Completing a Kayak Paddle Around Long Island
This past weekend, our "Around Long Island" paddle made it back home to Brooklyn! This is a five year epic journey circumnavigating the island we live on (even though Brooklyn-ites don't like to admit it, we do live on Long Island).
After a night (for myself and Stevie M) at the very nice Ransome Inn, we started where the group ended last year, just east of Port Jefferson at Cedar Town Beach in Mt. Sinai (where John W and I made up the leg of the trip that I missed last year due to shoulder surgery):
We had to wait for the Port Jeff ferry to cross:
Found a nice lunch spot:
And landed near Eatons Neck right near this power plant which is visible from across the sound in Connecticutt:
The next morning, we were not able to get to our put in spot since the entire town of Northport was shut down for a running race. But we found another beach just to the west, still in view of the power plant:
It was a lot windier on this day, and we had much bigger conditions as a result.
We made it back within sight of Manhattan:
Passed some wild houses:
The next day, we had more sun and even more wind, but again it was in our favor.
We passed a regatta in progress:
Made it under the Throgs Neck Bridge and back into NYC:
Past some more very interesting houses (a seaplane in Queens!)
Under the Whitestone bridge:
My paddle broke right off of LaGuardia airport, so I didn't shoot many photos.
Past Rikers Island:
And had lunch on south brother island:
We had a good run through Hell Gate:
And down the East River:
My camera died before I could get any shots of the crazy conditions we saw under the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges:
Here's a video of some of the highlights:
It was a great trip! I've already paddled the stretch from Red Hook back to Jamaica Bay, and so we have now paddled all the way around the island, with the exception of one 10 mile stretch out between Georgica Beach in East Hampton and Napeague, which is only a few hours. Schedule permitting, I hope to complete that in the next few weeks (assuming I can get my paddle fixed in time).
More photos of this trip here, all my writeups of the last four years here, and I'm sure Bonnie will have a complete write up soon.