Jackie Fenton wrote: > > Hi Ralph! > > How did your Memorial weekend get-together go? Will you or someone > be doing a write-up for PaddleWise? Take any pictures? :-) > > abrazos, > > Jackie Hi Jackie The weather held up for the three days and we had good conditions except for some wind on Monday that shortened our intended paddle a bit. It was all good company but none of the out-of-towners showed up in the end and so it was mainly a local, still appreciative, crowd. We thought of you a lot for putting together this listserver and several times toasted your fine efforts to keep us in line. The Volins and I were at all 3 days of paddling. The Leonhardts showed for the first and third day...I like both couples a lot from previous trips and got to know the Volins better. Bill Covert from Pennsylvania, who paddles with Debbie Reeves New Jersey crew a lot, also was on two of the trips and was a delight to meet, a real witty guy with a wry sense of humor. On the Statue trip a number of Downtown Boathouse regulars joined us, ones that mainly lurk on Paddlewise plus a few who learned finally of the listserver . . . the T-shirts drilled the URL into their non-retentive brains :-). There are photos that the Volins, Leonhardts and Bill took including of our festive dinner at City Island near where we paddled the last day. I think they will put them on the list. We did our Memorial ceremony on Sunday with nine paddlers. It seemed appropriate as we were at West Point with our put-in and take out at the Military Academy, the cradle of many who have served and sacrificed for several centuries in our nation's honor. We got the flowers six miles south of there at our turnaround. A newcomer and lurker on PaddleWise and a nice guy who we all enjoyed meeting, Tom Dowling (tombrooklyn_at_somethingoranother), was on a small marsh island changing his shirt (it was a rash guard shirt that was, of all things, chafing!!) when I spied some marsh lilies behind him. I had him pick a bunch and place them on his back deck. We had some headwind heading back to West Point but his wide body shielded the petals from blowing off their stems. When we were just shy of West Point, I had the paddlers pass by as I handed them each a flower from Tom's back deck. I spoke a few words about rememberance and sacrifice and asked them to each hold a moment of silence and then cast the flowers on the waters. We then headed into West Point with the flowers flowing behind us on the same flood current that coasted us in. Wish you were there. Abrazos back. ralph diaz -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024 Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com "Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
I have to add my comments - first of all, I took pictues all thre days, though I make no guarantees for quality. No matter, I will post them - but they're still in the camera. I'll finish the roll today or tomorrow, & bring them in, so I should have them by the weekend. All three paddles were wonderful in and of themselves, and the variety made for a truly memorable weekend. I've paddled to the Statue several tiems, but never from the Downtown Boathouse, which was a much better trip than the usual route that I've taken (from Liberty State Park in New Jesey) - great views, some interesting water (when you could see the paddle in front of you one minute & not the next) & the chance to get knocked over by members of a local sailing school (didn't happen this trip, but one of the participants said it had happened to him last year!) Sunday we paddled in my local waters, so it was familiar territory. But it was such a good group of people! We stopped near a spot that Bob & I knew from hiking it last winter, & a number of us got out of our boats & took a short hike. When we got to Popolopen Creek, our destination, it was still to early to go back, so we went a bit further south, into Doodletown Marsh (I didn't make up that name!) & just hung out. That's where Ralph found the flowers. Most of the group came back to our house for a barbecue afterwards, & Ralph & Bill stayed over, so we even extended our good times through breakfast. Monday we had a small group and some pretty good winds. That was really a fun paddle - not really difficult, but you had to work. Then after lunch we figured we'd have a bit more wind before getting into the shelter of Glen Island for the rest of the trip home, but the wind seemed to have died down completely, it was pretty much dead calm. So the trip back was just a leisurely meander, with plenty of chatting. We followed the paddle with a seafood dinner on City Island. We got stuck in parade traffic trying to get onto the island, & Bill bailed at that point, since he still had a long trip home. Hopefully next time we do something like this, he can stick around. I would really encourage other groups to get together -small groups, large groups, it doesn't matter. Perhaps NY wasn't the optimum place to have a get together - it might be too far for many people, and then some people just don't like NY (it doesn't make them bad people). And maybe a holiday weekend was too hard for a lot of people - they might have family commitments, etc. But I'd like to see more get togethers, all over the country. It would be really cool to have a national convention, but that'll never happen. If anyone wanted to get a group together anywhere within travelling distance, I know we would come. Anyhow, we thought of all of you, and especially Jackie, lots during the weekend. I hope you all had great weekends, too. Joan > > Hi Ralph! > > > > How did your Memorial weekend get-together go? Will you or someone > > be doing a write-up for PaddleWise? Take any pictures? :-) > > > > abrazos, > > > > Jackie > ve brains :-). > > There are photos that the Volins, Leonhardts and Bill took including > of > our festive dinner at City Island near where we paddled the last > day. I > think they will put them on the list. > *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:33:14 PDT