On Sunday, three of us paddled from the Downtown Boathouse in lower Manhattan to explore the Gowanus Canal and visit the new official Parks Dept. kayak launch site at Valentino Park in Red Hook Brooklyn. It was Lloyd Timberlake's first visit to the area and Harry Spitz had been there last year with some other Boathouse regulars. I was a frequent kayak visitor a decade ago to that stretch of the harbor along Brooklyn's shoreline but have not been back since. Earlier this year, I walked about 10 miles of this coastline with the ShoreWalkers and was anxious to revisit the area by kayak. This group's purpose is to open up the city's waterfront to innocent passage by the public; the walks come as close to the water as possible, which at times requires the chutzpah and moxie we New Yorkers take great pride in. I always like these walks; knowing the shoreline from both the land and water heightens the experiences you get whether paddling or walking. (For info on this organization, visit http://www.shorewalkers.org or call the hotline, 212-330-7686) The distance to the kayak launch site at Valentino Park (named after an heroic firefighter not the Latin movie idol lover) is a little more than that to the Statue of Liberty, about 3.5 miles one way. The waters are more challenging than the Statue trip. The area between the Battery and the northern tip of Governor's island are often raked in turbulence especially near Manhattan and is a fairly narrow busy passage for commercial and pleasure boat traffic. Lots of forces stir up the waters. For one, the East River and Hudson River are out of synch about 90 minutes at times of changes in the direction of the currents. For example, the Hudson River continues to ebb for 90 minutes after the East River has switched to its flood current cycle. The clash of currents create strange patterns of water movement and plenty of chop. Boat wakes churn up the waters even more as do winds bouncing off tall buildings in lower Manhattan as they rush through from lowlands of New Jersey or Brooklyn. I recall only once crossing the area when it was a smooth as glass and that was at 7 am on a Sunday with zero traffic and wind and at about midway through a current cycle. Sailors and commercial operators have a name for that stretch of the harbor that aptly sum up the challenges of boating there at times, The Spider. The three of us had set out at 8:30 am. So on the way to Brooklyn experienced little chaos except along the western shoreline of Governor's Island, an area that has always been choppy any time I have been there. We were glad to reach the sheltered waters at the south of the island. Two months earlier I had swam right at that spot with the Swim The Apple "swim-in" from a retired tugboat. It was July 3rd. Some 35 of us swam in the refreshingly clean water, ringed with priceless sights: the massive aircraft carrier JFK and other warships anchored just a half mile to our south; the Statue to our west; and the city skyline towering high north of us. I will skip detailing what the waters were doing when we crossed this end of Buttermilk Channel and proceeded south along Brooklyn's shore except to say that they were at times with us and at times against us in patterns that were hard to fathom; The Spider's web clearly reaches beyond the waters off the Battery. We passed the Valentino Park launch site, noting to ourselves to stop there on the way back. Then past the entrance to the Erie Basin and its long flanking western border formed by the ballast droppped from ships coming from Europe to fill up on raw materials and foodstuffs from a bountiful New World (the Erie Basin charged for dropping the ballast off). The Erie Basin has its earliest origins as the winter home of the barges that serviced the Erie Canal in the early 1800s. Like flocks of birds they headed south to escape the icy grip of winter in the shadow of the budding metropolis of Brooklyn. Now the piece de resistance, the Gowanus Canal. The Gowanus has long been identified with Brooklyn. I remember a movie review in Time Magazine of a flic in which Tony Curtis was portraying a Tartar warrior on the steppes of southeastern Europe. The reviewer felt that Mr. Curtis would be believable in that part "When the Gowanus flowed into the Don." The canal had started life as a bucolic creek fed by waters flowing down from the hilly remains of the glacial moraine that once crossed the heart of Brooklyn. But like other such gems in New York City, for example Newton Creek, these creeks gradually ran up the industrialization scale from watermills to factories to oil refineries and transfer stations turning the once life thriving waters into an incredible dead zone. Change that "dead" to "deadly" because they were threatening to any life form above or in the waters. The Gowanus Canal is in a state of remarkable recovery, thanks to the scaling down of industrial activity and the tunnel built a half century ago to create a flow of fresh water from Buttermilk Channel and whose drawing fan has been recently fixed. When I first peeked into the mouth of the Canal a dozen years ago, I quickly beat a retreat from the foul waters vowing never to return. Tales from the Gowanus Dredgers of improving conditions now drew me back. What we three found was a mixed situation. The mouth of the Gowanus is about 1 mile from Valentino and the Canal itself runs for about 1.5 miles deep into Brooklyn. The bay or mouth is startling clean with the water clear down to the depth of your paddle. You can see the tip of its blade clearly, 6 feet down. The surrounding shoreline is an interesting exercise in industrial archaeology amidst still thriving cement and oil operations that no doubt have cleaned up their act because of federal clean water legislation. However, about 2/3s of the way up the Gowanus, we ran into something that almost defies description. I have seen pollution before: fecus from sewers; slick oil spills; reams of garbage of all descriptions floating at the surface. But never quite anything like what we paddled through for about 4 or 5 blocks of the Canal. The water had a thick opaque film on it like that you see on chocolate pudding. Only this was not appetizing. The film was thick and shiny in all sorts of colors dominated with a silvery color that you could use as a mirror for combing your hair were you to lean over. But who was leaning! All three of us assumed the same paddling posture. Staying well centered in our kayaks, paddle strokes at almost a horizontal level not to drop any of the stuff on our decks or selves. Harry looked over at me, "Ralph, you may want to push those drip rings further out." That evening I was at a rooftop terrace barbeque when I noticed the toenail polish on our hostesses' feet. I called to my wife. "Donna! Elaine's toenail polish is the same color as one of those in that opaque film I saw on the Gowanus!" Her toenail polish was a shiny light green; a nice kinky for nail polish, a terrible horrible for waters surrounding your kayak. Somehow we stupidly pressed on through the stuff. Harry said he felt doubly stupid for being there now after already having visited here last year. We all agreed. We got pass the scary filmed water to reach the launch spot where the Gowanus Dredgers canoe out of and the end of the Canal. The waters up that far were not all that good but nothing will ever seem foul to me again after the multi-colored film coating of the earlier short stretch of the Canal. Of course, we had to go back through. If I had had my folding kayak's carrying bags with me, I may have entertained getting out, knocking the kayak down and taking a taxi back. Lloyd did have the bag for his K-Light (he said he always take it on _my_ suggestion). I wonder if the thought had crossed his mind. As soon as we were safely through again and well out into the mouth of the Gowanus, I quickly throw hand scoops of water on the deck and spray skirt. We stopped of at Valentino, admired the well layed out vest pocket park and pier, eat a snack and pushed on. After we crossed to the Battery from Governor's Island, the waters near where the tourboats to the Statue embark were churning like the insides of a top loading washing machine. For once, we welcomed the commotion because it cleaned our boats thoroughly; we were not at all cursing how much we were being tossed around. Another day in the life of the urban paddler. 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/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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