Re: [Paddlewise] Floaters

From: ralph diaz <rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com>
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 15:20:09 -0700
Coplan, Karl wrote:
> 
> At the risk of undoing all the good things I had to say about New York
> Harbor water quality earlier this year, check out the following link about a
> floater found by the newly designated Riverkeeper for the Hudson RIver:
> 
> http://www.nypost.com/gossip/pagesix.htm

I was at the Downtown Boathouse on Sunday when the second group of the
Round-Manhattan paddlers got in and told me about finding a body on the
Harlem River.  When I I asked who found it, I was told Alex.  I said out
loud "Holy shit, the Riverkeeper!!"  How fitting.  If you read the text
in the website mentioned in this post, you'll see that he first thought
it was a green garbage bag.

To set the record straight.  Kayakers have found dead bodies here just
twice in the last decade.  This one and one around 1992.

I asked Adam Brown, a professional diver who works the entire harbor
inspecting piers and repairing them.  He said he had run into them from
time to time.  I asked when was the last time.  "Oh, in 1992 and it was
under Pier 26!"  That's the home of the Downtown Boathouse.

The find was discussed extensively on the NYCkayaker listserve.  The
tricky thing was moving the body from the Manhattan side of the Harlem
River to the Bronx side; the seawall is too high on the Manhattan side. 
The paddlers had difficulty in doing so especially with motorboat
traffic.  Another tricky thing was that the cops ordered them to wait
for detectives.  The kayakers were doing their trip timed to the flow of
the currents.  A long wait would have had put them at risk of losing the
favorable flow, but they waited just an hour and were still okay.

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."
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Received on Tue Oct 03 2000 - 12:34:16 PDT

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