Goosebumps

On July 11, the local papers reported a boating accident on the Hudson just north of Tivoli. At 4:30 in the morning a motorboat crashed into a cement wall, killing four. Two made their way to help and were in intensive care. These boaters were all in their twenties, except one who was 41 years old. Young people, from Kingston, the city south and across the river from Tivoli. The reports were quick to note that alcohol might have played a role in the accident.  They also noted that no one was wearing a life vest.

I knew that there would be a storm of response, a sort of "blame the victim" and then a call for regulations on boaters. But my first response was to wonder what the boat had hit. I paddle this stretch of the river regularly and I mentally scanned the shoreline for a cement wall sticking into the river. None came to mind. So I needed to go out and see what had led to this sad accident. I suppose too that seeing the site was part of what we all do, witness in order to understand the many ways that we can die.

I’ve thought about death a lot while paddling on the river. Not the expected thoughts of going over in my kayak and drowning. I’ve thought of the deaths of my parents, the death of turtles and sturgeons, and once when I saw a dead body on shore of the life and death of this person I did not know. I do not think that I am morbid; the river forces these thoughts in its endless flow in and out with the tides. The river gives and it takes away.

It was eight in the evening when I slid my boat into the summer-warmed water. Cicadas were buzzing their song on shore, letting me know of the heat of the day. The river was a shiny black surface. I stroked north, as the sun spiraled toward the west, leaving an orange-pink glow behind the Catskills.

I soon realized that I wasn’t alone on my paddle. A group of people talking loudly were walking the shoreline, that gravely space between the train tracks and the shrubs that line the river. Through the shrubs I caught sight of them, most dressed in black. Several carried twelve-packs of beer. And I knew right away what this group of 12 were doing. They were on a pilgrimage to the site where they had lost their friends.

Since kayaking is walking on water, we moved at the same pace, those trudging on land, making calls, laughing, swearing. I rarely caught what was being said except  for the louder curses. There was a sense of jollity and outrage. I stroked north, keeping pace, as the Saugerties Lighthouse appeared to the west. I kept away from the shoreline to allow the mourners their space.

I was a good mile north of Tivoli then I saw the cement wall, not but fifteen feet stretching into the water.  It must have been the remains of a dock. Those boaters were too close to the shoreline, I thought. But in the dark that shoreline, the shadows and eddies can be deceiving.  I knew this from my nighttime paddles, how disorienting the river can be in the dark. It’s hard to gauge speed and depth, it’s hard to know where the shoreline is. And, throw in a few beers and it could become even more complicated to read the water.

I floated on the river off of the cement wall as the friends, bathed in grief, gathered near the wall. At that moment a bald eagle flew over, and I pulled out my binoculars to follow its powerful flight. The group turned to watch the eagle as well, and they became silent. The silence stretched as the eagle disappeared over the ridgeline. Finally one young man spoke: “Goosebumps.”

I continued north a bit further, waiting for the moon to pop over the ridge. We were one day short of the full moon, the July full moon, the Buck Moon. This is when new antlers push out on buck deer. Bugs pricked my skin, as lights dotted the shoreline.

Through the tall trees that lined the hillside on the eastern shore I could see the deep glow of the moon. Slowly it rose, like a hot air balloon, silent but steady. And there it was, full and round, bathing the water, casting shadows from the shoreline, washing this sad spot in light. Goosebumps, I thought.

Hitchhiking on the Hudson

Every boater and his cousin is out on the Hudson River on this fourth of July when I slide in off of the dock in Athens. The DEC has put in a new, wonderful dock there making entry a lot of fun. Just east is the dredge-created island, Middle Ground Flats. The sun is high, and far too hot. There’s a whitewash of cloud covering a too-blue sky. What I tell myself is that for most of these boaters this is their first time on the water this year. This makes them happy but perhaps unskilled boaters. And, given that it’s the fourth of July it’s also possible they are drunk. I paddle, keeping to the shallows on the western side of the river.

The water is murky brown, and turbulent from the wake of boats zipping by. There are boats towing children on floating tubes and boaters loitering as people drop a fishing line in the water. There are jet skis galore, making circles in the water. And almost no sailboats. But most are mid-sized motorboats, shoving purposefully north or south.

As I paddle I look at the wisp of clouds in front of me and think: I don’t know anything about clouds. And yes, then I sing to myself, softly…

(I look up at home that I was looking at wispy cirrus clouds then later puffier cumulous clouds; I still, however, know nothing about love. I mean clouds.)

This stretch of the water, from Athens on the west bank and Hudson on the east is a particularly wild stretch of the river. The train tracks scoot inland leaving the banks green, and on the western side marshy with cattails. I listen for birds and in the heat of the day hear only the obvious red winged blackbird.

I am paddling north looking for a particular boat. And an hour and a half in I see it. Low in the water, moving more slowly than the playful motorboats. A gentle line. A working boat. It’s the Riverkeeper boat, the R. Ian Fletcher. The captain, my friend John Lipscomb leans out the window and I stick out my thumb. He idles the boat, then leans over to steady my kayak as I hoist myself aboard. There’s little time for hellos as he returns to the controls and points us south.

John (who I wrote about in an earlier post this spring) is out on a mid-summer patrol of the river that extends north above the Troy dam to Waterford. He’s been on his boat for a few days, taking scientists and activists on board as he checks water quality, and in general keeps a keen eye on the river.  I am the only hitchhiker he’s picked up on this trip.

“You know you’re the only one out here working today,” I say, standing next to him at the wheel, scanning out low over the water. (the photo above is the view from his controls)

He looks at me and gives me a smile that says, Don’t remind me. But it also says, Of course I am. He has worked every day since March. John works for the river.

There’s a line of plastic bottles lining one side of the boat. “Pee samples?” I ask.

“Good news,” John says. “Your Tivoli reach is cleaner.”

Earlier in the year, the water samples (which are part of a larger long-term study) off of my village had had unacceptably high levels of enterococcus.

A boat wooshes past and I wave.

“OK, let’s get this waving straight,” John says. “First, you can’t wave from inside the boat, because no one will see you.” He sticks his hand out the open sides and tips his hand. It’s not so much a wave as a palm facing outward. “This is fine, this is what guys do.”

I laugh.

“You can do this,” he says. He tips his hand a bit. “But not this,” he says waving his hand back and forth. “That’s fluttering. Birds flutter.”

“Got it,” I say, pleased with my waving instruction. I put my hand out the window and wave madly at a passing boat. John pretends not to notice.

We head south at a steady 7 knots, John and I chatting about the river, about my book, about work, about family. Though I only get to see John a few times a year, usually when he docks in Kingston, we talk like family. His mother and mine were best friends, two French women who married American men. While we talk we throw a French word in here and there, acknowledging that tie. But we’ve forged our own tie through this river, and that’s what we focus on.

Right away I jump into the news that Cuomo wants to shut down the nuclear power plant, Indian Point. This is an issue that has kept Riverkeeper focused for years and I know it’s something John cares about. I’m excited about this, taking the news at face value. But John isn’t celebrating. He’s too smart to the ways of politicians. First, what the governor can do isn’t so direct, he explains. And, isn’t it curious that this announcement comes a few days after he states that there will be fracking in New York. It’s as if the environmental issues are being balanced out: one good, one bad. I feel stupid for not seeing the bigger picture and roll into a tirade about how hydrolic fracturing, even if done outside of the state parks, or outside of Manhattan’s water supply, will affect water everywhere.  I don’t need to convince John of anything here. (Some environmental thinkers believe that if Indian Point is shut down it will create more pressure to frack as New York City needs power. I don't think these are the only two options.)

We carve in on the eastern side of Middle Ground Flats. A few years ago I paddled out to the Flats from Hudson on a hot summer evening. The island was alive with campers, and with those who had set up rogue encampments on the island. There were small shacks and tents, signs stolen from land and posted to oak trees announcing a Narrow Bridge, where there is none. A One Way sign where there are no roads. A green sign that labels this is Rayville, when there is no ville. Most of it had a quirky, fun feel to it. And some of it, like the bus seats left to rot in the sun, felt like a slum. Since then, the DEC has come in to claim the land and to clean it up. This didn’t happen without a dispute as some felt that this former underwater land created from dredge belonged to all. (photo is of the earlier Middle Ground Flats)

Despite the clean up, there are still a few shacks on the island, and a half dozen boats are anchored on the northwestern side. People splash in the water, and a few grills send off the smell of roasting burgers.

In front of us a small motorboat languishes. Three men have wooden ors in the water, stroking toward the Hudson dock. John sidles up to them. His precision in placing his boat in the water is impressive. He’s close enough that we can speak, but not so close as to rock the already struggling boaters.

“Doesn’t look good,” he says as a way of greeting.

We learn they need to get to Catskill, where they have their trailer. John tells them we’ll tow them south. They look wonderfully relieved as they throw us a thin rope.

And off we go, continuing downriver.

I tell John about one of my students at Bard College who heard him speak, who was  motivated to form a clean up club for the Tivoli Bays. John is a story teller. He’s got a great sense of pacing and a terrific sense of humor. And great scoops of outrage. So to listen to one of his stories is to want to take action then and there, to do something for the river. That’s what got my student, Gleb. He organized a clean up in the spring.

“What did you pull out?” he asks.

“Styrofoam.”

“What color was it?”

“Blue-green,” I say.

“Dock foam.” He gives me the dimensions of the huge hunks of foam I pulled out.

“That’s it. And bottles. Lots of bottles. I tried to do a sociological study from the bottles,” I say. “I wanted to show that Bud drinkers toss off more bottles than those who drink Stella. But it doesn’t work that way. Smart water drinkers litter just as those who drink Arizona Ice Tea.”

John laughs, and we talk about how garbage ends up in the river, and not always because people toss stuff overboard. It runs off from land. Boaters lose their buoys that they let drag in the water. We see a few, and scoop up. And some of it comes into the river through our sewage system. He tells me about all the condoms he saw when he was patrolling the Gowanus with a reporter on board. “Did you do a sociological study of those condoms?” I ask.

I spy an osprey nest on one of the channel markers, and look for baby osprey. A boat parade pushes north, flags waving. There’s a few motorboats and one beautiful lobster boat. “I want one of those,” I say. Being on the river makes me want a dozen boats.

“Riverkeeper, are you towing?” a voice asks over the radio. All of the boats slow as they pass us with our tow.

We wave. I get the wave right.

Solstice on the river

The sound emerged from a hole in the dead tree on the end of Magdalen Island. A high screech, demanding. Food. A mother flicker flew in, leaned her red caped head into the hole. A wide-open beak stretched into view. I floated in my kayak below the tree and watched through my binoculars. Baby birds are everywhere these days, calling for food, getting ready for their first flight. But most of the time all I hear is the high pitched call emerging from deep in the woods, from a hidden nest.

I continued south, through my reach, to see what else I might see on this solstice day. The sun was low in the horizon, but already I could tell it was going to be a sunny, even hot day. I said my hellos to the bald eagle serenely looking over the landscape from Cruger Island (look closely at the photo—he’s there!). A pileated woodpecker cackled from the woods.

At the end of Cruger Island, I glimpsed the turtles on the slanted rocks, exposed as the tide went out. They were big turtles, the size of a dinner plate, and covered with muck from the bottom of the river. They had white noses. They saw me too and soon enough splashed into the water. Could these be map turtles? (yes, they too are in this photo!)

On my return I crossed the river, empty and wide. A few kayakers launched out of Glasco. I could smell their sun lotion over the smell of the turbid water. It’s the smell of summer, beaches and long days outdoors. It’s the smell of a paddle where little happens beyond my slow thoughts, the slosh of the tide, the call of a baby bird, the splash of a turtle, the wing beats of the mute swan taking flight.

Freedom on the River

(this photo is a view of the Brooklyn Bridge from a kayaker's perspective)

Last week, The New York Times ran an article on boaters on the Hudson and how the security checks by federal authorities, state police, county sheriffs and the border patrol have multiplied. Being on a boat on the river is about freedom—to go where you want to go, to do what you want to do (except drink and boat). Most boaters are out there to be left alone, to be quiet while fishing, or enjoying the sun. So these patrols have boaters angry. Some so angry they are selling their boats. As a kayaker I can not be boarded. But I can—and have been—stopped. In 2005 I circumnavigated Manhattan with my friend Dawes Strickler. At the end of our tour, we were interrogated by the park police. What follows is an essay I wrote about that tour around Manhattan.

(this is a photo of me, still looking happy and rested!)

Protecting My Freedom

To kayak around Manhattan is a perverse endeavor: for over ten hours you splash through otter-brown water, and struggle with strong currents while dodging water taxis and large cargo ships. The turbulent water soaks your hands and stings your face and it does not smell of anything familiar, and certainly of anything natural. The uncomplicated pleasures of sea kayaking—the sight of a heron taking flight, the tranquility of an eddy, the vision of a bass cruising through clear water—are absent. To kayak around Manhattan is a meeting of the slow with the fast, the small with the large, the pure with the impure. So what would compel a kayaker to struggle with tricky tides and currents offshore of an indifferent island? The answers are simple: Because it is there, and because she can.

On a Sunday afternoon the phone rang: “I hear you want to paddle around Manhattan,”Dawes said. “You’re in luck, I’m going tomorrow.”  June 20th was a good day to go: the high tides near the solstice create strong currents. Those currents would help scoot us along our thirty-four mile circumnavigation.

I am not sure why Dawes assumed I was capable of this day-long venture, which is a crown for kayakers in the Hudson Valley. People plan and train for months. “You know how to self-rescue, right?” he checked. “Sure,” I swaggered. I’d learned the day before in a paddling class. Dawes did not need to know that. With my new paddle float and pump strapped to my red fiberglass boat I looked like the real deal.

At 2:30 the next morning I rose after a sleepless few hours during which I imagined in vivid detail my watery demise.  The middle-of-the-night departure made me feel as if I were off on a special and dangerous mission. By six we were unloading our sleek kayaks at Liberty State Park in New Jersey. The sky, already a watery white-blue, brought into silhouette several men with fishing poles, standing serene on the ragged dock.  Near the shoreline a hearty jellyfish bobbed in the water where we loaded our boats with extra clothing and food—a stack of peanut butter sandwiches, Gatorade and a thermos of tea. The weather appeared clear; the forecast was the same. But you had to be prepared for anything.

Unceremoniously, we pushed off, stroking toward the sun on our odd but very American adventure. American because all that this journey required was a boat, some determination, and that marvelous sense that this land and water were there for me to enjoy. We could have imitated Huck Finn and thrown a wooden raft out onto these complicated waters and no one could tell us not to. I delighted that we were so free to move as we wanted and did not need a permit, did not have to register, and did not have to pass an exam to show that we were qualified for this journey. And there stood the Statue of Liberty, soaring high as if emerging from the water that buoyed us up, to echo my thrill.

Before us stretched the wide expanse of New York harbor.  I did not want to leave the seeming comfort of shore, so I traced to my right, toward the solidity of the Statue of Liberty. “Pay attention to the buoys,” Dawes called, his voice swimming off across the waves that separated us. A few white buoys marked a wide birth around the Statue, a watery security zone. He nodded toward another girdle of buoys around Ellis Island. “Remember that on our return.” The buoys seemed innocuous, white dabs in the water to guide not defend or ward away.

We ventured into what felt like the ocean, the waves following a deep pattern of rise and swell made unpredictable by the wake of dozens of ships. Dawes and I moved side by side, our light fiberglass paddles flashing in the sun, a warning to larger craft that we were there. Paddling with Dawes gave me a certain confidence. He teaches rock climbing at West Point, and when he speaks no words are wasted. Before leaving he had traced our route on the chart. “This is our mission,” he said, echoing my own sense of purpose.

Crossing the Harbor frightened me. Again and again large boats appeared to aim for us but my scale was off; only once did we have to stop paddling and wait for the large orange State Island ferry to pass. The large ships were less of a threat than the fast yellow water taxis whose wakes sloshed us about. But soon my fear was diverted by the New York skyline, which, viewed from low on the water against a new sky appeared crisp and magical. We made a line for the tip of Manhattan and soon enough we were crossing under the Brooklyn Bridge, which Dawes explained is made from Rosendale cement, the toughest cement in the world. I admired the solid, uncracked foundation of the bridge and despite my own precarious bob, felt the security of the world in that cement.

The East River welcomes a range of boats, barges and tugs. Water planes landed behind us; helicopters dropped onto landing pads in front of us. All this busyness seemed mockingly unaware of our presence. Our slow pace allowed us to notice men on shore performing tai chi in the early light, and a lone fisherman hoping for something to grab the end of his pole. I realized that I was looking at the belly of the city: from these docks everything comes and goes. The belly is a vulnerable spot. But there were no security zones as we stroked north, past the U.N. building, past the lives of thousands of people, many still sleeping.

Just before Roosevelt Island there emerged an anomalous piece of undeveloped land, with a metal tower and a metal arc, which looked like a miniature, faded amusement park. On the wiring, cormorants draped, perhaps nesting. The scene struck me as menacing, or freaky, a meeting of the natural and unnatural. But nothing about the brilliant day seemed ominous, except for my dreams of the night before. My over stimulated nerves calmed as I realized that the images of floating dead rats or a current that could suck me under were only the work of my imagination.

At nine, two and a half hours into our trip and at the end of the flood current, we stopped for a half hour snack on Mill Rock. “This is a funny little oasis,” Dawes said. Smothered in gulls and all their waste, it was a dubious rest, but the twenty minutes out of the boat were welcome. North of Mill Rock, the traffic on land thinned out and the water calmed. A man strolling on a narrow walkway looked at me, then his perception shifted and his face spread into a smile. “Hey,” he said.  Another woman leaned over a pedestrian bridge and called, “Travel safely.” We passed the Roberto Clemente park and kids waved at us, called hello as if we were an attraction in a watery parade.

A sanitation dump appeared on the far shore, the white trucks lined up, ready to unload their day’s catch. The smell, settling hard over the water, overwhelmed us and renewed our energy to slide along as quickly as possible. But that, I realized was the greatest offense of the day. All of the horror stories I had heard were exaggerations, or perhaps fictions.

North and west, we moved in the slack tide, admiring a swatch of soot-blackened Inwood marble, and the Columbia boathouse. In the five hours it took us to reach the railroad bridge into the Hudson, we had had a seamless trip. We settled in the shade on a spit of sandy soil to wait for the ebb flow. An exotic pigeon with white feathered feet landed, hoping for a handout. I fell asleep for about fifteen minutes and woke abruptly to the sound of a bell ringing and then the bridge swinging open to let through a boat. The water lapped the shore as if I were on a beach some place really scenic. I sat up, and Dawes pointed out some barn swallows feeding their baby. On a rock nearby someone had written: This place can get pretty dark…Especially when wrong was done!!!

The Hudson was wide, smooth and empty. We rolled down the middle of the River, the George Washington bridge spanning high overhead, and hit a record seven miles an hour. We passed markers from my past life: my apartment at 158th street, Grant’s tomb, so near my grad student apartment, the 79th street boat basin where I loitered after work through the mid-eighties. We gloated in our good fortune. I should have known better; on water, hubris is a dangerous thing.  It causes waves to emerge. In this case the waves surged from the south, fast and without warning to remind us of our small place in this world. Within minutes the calm became a turbulent sea, waves crashed over the bow of my boat and the wind nearly ripped the paddle out of my hands. I lost sight of Dawes in the trough of the waves, but with or without him, I wanted to work my way toward shore. Waves smashed up against the piers and when I looked up I could see people sitting there, sipping drinks. They looked so calm, so relaxed. They waved. Could they not see my distress, that I felt like a cork in the ocean and was unable to wave back. If I had hesitated in my strokes I would have been turned broadside to a wave and undoubtedly rolled over. Perhaps I should have taken more caution after my dreams.

(This is a photo of Dawes, refeuling.)

Dawes waited in the eddy of a pier. “We have to cross,” he said. I dreaded this, the wide crossing of the Hudson, near to several taxi piers, and then the passage back into the deep water of the harbor.  I wanted to give in to my fatigue and my fear but there was no way out, no ride home, no person to take my load. I had to keep moving. I kept the back of Dawes’ boat in view, knowing that if I lost my grip on him I would float off, give in to the waves, be swept north, or under. A few times I called to him to wait, but my voice was carried off in the wind. And then through the simple, determined, repetitive gesture of one stroke after another, I was rounding Governor’s Island. Wanting to take the shortest distance and stay close to land, I nudged next to Ellis Island. I felt an odd security by hugging the flank of this place that thousands before me had also seen as a haven, though for different reasons. I was not, though, thinking much about them or the past, but only the near future when I would pull my boat out of the water and, nearly beaten but triumphant, sit down and rest.

I was near tears with exhaustion when out of the corner of my eye I spied a white boat pass, then circle back toward me.  No, I thought, not the police. “Ma’m, where are you going?” His voice carried across the slosh of waves and the roar of wind. The boat produced a wake that catapulted me toward the stone wall. I swirled, stayed afloat, and, without looking over called back, “Liberty State Park.” If I get there.  In a vague eddy, they rounded up Dawes, who held the side of the police boat, while I clutched his boat and we all rolled in unison, the words Park Police in bold black veering in and out of focus. With the right number of “yes, sir’s” Dawes explained that we knew of the security zone, but we couldn’t see the buoys, and even if we had, it would have been dangerous for us to pass to the outside of them.

We had breached federal security. We had trespassed. We had violated the law. The circumstances did not matter. The officer took our information—name, birthdate, and address— and we paddled along while their boat tagged behind our excruciating slow pace. After twenty minutes the boat approached me. “Ma’m we can’t find you,” he called out. “I promise, I exist,” I said. “What?” Grateful he hadn’t heard me, that my tone that said, what you are doing is absurd, was lost to the waves, I shrugged. “Were you really born in 1961?”  There are many things worth lying about; there are many times when lying is tempting. This was not one of those moments. “Yes,” I said, almost an apology.

For the next forty-five minutes the white boat chugged alongside our weary pace. With every stroke my indignation rose. Wasn’t that broad-shouldered policeman supposed to be protecting me? What if during the time they spent following us a real threat emerged?  What is clear about the attacks in the past four years (from 2001-2004) is that people are being killed and mostly in places where there is a density of human life: subways or trains, office buildings; Ellis Island contains approximately thirty-six building, and one, the museum, is open to the public.

In calmer waters near shore, the officer, stocky with a slick shaved head, handed over a fifty-dollar fine: violated security zone. He could have fined us more stiffly, he explained. I couldn’t hear everything he said but caught “Greatest symbol of freedom in the world.”  Stunned, I shoved the ticket into a dry bag. I knew that this was the moment I would remember most vividly, not the rigorous freedom I had experienced throughout the day. But it wasn’t simply a childish sense of you ruined my fun that made that ticket sting. In my tattered state I understood that they were protecting a symbol of freedom, and that is not the same thing as freedom itself, which is not an idea but a person bobbing in a kayak doing something very American, because she can.