Where’s Griet? High tide at Marshlands Conservancy. Griet takes a pic of us taking a pic through the salt marsh spartina. See more interpretations of this week’s Photo Challenge: Dense 🙂 🙂
Around the Sound
Talk about using your friends! Felix readjusts his footpegs mid-paddle and needs to be outside of the boat to do it. Five kayaks become one “raft.” See more interpretations of this week’s Photo Challenge: repurpose.
It was lovely day on the water…but not for everybody. One of the peregrines that haunts Execution Rocks lighthouse made a meal of this pigeon. And it was seriously considering Luke’s new drone for dessert!
Luke recalled the gizmo ASAP when the falcon took a second, then a third fly-by…
Drone survived to see another day. (See blur, top of photo; Execution Rocks lighthouse on horizon.) Jonathan, Bob and Troy in City Island
Haha, we might’ve been watching footage like this instead of the aerial paddling video Luke made. Click below for the ultimate “flying camera” POV! 🙂 🙂
Is Execution Rocks lighthouse haunted? Definitely. By cormorants, gulls, peregrine falcons, seals (see arrow at :52) and us paddlers. Despite the unholy stench of bird guano, it’s one of our favorite haunts. Click for video—an impromptu “family reunion” on 1/16/17—courtesy of the mega-talented Luke (aka kayakhipster) and his new drone. 🙂 🙂
The last paddle of the year. Jerry and Luke (aka, kayakhipster) joined us on the Sound, 12.28.16, a windy Wednesday. Paddling into the sunset (argh, only 4:36 p.m.!), Luke stops to take a snap of NYC on the horizon.
The sun’s last “hurrah.” May your 2017 be bright. Best wishes, 🙂 🙂
“Red and green, go between…but only if you’re crossing a channel you dope,” goes the ye olde kayakers’ saying. Big hugs to all y’all. And best wishes for a safe and happy New Year! 🙂 🙂
Home, chaotic home. 10.15.16 Kayak-camping on Shea Island (just us geeks) after paddling from home, slightly-more-organized home, 20NM away. A late start and high winds made the slogging tough—and our sleeping bags that much cozier.
There’s order in the universe. Did you know that you can tell the air temperature just by listening? All you need are crickets! They slow down in autumn (like the rest of us), but their chirps are spot on. Here’s how we knew the nighttime temperature outside our tent was 45°F:
To convert cricket chirps to degrees Fahrenheit Count number of chirps in 14 seconds then add 40 to get temperature. (Example: 30 chirps + 40 = 70° F)
To convert cricket chirps to degrees Celsius Count number of chirps in 25 seconds, divide by 3, then add 4 to get temperature. (Example: 48 chirps ÷ 3 + 4 = 20° C)
Alex makes tracks for the loo
Deer made tracks last night!
See more interpretations of this week’s photo challenge 🙂 🙂
Plastic cups. Beer cans. Balloons. Bilge…That’s what we usually encounter in our corner of Long Island Sound just north of New York City. But who knew “junk” fish (bunker) could be so attractive?
Dan Reiner gets the scoop: LOHUD The Journal News (July 25, 2016—all photos from that report):
Humpback Whale Seen Off New Rochelle
New Rochelle resident Dan Rogers headed out with some friends on a fishing trip Thursday morning, with hopes of catching some blue fish in the Long Island Sound. Around 1:30 p.m., he got an unexpected visitor several yards from his boat, when a humpback whale breached its head.
On a typical whale-watch tour you don’t usually see your own apartment building in the background.
“It was kind of wild,” Rogers said Friday. “There was a ton of bait fish out there yesterday. They were getting attacked by blue fish and the whale came in and started feeding on the bait fish.”
Rogers was fishing in the Sound between the New Rochelle shore and Execution Rocks Light. Some boaters followed the whale at a distance as it continued to feed and breach for air, he said.
The Coast Guard sent out a radio transmission Thursday warning boaters to stay at least 100 yards away from the whale. [Oh, ya think?] On Friday morning, the U.S. Coast Guard Sector New York said no further details were available.
“We have sightings around Long Island all the time for different species of whales,” said Valentina Sherlock, program coordinator at the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research & Preservation. She said it’s hard to tell if whales commonly enter the waters near Westchester due to a lack of citizen reporting.
Wait…whales want guaranteed publicity?
“You are going to see in the coming years — a lot more effort into whale monitoring if people continue reporting,” she said. Westchester’s most recent whale sighting had been last September, when a humpback made its way through New Rochelle and Larchmont.
Anthony Lalli, a New Rochelle resident and fisherman of 35 years, described two whale sightings in one year as “unbelievable.” Last week, he said, a large sea turtle swam up alongside his fishing boat, also near Execution Rocks Light. Lalli pointed to clean-up efforts in the Sound as a possible reason for the increase in marine activity.
On Friday, the whale was reported to be seen headed east on the Sound toward northern Westchester and Connecticut. 🙂 🙂
This week’s Discover Challenge is perspective. Last Sunday, our dear friend Luke, aka Kayak Hipster, and his camera drone (!) supplied an all-new birds’ eye view of us paddling—and Horseshoe Harbor coming back to life. No telling what that curious seagull thought about it! 🙂
Today is January 7. Ta-dah!! On this day in history…1785: Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries wafted from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in a gas balloon (hilarious details below). And what better way to honor geekkind’s first successful air crossing of the English Channel than by re-blogging Luke’s (kayakhiptster’s) First Insanely Entertaining Video Shot From His Crazy-Ass Drone? If Blanchard and Jeffries had time-warped to our side of the pond, this is what the balloonists would’ve seen: Luke and Felix crossing from Greenwich, Connecticut to Great Captains Island via kayak. Click and weep:
As for Blanchard and Jeffries… history.com reports: The two men nearly crashed into the Channel along the way, however, as their balloon was weighed down by extraneous supplies such as anchors, a nonfunctional hand-operated propeller, and silk-covered oars with which they hoped they could row their way through the air. Just before reaching the French coast, the two balloonists were forced to throw nearly everything out of the balloon, and Blanchard even threw his trousers over the side in a desperate, but apparently successful, attempt to lighten the ship.
Luke and Felix had no such mishaps and reached their destination, trousers and all.
2 Geeks @ 3 Knots 