Hudson River Trip Day 3

Day 3

We have to paddle 26 miles today, so we are up at 5:00am and on the water by 6:15am.  It is raining lightly, but the air temperature is a nice 70 degrees—not too hot, not too cold.  We paddle the next six hours in the rain with only two short breaks.  We are soaked and as soon as we stop, we instantly get chilled.  Paddling keeps us warm.  Visibility is terrible, maybe 2 miles.  At least the wind is not too strong and it’s at our backs.  

By noon, we’ve covered the 26 miles and reached Highland.  The landing at Highland is under construction.  There is a big pile of dirt, an old boarded up building and a small, flat patch of scrubby grass that is now under an inch of water.  No one is looking forward to camping here.  The building has a porch, so we climb up and Dave and I change into dry clothes and rain gear.  Russ and Jean-Claude elect to stay in their wet clothes.  I am badly chilled and the dry clothes are a welcome relief.  

We walk about a half-mile up the hill to the local gas station/Dunkin Donuts/Subway and spend the next few hours eating, and staying dry.  At around 3:30pm, we wander out to find the rain has all but stopped.  We take a quick walk on the Walkway Over the Hudson, then hike back down to the kayaks.  We are well rested and it takes us no time at all to make the decision to push on.  Jean-Claude has a friend who offered to let us camp on his lawn and his house is only another 9 miles downriver.  Dave and I change back into our wet clothes and we shove off.

View of the Mid-Hudson Bridge from the Walkway Over the Hudson

The next 9 miles is an easy paddle at a very relaxed pace.  By waiting out the afternoon, we’ve caught the second southerly current for the day.  Unfortunately, there is no place to take out when we arrive.  We unload all of our gear onto land and carry it, piece by piece to the backyard that will be our camp tonight.  After some negotiating, we get permission from the marina down the street to put our kayaks up on their docks. As an added bonus, we get to use their showers! (Our only one this whole trip).  It is 9pm by the time we settle into our tents and we are exhausted from paddling over 35 miles in one day.

Hudson River Trip - Day 2

Day 2

After paddling against the current on our first day, we all elect to get up early and paddle with the current and at slack tide (no current either way).  The sun and hot temperatures are gone.  It is cool and overcast.  We suspect that rain is coming, but there is nothing we can do about it as we shove off into the early morning mist.

Paddling a fully loaded kayak is nothing like paddling an empty one.  You would think that a fully loaded boat would be very slow and hard to paddle, but the reverse is true.  The first few strokes are tough, but once you get up to cruising speed, the weight creates its own forward momentum.  The average paddler moves at 3mph.  We are averaging 5mph.  We are paddling hard, and making great time. 

Russ & Dave paddling toward the Rip Van Winkle Bridge

Usually, kayaks stay far out of the shipping channel and hug the shore line.  It is much safer to stay out of the way, especially on the Hudson where football field sized barges are common.  But in order to catch the current and make time, we are paddling out in the center—right in the shipping lane.  It feels strange at first, but partly because of the time of day and partly because it is before Memorial Day, there is almost no boat traffic.

To get a sense of scale, I photographed this barge just before it passed Russ.  Can you see him in the photo?  He's the tiny bump on the water just off center below the trees.

Our destination today is Saugerties, 22 miles downriver.  The farthest any of us has ever paddled in one day is 22 miles.  Today we will match that.  The next three days, we will exceed it.  At least, we will try.

During a rare break in the paddling, we watch as an immature bald eagle swoops down at a goose who is sitting calmly on the water.  Just as the eagle is about to grab the goose, the goose dives under the water.  This diving and bobbing goes on for a few minutes, then another eagle joins in and they both dive at the goose.  Eventually one of the eagles catches a fish and they both lose interest in the goose as a third eagle (all them immature) flies out from the woods and the three of them fight over the fish.  Just as we are paddling off, the pair of mature eagles flies up to complete the family.  Five bald eagles at once!

The lighthouse at Saugerties greets us when we arrive.

We arrive in Saugerties early afternoon and five minutes after we set up our tents, it starts to rain.  We walk into to town and have lunch at a local restaurant and it rains hard.  We spend the afternoon at the Saugerties library, bookstore, ale house and local restaurants.  It was a good paddle, our tents are dry and we are well fed.  But we all realize that tomorrow we will be paddling in the rain.