I happened to be free this weekend, and my friend JB told me about a special event at New Yorks’ Governor’s Island. It was “City of Water Day”, and paddlers were invited to visit the island under their own power. So I packed the canoe on top of the car and drove to Red Hook, Brooklyn, where JB and I departed with about two dozen other paddlers and a Coast Guard escort, and headed across a portion of lower New York bay. In the canoe I placed my Brompton folding bicycle, and JB had arranged to have a Swift folding bike delivered to the island.
On Governor’s island there was a big festival with food, artwork and music. JB and I pedaled all around the island and toured the beautiful little historic town where military personnel and their families had lived, back when the island was a navy outpost. We peeked at the old, abandoned high-rises behind the closed-off portion of the Island. Paddlers got free t-shirts, watermelon, sandwiches, and Izze fizzy soft drinks.
After a slight delay, during which we waited for a coast guard escort, we departed along with a larger group and headed back to Red Hook. This time, the water was choppier, and we were paddling against the wind. It was tough paddling, but it didn’t last long. An approaching water taxi was an added incentive to get across the river.
For a bit of extra fun, JB and I did not actually exit with the main group at Red Hook. We kept going with some Brooklyn paddlers (the “gowanus dredgers”) and headed to the Gowanus Canal via the Erie Basin. We passed by several enormous barges and container ships and passed by the new IKEA store. The Erie Basin was a sheltered shortcut, and we sneaked under a pier to continue past the New York Police impounding area (a pier loaded with hundreds of cars) toward the Gowanus Canal.
We paddled up the Gowanus, past an industrial urban waterfront landscape and under the BQE, the F-train, 9th Street, and Carroll Street. It was a surreal and fascinating experience. At one point we passed a huge barge which had a big tractor unloading gravel from it. We saw a junkyard with a tower of cast-iron bathtubs.
See photos in my City of Water Day Flickr set.
