every free sample, and buying something from every sample giver. It was the kind of foolish obsession that sometimes seizes me. Now I have a bunch of weird food to eat. So far the Nori is the best thing.

I got a great idea to re-warm myself before going back outside into the cold. I put my sleeve up to the hot air hand dryer in the men’s room and it caused me to blow-up like a balloon.

Truth: Carbonation makes things fun.

Release Date 2/1/2012

I released this message near Suwanee Florida while I was hunting feral hogs.

It was a great time to be out in the woods, quite cool in the mornings, but warm in the afternoon. We stayed at a local hotel for a change, which was much easier than staying inland and trailering the boat all the way to the ramp every morning.

I saw 2 pigs over 3 days. One on the first day, and one on the second, but I couldn’t line-up a shot on either one. I was using a scope with a red-dot site, if you look carefully you can see the little red crosshairs in the picture. I switched to this because of my eyes, I now have trouble sighting a traditional rifle, because the sites are too close to my eyes and are very blurry. (See hog hunt in November and results of escaped hog)

My friend’s nephew managed to get 2 pigs, on the first day, he is apparently much quicker on the draw.

We left most of the carcasses out in the woods, and it was amazing how quickly the buzzards ate it all. In one case they stripped a carcass clean in just a few hours, we dropped it on a sandbar in the morning, but lunch time it was just a skeleton, and a few hooves.

Hard to see, but these little black dots are buzzards, must be 100 of them.

3 hours from pig to skelleton

There was some beautiful scenery, the sky was so clear you could see all the way to horizon over the swamp, and sometimes I just sat in the tree and looked out for a long time. I continued to hunt mostly by climbing up trees. It seems the best way to get a clear field of view over a large amount of area. 

Truth: You have to get-up early to beat the rednecks to the spot.

Release Date 1/15/2012

It was my first paddle of the year. 

Not the first time in the water that was at Coney Island for the Polar Bear Swim, but I didn't get a chance to toss a bottle out there.

I went North from Pier 40, met a friend at Pier 96, and we went on over to Mitsuwa for lunch. It was a gusty wind up to 15 knots, and cold in the low 30s, but as long as we kept moving we were ok. 

We saw a really cool cable laying ship that has been out in the harbor for weeks. It is called the Guilo Verne (Jules Verne). The big ship wasn't doing any work, but they were stretching the cable over by the Jersey side from a barge. 

I took this interesting picture at the Crab House restaurant, notice the huge tangle of fishing tackle in the background. 

I foolishly didn't bring any lights and was getting dark by the time I got back. If I had been out any longer it would have been dangerous. It gets dark so early I should pretty always bring a light this time of year.

I was all full of sake at home, so I bought a 12yo bottle of Japanese whiskey, and enjoyed it in a nice warm bath at home.

Truth: Sometimes people lie

Release Date 11/14/2011

Breezy Point.

We tried to go surfing on yet another very very mild late fall day. It was 70 degrees when we loaded up the boats in Park Slope, and maybe 65 at the put in, and a bit overcast.

Low tide was around 4:00PM, and we got on the water by 2:00PM.

There was very little surf, and it was broken up, so it was hard to catch good rides, but we had fun playing around in it, and trying to catch waves.

After a while I got bored and tried to do some fishing, but a fish bit off the end of my lure, and that seemed to make it very unappetizing, since I didn’t get any more bites. I did paddle around the point and saw lots of people surfcasting and some jetski guys jumping the shore surf. It was amazing how high they could jump on fairly small waves.

I watched a fisherman catch a small stripped bass, but he told me later that was the only one he caught, and that the fishing has been very poor this year. It might be because the water is still very warm, and fish haven't migrated. 

We enjoyed our bagels and a few glasses of wine and watched the Sun settle into a cloudy Western sky.  We started back around 4:45PM, and probably got out of the water by 6:00PM when it was pretty dark.

Truth: It’s colder when dark.

Release Date 10/30/2011

I went to a kayaking seminar up in Stonington CT. The idea was to paddle in all the tide races near there. They have  2 that are normally used. Sugar Reef, and some other nearby reefs that run on the ebb, and Wikapesa passage that runs on the flood.

On 10/28 we went to Sugar Reef for a tide race paddle, but it was a bust because it was VERY windy, but the wind was going with current, and effectively flattened it to nothing.

We could see where it would normally be running at about 1:00PM, and stayed for about an hour, but it never  really turned on and the waves were barely 1 foot peak to trough.

Using the Currenct predictions for Napatree point we get a max ebb at 14:40 of 3.1 knots, so this should have made the race run, but the wind was going in exactly the same direction, and knocked  off.  We got on the reef around 2:00PM.  Spreading out to the West from Sugar Reef, we also tried some other spots that are part of the same reef system, Horeshoe Reef?? But there were no good waves anywhere.

The weather the next day was even worse, more wind from the Northwest around 20Kts. The plan was to paddle out to a place called Wikapessa pass just off the Eastern tip of the Fischer’s Island. The current was flooding. This spot only runs on the flood, so it would have been Wind against current.

The instructors tried to split the people into 3 groups, but the participants didn’t really pay attention and were soon spread out all over the harbor, about 20 people total. I got way out in front figuring the leader would take us to the best spot, but he went a bit down current along the southern side of Fischer’s Island. I think his plan was to work along the shore out of the current back up to the spot, but the people were so spread out they got concerned, and took most of the group back to the CT shore.

Yes it WAS windy

One of the groups from the far back went on to the pass, and had a good hour or so of surfing, because their instructor noticed the current was less further East, and had them paddle over that way. Nobody else knew that was happening, and I had to stick with my group.

The slog back along the coast was miserable since it stayed really windy, with the wind shifting off to the Northeast, and then pretty heavy rain. We stopped for lunch right outside of the harbor, which was really unpleasant in the cold rain. I didn’t have a chart and wasn’t paying attention or I would have requested we simply go back to the bar. It was only a 30 minute paddle from lunch back to the dock.

On the third day the wind was even greater, and I took the less aggressive choice of the two trips back to Napatree Point. It was so cold and the wind so strong that I though getting back to Wikapesa not have been possible, but this was a mistake, since that group went out, surfed, and came back before we got back from a boring slog along the beach.

I didn’t have any pogies or gloves, but was able to borrow a set of gloves from a friend on the last day.

The entire region was pummeled by SNOW Saturday and Sunday, but in our little sliver of CT it was just rain. We saw the snow on the drive back on Sunday night.

Truth: Ice is slippery.

Release Date 10/23/2011

For my birthday I went hunting in Florida in the Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge. We were hunting wild pigs, or feral hogs (which sounds cooler).

It was a great time of year to be out in the woods, a bit cool in the early morning, but really nice in the afternoons.

I went to an isolated part of our favorite spot to very thick brush. I got up in a tree where I got one a number of years ago, and waited. It is black powder season and we were using primitive single shot muzzle loading guns where you have to manually add the powder and shot. They are MUCH more accurate and reliable than the old-time kind, and almost always go off, but the reloading is very time consuming.

After an hour or so ~ 11:00 AM I saw some movement in the bush, and then a pig appeared rooting around in the palmettos. I waited 5 minutes or so for him to get closer, and very cautiously got ready. When I thought he was close enough I took a shot, but I MISSED him.

The noise from these guns is deafening and the hog ran right toward me. The noise was so tremendous he didn’t know where it had come from, and he basically run right under my tree, coming within a few feet of me, but then of course he disappeared into the bush never to be seen again.

Later that same day, about 15:00 I saw another one from another tree, but he never got close enough to get a bead on, so I didn’t get a shot in on him. The second one was at a new spot, and I needed to clear a bit more of the dead branches out of the way to hunt from that tree. 

Truth: Sometimes you miss.