Somebody told us that today (February 22) is National Margarita Day. Hope you like yours frozen.
We’d hoped to get out on the water today. Knowing it might be icy, we went to scout a place to launch…but ended up looking for someplace to paddle at all!
Searching for signs of liquid water on Long Island Sound
Kayak hipster (aka, Luke) was two towns up, doing the same thing. Even the birds couldn’t find open water, he reported.
Mamaroneck Harbor 2/21/15
Brrrr! Let’s step inside the kayak storage room and warm up a little….
Or not! Even taking our kayaks off the racks could be a slippery proposition.
A rare event: High tide turned to ice inside the kayak storage room
Sigh. There’s really only one thing to do today:
Roasted Blueberry Basil Margaritas
YIELD: One margarita, can easily be multiplied
TOTAL TIME: 10 MINUTES
Ingredients:
2 ounces Grand Marnier
1 1/2 ounces Tequila
2 ounces lime juice
2 1/2 ounces blueberry basil simple syrup
Sliced lime + fresh blueberries and basil leaves for garnish
Salt + sugar for the rim
Directions: Rim the ridge of your glass with a lime wedge and dip in a mix of margarita salt + sugar [about 3 tablespoons salt to 2 teaspoons sugar]. Fill the glass with ice. In a cocktail shaker, combine tequila, grand marnier, simple syrup and lime juice with ice, and shake for about 30 seconds. Pour over ice and squeeze in lime slices, then drop in blueberries and more fresh basil leaves.
For roasted blueberry basil simple syrup: Preheat oven 400 degrees F. Place 1 cup of blueberries on a nonstick baking sheet with a pinch of salt. Place in the oven and roast for 15-20 minutes, or until berries start to burst. While blueberries are roasting, combine equal parts sugar and water (such as 1/2 cup of each) in a small saucepan and add 6-8 fresh basil leaves, bring to a boil and let sugar dissolve, then turn off heat and let cool completely, about 20 minutes. Combine 1/2 cup simple syrup + roasted blueberries in a blender/food processor and blend until combined. Feel free to strain if you don’t want small blueberries chunks. Cheers! 🙂
2 Geeks @ 3 Knots 
It was 54°F in VENICE today. Saw some kayakers zip past me in one of the back canals
Bob Rivituso
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Doh!!! Well, WE saw snow geese… Have fun, Bob. And thanks for the Venetian/Paduan updates and photos! Big hugs, J&A
I live in a small port city on Lake Michigan and have a garage for winter storage and a yard for kayak on trailer storage. I wondered what metropolitan paddlers did for sea kayak storage. I had reasoned that in a pinch one could get a play boat to stand on end in a small apartment but could not imagine life without my sea kayak.
Is this a club boat house? Storage attached to an apartment house? How does one get your boat out of the city?
Well, we can’t imagine life without our sea kayaks either!! Typically, NYC paddlers keep their boats at clubs/boathouses along the Hudson (about 800 bucks a year—lots cheaper than $$$ to park yer car!!). There are several paddling clubs, like NY Kayak Company at Pier 40 /Houston Street; Downtown Boathouse; Inwood Club; Yonkers Paddling & Rowing Club; Sebago (Brooklyn); and others we’re certainly forgetting here. More than a few Manhattanites paddle folding boats (Feathercraft), but as far as we know, few take them up the freight elevators of their apartment buildings after each trip! Much easier to keep them at your usual launch site.
As for us, we used to keep our fiberglass sea kayaks at NY Kayak, cartopping each time we wanted to leave the City, ’til we moved out of NYC to New Rochelle, just north of the Bronx. The pics you see on our site now are of a little boathouse in Larchmont, NY. (Although we moved from NYC, we still live in a hi-rise apartment building—no garage or yard to keep the yaks.) Our boats are 10 minutes away by car. BTW, we have friends in NYC who get their boats out of the City by PADDLING THEM! Check out windagainstcurrent.com
We look forward to reading more of your blog! Thanks for the visit! J&A 🙂
I’ve trailered my kayak through the Tri-State around the southern end of Lake Michigan. As crowded as that is it is not stop and go city traffic. I have always wondered how city paddlers got around. Thanks.