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All posts for the month February, 2014

Ethereal

Posted by 2geeks3knots on February 26, 2014
Posted in: A Word A Week Challenge, Around the Sound, Kayaking, Weekly Photo Challenge. 18 Comments

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner


Our paddle on Sunday may very well be the most memorable of winter 2014.  We’ll remember it for all the things that didn’t happen – like, wind. Or wakes. Or frozen fingers. Or anxiety of any sort. We floated in an atmosphere of utter calm like we’ve never seen before. Not a breeze, not a boat. Just an eerie, otherworldly stillness. Air temperatures around 54F, water 34F.


We glided across the Sound to Sands Point, Long Island (40 52.001 N 73 43.760 W), passing the 1849 lighthouse at haunted Execution Rocks. The only boat wakes were our own.

A pair of silent barges appeared, up from the City. But even their usually dramatic wakes came at us only as glistening mounds of water—like rows of satin bolsters—almost indistinguishable from the sky.

No creatures were stirring except a curious seal or two. We did discover a beached whale, however, in sight of the NYC skyline…


And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

After lunch, we rounded Huckleberry Island and headed for home. On this weird, windless day, patches of floating ice looked like tropical islands (the airplane view). Jim and Alex couldn’t resist doing some icebreaking.

Not far from HHYC, we came across a huge flock of birds (brant?) on the water. Thousands of them. They didn’t vocalize much — but the rustling of 10,000 wings sounded “like an old plane on the tarmac” (Alex) or “thumbs rifling through an enormous stack of paper” (Jean). Can you hear them? Click on video below and enjoy a Moment Of Zen:

Wild Ones

Posted by 2geeks3knots on February 21, 2014
Posted in: Kayaking, Nature. Tagged: , . 11 Comments

A couple of weekends ago during our Kayak Ice Capades, we glimpsed a colorful mess of something-or-other as we paddled past the breakwater at Larchmont Harbor.  Closer inspection revealed…balloons! Lots and lots of them, their helium faded—but their bright, happy colors very much intact.

How festive! How charming! How…awful. We immediately went into kayaker-sanitation-worker mode. But we couldn’t get the heap to fit on our decks. Fine. We’d just use them for towing practice. (What a drag! Below: Jean at 1 kt. maybe.)

They’d been tied together with fishing line and released on the joyous occasion of a new baby, per the message printed on the cheetah-pattern mylar balloons:  “WELCOME, WILD ONE!”

Great. (Welcome, cute cuddly human being #7,000,000,001).  Not your fault—you can’t even read. But here’s why that message and your aunties’ way of celebrating your arrival are tragically ironic (as in, DAMN YOU, WILD ONE!). Below, a page from balloonsblow.org  “a non-profit organization created to provide information & educate others of the dangerous effects balloon releases have on wildlife & the environment & to inspire & promote an eco-conscious lifestyle.” BTW, a great time was had by all back at HHYC…popping the balloons, and tossing them into the trash. 
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Balloons kill wildlife. Beach litter surveys have shown the amount of balloons and balloon pieces found on the beach have tripled in the past 10 years. We’ve witnessed this increase firsthand, cleaning the beaches since we were little children in the early ’90s, we would rarely find them back then.

Balloons removed from inside Hawksbill sea turtle in August 2011
Photo: Lance Ferris

This Rusty Blackbird, a vulnerable species, was found dead – entangled in balloon ribbon. Photo: David E. Gurniewicz

While some balloons burst, others just gradually deflate. But they all fall back down to earth where they can wreak havoc on wildlife on land, sea, and air. The proof is in the photo gallery.

Bighorn ram who strangled to death on the ribbons of a cluster of latex balloons that he had eaten. Outdoor California, 2010

Dolphins, whales, turtles, and many other marine species, as well as terrestrial animals such as cows, dogs, sheep, tortoises, birds and other animals have all been hurt or killed by balloons. The animal is usually killed from the balloon blocking its digestive tract, leaving them unable to take in any more nutrients. It slowly starves to death. The animals can also become entangled in the balloon and its ribbon making the animal unable to move or eat. Sea turtles are particularly at risk because they naturally prey on jellies, which balloons can easily be mistaken for, even with human eyes.

Fragments of a blue latex balloon found in the stomach of green turtle stranded dead near Blackpool, UK. Photo: Rod Penrose, Marine Environmental Monitoring, UK CSIP

Balloons can take years to break down, even the so-called “biodegradable” latex ones. This gives plenty of time for it to travel and encounter many animals that may mistake it for a tasty snack, or accidentally get entangled in it.

“More orange balloon in another shearwater’s proventriculus. Often I find undigested food in the esophagus of birds with balloons in their proventriculus, and I suspect the balloons is blocking the passage of food and causing them to starve.” Photo by: Lauren Roman

Some states and countries have enacted laws regarding the release of balloons. The Balloon Council, and other balloon industry entities, spend millions of dollars lobbying to keep balloon releases legal.  This multi-billion dollar industry encourages consumers to litter with their product. Releasing balloon should be included in already existing litter laws, after all, it’s simply littering. Check out balloon laws to learn more and find out how to help.

This young Screech Owl was found in Pinellas County, Florida hanging by its wing, for who knows how long, at Sawgrass Park. Fortunately, they were able to get a ladder & cut him down & bring him to Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary. Photo by: D. Sauvageau

via Impacts on Wildlife & the Environment | Balloons Blow… Don’t Let Them Go!.

The Color Violet

Posted by 2geeks3knots on February 19, 2014
Posted in: Kayaking, Weekly Photo Challenge. Tagged: . 8 Comments

We’ve had some colorful “Photo Challenges” lately. Yellow, per our last post, and now, its complement. (Above: Evening falls on the Hudson River, October, as  Jean paddles north toward Hudson River Islands State Park. The next morning, our friend, Vlad, leaves camp at daybreak to paddle through the mist.)

Here’s a geekapedic fact: As far as optics are concerned, violet is a real color. It occupies its own place at the end of the visible spectrum, and it was one of the seven spectral colors of the spectrum first described by Isaac Newton in 1672. On Monday, it showed up in the shadows of big trees, little kids, and a pair of geeks during our tromp around snowy Davenport Park in New Rochelle.

A Day At The Beach

Posted by 2geeks3knots on February 9, 2014
Posted in: Around the Sound, Nature, Travel Theme, Weekly Travel Theme. Tagged: , . 1 Comment

While Ailsa recently interpreted yellow as an early sign of spring, we experienced this “warm” color in a wintry way. With air temps topping out at 28F, we bundled up and visited Orchard Beach in the Bronx (aka, The Riviera of New York) on foot. Woolen-socked, shearling-lined booted foot! We could’ve paddled today, but there was something nice about walking mitten-in-mitten along the beach…like a scene from every other online dating profile. Only frozen.