Letter from Cape Royds, Antarctica

I’m writing from a Rac tent set on Cape Royds half a mile uphill from an Adelie penguin colony. The tent pitches and shakes in the wind of a storm that has kept me tent bound for four days. When I woke at eight in my tent, snow padding the walls, I heard a helicopter, the distinct whop-chop-whop of the bird that will, eventually, haul us out of here. I bolted upright in my sleeping bag and scrambled into clothes and coat in disbelief and, I’ll admit, some excitement. That they could land in such weather (today, 45 mph gusts) seemed amazing. I could barely see the Rac tent from my small camp tent and it stands but fifty yards away. But the helo did not land

and so we’ll have another day ofwriting, reading, idle conversation in this space that is but 12X25 with one small heater that keeps us in warm enough at about 55 degrees. I wear three layers of clothing pretty constantly. When I first arrived on the Ice I wanted really cold temperatures and to experience a big storm, a condition one storm—these things would test my Antarctic toughness. And now I’ve got my storm.

We here at Cape Royds on Ross Island is me, David Ainley, penguinologist, and his intern assistant Jen. He’s been down here twenty-two seasons and is Mr. Penguin. He’s a long legged, grey bearded, bespectacled man who speaks and listens only when necessary. One night, after a few glasses of wine, he said, “I’m not a good conversationalist,” which is a bit of an understatement. Yet when he gives in to a grin he’s completely enchanting. In our email correspondence he’s been welcoming and warm so I was at first a bit surprised by his reticence. But I don’t need him to talk much: I’ve read his book on penguins, listened to him lecture in McMurdo and get what he’s saying not just about penguins but the ecosystem of the waters in the Ross Sea. It’s all a bit frightening, thinking about how this odd, precarious world is so easily unbalanced, potentially destroyed so easily by whale hunting, or by fishing Antarctic Cod.

Jen is the woman you want on your team, whatever the team is—she could do anything. She’s tall, pulls her blond hair back in a pony tail, is smart and strong (from time to time she launches into pull ups on the frame of the tent), and relentlessly good humored. She’s 26 and spent a few years working in McMurdo before switching over to the science side of things this year. That involves following David around, counting penguin, penguin chicks, locating the bands, which they place on about four hundred chicks a year here at Royd, and in general shadowing him in his work, which is to look at the ecology of the penguin.

I arrived here on Monday, one of those ridiculously beautiful Antarctic days—searing sun, visibility to the horizon. Paul, my helo pilot, is a tall, thin British boy, who flew me over the exact route Cherry-Gerard, Wilson and Bowers followed from Hut Point to Cape Crozier in the dark of an Antarctic night to collect emperor penguin eggs. This journey is the “worst journey” of the title of Cherry-Gerrard’s famous book on Scott’s last expedition: The Worst Journey in the World. We crossed the Ross Ice Shelf, rounded Erebus and dropped down onto the camp at Crozier. That this took us twenty seven minutes and not three weeks baffled me. We only had enough time there to load up Jen and David and then we were whisked off to Royds. Arriving there, I was disoriented. In essence, I had flown the circumference of Ross Island, with Erebus now behind me, McMurdo Bay in front of me and across it the Dry Valleys and New Harbor.

David helped me set up my tent. He kept hauling enormous chunks of rock over to secure the fly and I kept thinking: why make such a fuss, nothing is going to happen. It is perhaps easy to become relaxed here, after days of good weather; clearly that is never a good idea. I’ve had to dig out my tent a few times a day and reattach many of the fly lines. In the tent I have an enormous sleeping bag with a fleece liner and two pads—this keeps me quite warm. After tent set up we headed down to the colony.

Cape Royds is where Shackleton settled his 1907 Nimrod expedition and with good reason: a deep harbor in Backdoor bay, open ground, and a freshwater lake, named Pony Lake, for his ponies. His hut is in the shelter of the wind, unlike ours. When we arrived, there was another helicopter just down the hill, near Shackleton’s Hut and a pack of tourists that had been shuttled in from their ship, which we could see in the distance. I followed David down to the penguin colony, on a worn trail through the dark, basalt from Erebus and past the tourists in their orange parkas taking pictures from the top of the cliffs. As we strode past the signs that read: Do not enter, Area of Special Scientific Interest, I felt grateful I was in Antarctica with the National Science Foundation and not as a tourist. And suddenly, without warning, I was amidst about 1,500 Adelie penguins. Well.

Penguins in person are everything that I imagined: comical and engaging, as they move about, determinedly taking a rock to build their nest, or walking purposefully from one place to another and tripping over small boulders. Out on the pack ice, which is breaking up, they move more gracefully, tobogganing along, then diving in the water. I could watch them swimming in Pony Lake as well, and their speed and grace is lovely, like the finest breast stroker popping out of the water then gliding underwater.

But there is another side to penguins that I had never imagined. They are not all neat and tidy in their black and white tuxedos—many have guano smeared onto their white chests, or blood trickling down their sides from a recent battle. I’m struck at once by the fragility of their lives here on this wind-swept area and the violence of it. Obviously, this comes mostly from the elements. Adelies nest high up, to keep from being buried in snow and so that their nests don’t get flooded, but in addition they have a real land predator: skuas. These large scavenging birds, a relative of the gull, are constantly hovering, ready to steal eggs and chicks. Cracked egg shells litter the ground, and most of the eggs from this year, abandoned by hungry penguins, have been eaten by the skuas. Carcasses of freeze dried penguin chicks abound, legs twisted in awkward positions. Or a foot of a chick lies abandoned, the only thing the skua won’t eat.

Yesterday when we finally ventured out I witnessed a real slaughter. A skua took a fairly good sized chick by the scruff of the neck and, unable to lift it and cart it off, dragged it away from the nest. Adelies nest in clusters within sub-colonies as protection—often you can see them, beaks in the air, stabbing at a skua who is trying to land. But in this case, there was open land and the skua got in there. Joined by a hungry mate, the skuas slowly tore the chick apart before my eyes, an excruciating slow process during which the chick continued to peep and try to flee, flesh exposed, with no success. It’s blood, so red against its downy grey feathers, appeared in patches and then eventually there was more red than grey. When they were done the snow was splattered red with blood.

Beyond outside threats there is the violence amongst the penguins themselves. There is little open ground here in the Antarctic and so spots such as this one at Royds are prime penguin real estate. Stones are also at a premium. Seems both people and penguins fight for property and here it’s manifested in aggressive establishment of nesting space. They want to be close enough for protection but far enough apart that they can’t peck their neighbors. To establish this distance isn’t easy and involves a raucous fight amongst pairs. The noise is astounding, and something Shackleton complained of. It begins low, like a transmission trying to turn over and as they peck at each other it gains momentum so that it is more like a donkey braying (there are jackass penguins, which really do bray). But this bray is more like a jackhammer, clanging, staccato. And below this noise the peep of the chicks. If space isn’t established in this manner, fights break out, and when they are chasing each other it is not in some gleeful game—they are out for blood, territory. The sulfurous smell of penguin guano surrounds everything, has entered into my ears and my clothes, and the colony rests on a very thick layer of guano, the ground piss-brown against the black rock. So the world of penguins is not picture postcard lovely, and yet, of course, I’m completely taken with these funny, tenacious little birds.

That first day in the colony I stood amongst the penguins for about five hours, just watching and completely enraptured. I had no idea what David or Jen were doing, writing their numbers in their little orange books. Yesterday, when the storm calmed and we were all stir crazy, we headed out for a few hours and I helped David by writing numbers in his book. Using binoculars, he read the numbers from the stainless steel bands he has placed on them as chicks. He’s determining if penguins return to a colony or to the same nest. Turns out they are not fully faithful penguins—to their mates or to their nests, but rather seize the moment, because the moments are rare. The penguins were surrounded by snow and at times I could not see them because they were half buried, their black backs mounded up like a rock. It seems like this is some sort of protective coloring, but in fact they don’t need it on land, only in water, where they are “invisible” from below with their white bellies and hard to see from above with their black backs. The first day, I walked about three feet away from the penguins. Since they have not been hunted in years they do not see people as a real threat, though they begin a growl if you get too close. But yesterday a penguin walked right up to me, inches away, and I asked what he wanted. He stood there, all two and a half feet of him, and swayed and looked at me with those round, unblinking pale eyes, and did not answer.

There are two sub-colonies that are fenced off and then penguins, clever as they are, enter and exit through a little bridge. This bridge is a fantastic electronic scale and detector that notes their number that is encoded on an injected tags. Their weights are recorded as they come and go. The whole thing runs off solar power, and as David explained, the two men who set up the computer program are geniuses who took three seasons to get all of the technology right.

Late in the day yesterday David decided to put tags in the penguins who were nesting with chicks and so began my work as a penguinologist. Jen grabbed the penguins, wrapping them into her arms like a chicken (they weigh about nine to ten pounds and come football shaped) while I came in, marked the nests with a stake that I pounded into the ground, and covered the chicks with a canvas bag, weighted down with stones so that they would not be harassed by neighbors and so that they would not run off. No one was particularly pleased with this process—the penguins would try and fend us off and as I kneeled to cover the chicks, nearby penguins would peck at me (since I had on my usual three layers, top to bottom, I felt nothing). Only one chick tried to flee, and I scooped him up and placed him back in his comfy stone lair. For the final of the ten birds I got to pick up mama or papa, and hold him/her while David injected the bird. The bird weighed about nine or ten pounds and felt like a solid football tucked under my arm. Holding that warm, soft penguin, its flipper faintly beating me, was truly miraculous. Maybe it is simply being that close to something so wild. For hours after I was elated. My hands and body smelled of penguin and I did not want to wash it off, though in fact we do not wash at all (in dire situations, we use moist towelettes).

My second day here I visited Shackleton’s hut, down the hill from where we are in our tent. Though there is a power to entering a place that is still fresh with the lives of these men, I was less moved than I imagined. Maybe it’s because Shackleton is not my man. Everyone in the Antarctic has read their Scott and Shackleton, and in McMurdo you can quote from either and people smile, knowing what you are referring to. Everyone holds their hero dear. Scott people are romantics, Shackleton want high adventure but a safe return. Amundsen people are rare—they are the ultra efficient, the ones who will get the job done with no fuss. David is an Amundsen man. Of course.

Inside there were tins of corn flour (“made from rice” ) cabbage and parsnips left over (“not even the skuas will eat parsnips,” David commented) and full hams hanging from the wall. There are biscuits, broken in a wooden crate and shoes left under a bench, curling at the toes, the soles separating. A reindeer sleeping bag stretches across one cot in the open room, and suspended from the high ceiling are two Nansen sledges though when Shackleton was there the dining table hung to allow for more room. I marveled at their tenacity, at their strength, but I’ve done that from afar. Maybe, in fact, seeing their hut made me marvel less: their home practical, their daily life clear. Surviving here is a matter of day to day and they were very methodical, had food and warmth and a clear job to do. Though clearly the physical side of Antarctic life has softened enormously, keeping the mind occupied is the trick, and remains the trick. The early explorers gave lectures and staged performances and played their pianolas. The same remains for us: we read and discuss books and talk about penguins. I am responsible for my own happiness; everyone here knows that. The food supply is low, but so is our book supply. It’s the end of the latter that worries me the most.

So here I am, sitting in the Rac tent, trying to stay warm. The Rac tent (a Kiwi invention) is a fairly utilitarian place, with a two burner stove top, a propane heater that for some reason we keep on low except when Jen and I decide it really is too cold, and little decoration except three postcards sent to David. There’s a sticker on one door with an American flag that says: God less America. In one corner a machine tells us temps inside and out, wind speed, wind chill factor (highest wind speed has been 45 but at the pass where I was blown over David says the wind must be at least 65). We consult this about a hundred times a day. There we also have our communications with the outside world—we call in every night to tell Mac Ops how many souls are here and that we are ok. We also speak daily to David’s researchers at Cape Crozier, who have had 100 mile winds and have lost three tents. Oddly, we have email, through a satellite, and an iridium phone. At one point David called his mother, who must, I am convinced, still be wondering what it is her son does down here every year. (“Oh, you know, they’re being penguins,” he said at one point.) He never let on that he was sitting in the eye of a storm—there’s a good son. When we aren’t reading or writing email we stand at the doors (one at either end) and stare out the plastic windows, and speculate on the weather (“seems to be letting up” is the constant refrain, when it isn’t “it’s clouded over again”) though most of the time we can’t even see out the window. We are eating well enough but I’d love to see something that looked like a vegetable. Most of the food supplies expired in 2002 including the wheat thins that seem to be keeping me alive.

So this is where we’ve sat for four days, the canvas walls flexing and snapping. The stove rattles with the movement and from time to time ice chunks scuttle across the roof, sounding like squirrels at work. Even the difficulties seem marvelous. I am happy.

Circling the City

The night before kayaking around Manhattan I did not sleep. Last year I didn’t sleep either but then I stayed awake because I was sure I was going to die—that the Staten Island Ferry would knock me over in its wake, I’d go over and never surface. This year my mid-night thoughts revolved around the currents and tides. Timing is essential to these trips—if you have the current, it’s do-able, if not, not.

We were putting our boats in at Englewood, NJ an hour and a half past low tide at the Battery. The Battery is 13.8 miles south so it would make sense to leave early in order to catch the outgoing tide. But I have learned through four years of paddling on the Hudson that tides and currents are not the same—a tide is the rise and fall of water, a vertical movement, while the current is about the speed of the water’s horizontal movement calculated in knots--and that figuring out the current is not simple. If you are confused by that last sentence, join the crowd. I’ve had this explained to me at least a dozen times, have looked at pictures and read about it and because there’s something deeply counterintuitive about the whole thing I still stumble—or else stay up at night worrying about the mystery of tides and currents.

I met Dawes Strickler, and a woman I know as military Sue near West Point where they both work and together we drove south. I confessed I did not sleep and Dawes admitted he did not either. “I slept fine,” said Sue, which meant she had no idea what she was getting into.

Englewood NJ is right under the Palisades, those dramatic sheer redish-colored cliffs. We were ready to go at12:30. Sue waded through thick muck, steadied the boat Dawes had borrowed for her and then entered it as if executing a gymnastic routine. “How do I hold the paddle?” she asked. Oh dear, I thought. I knew she had little experience but it was news she had none. Sue’s virtue is she’s strong and strong-willed. She’s a rock climber and climbers believe they can do anything (for instance, defy gravity). So Dawes invited her figuring that if someone with no paddling experience could do it that person would be Sue. But this was like asking someone who has never run to enter a marathon.

Dawes teaches rock climbing at West Point and he looks the part: short blond hair, a solid jaw, strong all around. He’s kind and reliable and has a wealth of geologic information about the city (at one point he taught earth sciences in a high school). He laughs easily and loves adventures. He’s done this paddle for the past six years and every year brings someone new, whom he nurtures through the day. I’m the only person to return for another round.

The year before when Dawes called to ask me along (his wife threatened to divorce him if he went alone) I had just completed a paddling class. “You know how to self rescue, right?” Dawes asked. “Sure,” I said with overblown confidence. I learned yesterday. My paddle float was so new I figured it would give me away.

My motivations for doing a second tour were unclear. I claim that what I like about kayaking is that it’s a peaceful activity that allows me to explore the Hudson River. But before launching, my body was already toxic with adrenalin. Above all, I wondered why I needed to do this again. This is the sort of feat that if you do it once you can brag about it for the rest of your life. I even had great stories from the previous year of big waves and being pulled over and fined by the Coast Guard for violating the security zone near Ellis Island. At forty-five I hoped I’d outgrow this odd rush to adventures but for some reason I cannot even though I know that for the next few days I will need to treat my body with great delicacy.

I watched Sue teeter in her boat and thought: uh-oh, we’re going to spend the day rescuing Sue. If I’d known I could have spent the night worrying about this as well. The great thing about having someone so inexperienced is I had someone to worry about beside myself. We gave her a two-minute paddle instruction—brace your legs inside the boat for stability and leverage; keep your elbows low and use your torso to paddle--and we were off down the Hudson. Right down the middle, to be exact, so we could catch the last of the current. And right under the George Washington Bridge, which, viewed from the water, allowed us to thrill in the steel towers soaring 604 feet above us.

At about 110th street the wind emerged from the south. Since the wind was moving counter to the current, an erratic chop formed that made me feel like a cork at sea. I kept thinking that Sue had to be terrified. But there she was, in the middle of the river, shoveling through the water, her straw hat perched on her head, exclaiming, “I love this!”

We struggled with the wind for the length of the city, which means that we passed The Intrepid sitting ominously at dock, the Chelsea Piers’ enormous golfing cage and snapshots of the city without much time to admire. As we stayed clear of active docks, the city felt far away, with few people near the water to wave to. Waving from a kayak isn’t easy since you need two hands to paddle. But when I saw someone leaning toward the water from a restaurant or dock, I would quickly raise a hand. Waving cheered me on.

At the Battery I suggested we stick together as boat traffic became thick with water taxis that move with the same fanatic energy as real taxis, ferries, the Circle Line and the Staten Island ferry. “Think of a chipmunk crossing three lanes of traffic. We’re the chipmunks,” Dawes explained to Sue.

Dawes kept reminding us we had the right of way—most kayakers head out with this idea--but it is not exactly true. The rules of the road, as written by the New York State Parks department (taken from the Coast Guard) are as follows:

I. When two vessels are on a collision course in a crossing situation, the vessel on the right has the right of way.

II. Vessels without mechanized power have the right of way; but smaller vessels must yield to larger vessels that do not have the same maneuverability. These include sludge carrying ships, oil tankers and barges and any large commercial vessel. It is also wise to yield to fast-moving motorboats. A vessel being overtaken should maintain its speed and direction.

III. A vessel overtaking another should stay clear of the craft being overtaken.

IV. In any case, take whatever action is necessary to avoid the collision.

In any case it is wise to know that even if you do have the right away, don’t act like you do. Here’s a little something from sailors warning of what happens if you insist on your right of way:

Here lies the body of Danny O’Day

Who died defending his right of way

He was right, dead right, as the day is long

But he’s just as dead as if he’d been wrong

It’s a good little ditty to memorize.

The greatest menace was not, in fact, the taxis, which had a regular come-and-go and sober, licensed pilots. The menaces were the few rogue pleasure boats that appeared out of nowhere. We’d call out: coming at us; no turning; no, coming at us. And then they’d careen past churning up large wakes. If those wakes struck us head on, our boats would rise and slap back down into the water. If they came from behind we’d have a few moments of surfing. If they smacked us on our port or starboard sides the belly of the boat lifted momentarily and if we didn’t adjust our weight with our hips, or brace with our paddles to stabilize there was an unsettling sense of toppling over.

When we rounded the Battery life calmed a bit. “If you can do that you can do anything,” I told Sue, impressed she’d made it through the maze of waves and boats.

“I wasn’t afraid of the waves,” she said, “Just the boats.”

“Really?” I asked. I was afraid of both.

Our first stop was on a slim sandy beach directly under the Brooklyn Bridge, a beautiful, solid structure made of cement made from limestone taken from the hills near Rosendale, a town where I used to live. It’s tough cement: 136 years after the beginning of the bridge’s construction there’s no visible decay.

Our beach was separated from a sidewalk by a waist-high chain-link fence. People stopped and stared at us; one elderly couple asked questions about what we had done and where we were going; and Sue and I wondered where in all of this we were going to pee. The beach, four feet wide and strewn with plastic bottles and one engorged nearly hairless rat on its back, little paws open to the sky, did not offer a calm or sweet smelling spot to relax. But after three and a half hours of paddling we needed a rest.

I pulled out some hand wipes and offered one to Sue and Dawes, “It’s too late,” Sue said, taking a handful of gorp. I figured eating with water soaked hands would be like eating after rubbing my palms on the sidewalk at Broadway and 79th. I wiped my hands clean, realizing that this was but a small gesture—I’d already tasted plenty of salt water that had sprayed onto my face.

While we snacked, Sue wandered off, leaned against the cement breakwater, slipped down her shorts and peed. When she returned I nodded to the men sitting on the bench above where she had peed. “I didn’t realize they were there,” she laughed.

“What could they see?” I shrugged, and followed her lead.

“Are we halfway?” Sue asked.

Dawes and I looked at each other. “Almost.” We both knew that what lay ahead was tricky, the currents complicated. We thought we had the timing down but the final section above Hell Gate had, in the past, surprised Dawes with unlikely currents. It could be hard.

“I’m not sure I can make it.”

I had watched Sue paddle and though she kept reporting “I think I got it” and she was making extraordinary progress, somehow our “keep your elbows low” directive hadn’t sunk in. Here’s what she was doing: Bring your arms to shoulder level, bend them at the elbow and make fists. Preferably hold a half-pound weight in each hand. Now, rotate your arms as if you were swimming with half arms, so that you can feel your shoulder moving in the socket. Do that for three and a half hours and understand why Sue was, despite beautifully sculpted arms, exhausted.

There really were few options short of Sue waiting on the miserable beach for hours for us to retrieve her. We didn’t need to voice this and we didn’t discuss options; in ten minutes we all busied ourselves repacking our boats.

The southern end of the east river is wide, and the boat traffic continuous. But at this point we had a strong current with us and a slight wind at our backs. We moved quickly, and were able to appreciate the astonishing views of the city on this perfectly clear day. At times it looked like a Hollywood set, each building clearly delineated, neat, as if cut out from glass. It became the perfect city, tall buildings elegantly stacked together in some miraculous manner.

The span of the East River is narrow so that we felt squeezed between the concrete and wooden docks off Manhattan and the warehouses of Brooklyn. Part of this sense of constriction comes simply because the East River is not a river, but a strait that connects New York Bay with Long Island Sound. In comparison, the Hudson River expands space—there’s the space above your shoulders and long views in all directions as you move toward the infinite ocean. But on the East River you are in the city, of the city, and something about this gritty proximity makes the city more beautiful. I did not have to stretch to see the Chrysler building, gleaming like the gem that it is; it stands there, elegantly visible. On the East River a wonderful intimacy with the city emerges.

Add to this the perspective from a kayak. You are not looking down or over but rather are at water level so there’s no separation between you and what you see. In a natural setting this is lovely, and many paddlers become foggy as they describe their sense of one-ness with nature. In this urban setting though the relationship is with steel and concrete and brown green water—but you are not of it, can not be one with it. In fact, in my boat, I felt like this shiny visitor from a cleaner, distant land. So in all that closeness there’s also a great separation—it’s one of the most dissonant and exhilarating experiences imaginable.

You don’t paddle around Manhattan for the nature sightings but when you see something it’s exciting—the jellyfish bobbing in the water, for instance, or the birds taking flight (one glorious egret; several blue heron). But even the wildlife seems transformed. Just off the United Nations on a small outcropping, that looks like a bunch of dredge piled into the river (which is exactly what it is) are draped nesting double crested cormorants that do not look anything but bleak, even ominous. On the island a sign reads: U Thant island, for the Burmese Buddhist UN Secretary General U Thant. And the arch on which the cormorants are nesting isn’t any arch, it’s a Peace Arch. In fact the island isn’t named U Thant, it’s named Belmont, for the industrialist who built one of the thirteen tunnels that squirrels under the East River. The debris removed to build that tunnel was heaped on a reef, and there stands this unnatural island.

There is no bridge to U Thant, but eight bridges span the East River and each has its own personality: high or low, ratty-looking or trim steel. All are loud. One intriguing crossing is a blue-green pedestrian bridge that traverses to Ward’s Island where a State mental hospital stands, surrounded by wire fencing; tiny windows look out onto the river.

On the East River we flew along--faster at times than cars jam-packed on the FDR drive. If I lived in the city now and was one of those people stuck in traffic and I saw me floating by what I would see was freedom and adventure and I’d expire of jealousy. So as we paddled past those commuters, and others on the water taxis, dressed in their suits, I thanked some spirit I was not one of them. What took me a while to think—what I was doing seemed so marvelous I couldn’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t leap at this opportunity--was that they probably were thanking the same spirit they were not me.

North a bit further Sue lost one of her water bottles, then back paddled to fetch it. Dawes and I continued on. After a while, I glanced back. “Sue’s in the river,” I said and we swooped around. “I fell in,” she said, still startled to find herself in the East River. She treaded while Dawes emptied the water out of her boat, righted it and stabilized it so she could get back in. She inserted her feet into the cockpit and executed a gymnastic sit up right into the boat that would have won a gold medal.

When we pulled out on Randall Island not ten minutes later, Sue, her black shoulder-length hair plastered to her head, was shivering. The water had warmed to about 67 degrees, but chill comes easily below 70. Soon, a police officer arrived. “We got a call saying some kid fell into the river. Everything ok?” That we were being watched, or rather watched out for, delighted me.

We rested for a short while eating oranges and watching two teams play soccer. As we packed up we attached our lights to the back of our boats. I carry my light in the back of my car and every time I see it I think it’s some odd spaceship dildo, the latest supersonic model. “Don’t you guys agree?” I asked, feeling as if the past six hours had made us intimate friends and it was about time we started talking about sex. I got no response.

Sue announced she never wanted to get in a kayak again so we were not stopping at the railroad bridge before the Hudson.

That meant I had to pee there on Randall’s Island. As I squatted near a bush, I remembered how when I walked in the city finding public restrooms was always a problem. I never would have squatted, even in the parks, but somehow my kayak and this whole endeavor allowed me any behavior.

“I found a present for you,” Dawes greeted me on my return. On top of my kayak rested a DVD case: Big Butt, Road Trip 4. Monster butt certified. Shot on location. I wondered what location.

“This is great,” I said. This porn—not wildlife—was more what I expected to find circling the city. Though the water itself seems fairly clean—little floating debris--at our two landings lots of garbage and a difficult smell greeted us. But the image people concoct of floating rats (or bodies) or of the smell of unprocessed sewage are all the stuff of urban myth.

There’s a great sense of people along the East river. This is perhaps because of several walks that rim the edges: Carl Schurz Park and then further north Bobby Wagner walk. I’d never walked either path, but both gave us lots of walkers and joggers and one woman waved and called, “Paddle safely.”

We continued past Hell Gate and on up the Harlem River (again, really a strait, separating Manhattan from the Bronx). Something about the name Hell Gate makes it seem as if this should be terribly treacherous, and historically it was—many ships sunk near there in the 19th century. But the original Dutch name, Hellegat, means bright passage (or rather, one interpretation says this; others offer that Hell Gate means Hell Channel). For us—and for most who pass through this section--it was a bright passage as the rocks and reefs that made the passing complicated had been blasted out by the Army Corps of Engineers at the end of the 19th century.

The Harlem River felt calm—we did have the currents just right--as we stroked past two men fishing. Just as we approached one seemed to have caught something and we slowed to watch his catch: a large white undershirt. We scooted past a huge wall of Inwood Marble (directly across from Inwood) smeared black by time and pollution. Darkness had settled in for good by the time we reached Spuyten Duyvil (a name that also invokes fear; one translation is the devil’s whirlpool though the creek that caused these whirlpools has been filled in). We turned on our lights and dug in toward the final bridge, a railroad swing bridge.

Before us spread a mile expanse of the Hudson River, calm at slack tide, not a boat visible in either direction. We spotted the light at the Englewood Marina and pushed across the dark, smooth river to our original launch. South of us the George Washington Bridge lit the sky and Manhattan glowed orange yellow. None of the city noise reached us on our watery way and so the city took on a luminous holy feeling. An odd, elated sense of peace wrapped us there in the middle of the river; overwhelmed by the miracle of it all, our fatigue floated off. 10,000 strokes, eight and a half hours, two peanut butter sandwiches, one perfect day.

“Sue, you made it,” I said. I might have been talking to myself.

Antarctica, Rhinebeck and Bowermaster

We had our first reading for Antarctica in Rhinebeck’s cosy and wonderful, independent bookstore Oblong. One of the great pleasures of doing these readings is getting to know the writers whose works I’ve read and re-read for months. For this reading that person was adventurer, writer and filmmaker Jon Bowermaster, who is a marvelous, generous storyteller with a wealth of experience in the Antarctic.

That he could attend this reading was amazing because most of the time he’s off in exotic places - in eleven days he again leaves for the Antarctic. There he will kayak and film a part of the continent most never see, the western side of the Palmer Peninsula, near the Larsen Ice Shelf. Visit Jon’s website to find out more about his amazing adventures: www.jonbowermaster.com. Another pleasure is meeting people who are curious about the Antarctic, and in the audience was a couple headed to the Ice in February on a cruise ship. Also in attendance was Anne Brooksher, a student of mine from the University of Arizona, now a lawyer in New York City (proof that creative writing majors can go on to great careers).

Next stop: Boulder, Colorado.