Millstone River New Jersey (from Archive -May 2010)

The Millstone River was a wonderful day out, beautiful weather and a charming paddle. It runs parallel to the Delaware-Raritan Canal, in places only 100 yards apart.

                            Turtles were everywhere

Hudson River - Yonkers to Hastings on Hudson (from Archive June 2010)

Paddled upriver with the rising tide and turned at high tide. The wind picked up on the way back though and it was a hard slog. Would have been impossible against  a tidal current. A good work out, and a good reminder that the Hudson is not to be taken lightly, whatever the weather forecast says.

The Pallisades


Put in at JFK Marina Yonkers 

Industrial Yonkers 

Stopping for a breather

The wind starts to pick up 

Looking back towards the city

Unnamed Ex- Yacht Club

Nissequogue River - Long Island NY ( from Archive May 2010)

The Nissequogue was a great paddle . As I drove in and then launched I noticed nothing of the old King's Park Mental Hospital in the grounds of the Nissequogue State Park . Coming back the enormous main building and many other buildings loomed ominously in the deserted surrounds.


The broad waters of the river mouth into Long Island Sound were a little hard work , but once on the river heading upstream the paddling was easy.

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Sun baking turtle





Some of the many large abandoned and decaying buildings on the grounds of the old King's Park Mental Institution.

Eerie deserted boulevard
Main building

Wallkill River NY April ( From Archive)

At the take out - Junction of Rote 32 and 213 - Perrine's Bridge Park


Perrine's Covered Bridge

En Route back to New York.

One of my other buys at the Collinsville Kayak Store, was a book, " Quiet Water Massachusetts, Connecticut & Rhode Island" by Wilson and Hayes. It is a wonderful book with info of flatwater paddling locations. On the way back to NY we checked out the Bantam River, the launch pictured here.







Will definitely come back here- next weekend hopefully.

Crossed the Housatonic River also , definitely worth checking out.
The trip back from Ct was excellent, We went all the way on local routes, and the country at this time of the year was beautiful.

Hamburg Cove - Connecticut

Sunday dawned warm sunny and still. The perfect day for a paddle. Headed off about 9:15 and took Route 9 down to the coast and across the mouth of the Connecticut River and up the other side of the river mouth.
The put in was by the Hamburg Cove Yacht club, just a rough ramp of sorts. I was feeling so great when I unloaded the kayak and packed up all my stuff, when suddenly I realized that there was no paddle ! Argghh! I looked on line ( thanks goodness for my internet connection on my phone), and found there was an outfitters at Old Saybrook, only about 15 minutes away. Of course they didn't open until 12:00, which gave me about an hour and a half to kill.
I drove to Old Saybrook and waited... patiently...
Now the good news was that Bruce had offered to buy me a paddle for this coming Christmas, so there was no time like the present. I really didn't think it would be such a big deal , to get a new paddle, but I picked a Werner carbon fibre paddle, and couldn't believe it. It was soooo light, as to be featherweight.
I eventually bought the high angle paddle, with the ergonomic shaped shaft.


The manager said I could try it and return it (undamaged) if it didn't suit. My previous paddle was a low angle paddle, so I was not sure how it would go.

I returned to the Cove and put in. By this time the wind had sprung up , but it was still great to be on the water.




Looking Back Towards The Launch



Headed a short way down River;it opened up quite wide, and I turned around and headed back up into the cove and up the Eight Mile River.

It went winding on for some distance, and I passed under a sizable three arch bridge. All around the foliage was in great color, with many maples and their bright red leaves contrasting with the yellow and greens all around.
Views Along the River




The river began to close in and a couple of very large fallen trees made for hard going, but I did manage to go on for a while until the river became too narrow .



Saw some bird life: great heron, mute swan, cormorants.




The new paddle turned out to be phenomenal. It was so light it was much easier to use as a steering tool, I could to work one handed when I was taking photos. It gave me much more power and being shorter, made getting through overhanging trees and tight spaces much easier.










It was a wonderful day paddling.

Connecticut Paddling

This Columbus Day weekend, we discovered the wonderful state that is Connecticut.
I had no idea that there were so many forests, lakes , rivers and ponds to explore. We stayed on spec near Farmington, in the Hampton Inn and Suites Hotel.

It was a pretty new place, and the room was roomy and very comfy. Started having a very quick paddle Saturday morning on my way to Collinsville to see the Collinsville Canoe and Kayak Store.



Put in on the Route 4 Bridge at Unionville. The river was pretty low, but there was a channel running . There were rapids both up and down stream, but as I only had 4o minutes to kill, it was a swift but enjoyable paddle.

I out in in the parking lot on the first left after crossing the bridge from the east - going west.
It was a steep, but doable launch.



The main event was leaving my paddle behind, something I did not discover until the next day - to my horror!


Headed to the Collinsville Kayak, where the people could not have been more helpful. After local knowledge about locations for my next day's paddle and knowledgeable info about winter paddling.
I managed to outfit myself for winter...Yay! . Also decided on Hamburg Cove for tomorrow's paddle.

The Sparkill River and Piermont Marsh

Just a quick paddle this afternoon. Arrived at Piermont among masses of people, the town was over-run as usual with Sunday sightseers. Found a launching spot where Route 9W crosses the river. Ran out of battery power in the camera, so only a few pics today. One can only go upriver for about 400 metres owing to rocks and fast water .





Going back downriver, there are high reeds, along the bank for about the same distance , before hitting the Hudson. There is a small creek running of southwards, right at the mouth, with tall reads forming the Piermont Marsh I followed this for a while until the reeds started overhanging and the channel became very narrow and slow moving.



It was a windy day with a high chop on the Hudson, so I avoided going out onto the River.



Saw numerous American Black Ducks, a male Belted Kingfisher .
Nice paddle, Spent about one and a quarter hours on the water.
Hit the Japanese supermarket in Edgewater in the way home and bought delicious sushi rolls and tuna for our favorite meal of the moment- Seared Black pepper tuna salad. Mmmmmmmmm

Wallkill River (New Paltz to Covered Bridge (Rt 32 / I 87)

A great sunny fall day. There has been about 7 inches of rain this week, so the Wallkill was running very high 6.95 feel at Gardiner Gauging Station.
Put in at New Paltz (Sojourner Truth park launch).







I was going to have a taxi ferry me back from the take out point about 7 miles away, but I met some other kayakers, who decided to take out at the same place, and were happy to bring my back from the take out point, leaving my car and theirs downriver.






Left at 12:30, crossed under the railway bridge at 1:10 and reached the take out at 3:30.





The was a good flow, which resulted in me floating for the last hour, reading and taking photos on the way down. Saw a large murder of crows, the ubiquitous great blue heron and a flash of a kingfisher.