Urban Paddling

Yesterday afternoon Richard Narrmore, a fellow New City Kid's Church board member, and I set out to paddle from Liberty State Park to Laurel Hill Park in Secaucus. The route I planned showed just over 17 miles. We had an incoming tide and hoped that would help us get up the Hackensack River before it got to dark. Unfortunately I overestimated how fast and how far we could paddle and by 7:30 the sun set and we still had over 5 miles to go. By 8 p.m. we had lost light and the ingoing tide turned fast to outgoing. The last 3 miles againt a growing outgoing tide were not fun. We pulled off the water at 10:00 p.m. Thanks to Richard for renewed energy through his Liver Dumplings.....you should try one sometime. Lessons learned. Don't be unrealistic....Why do I have to keep learning that. Keep ready communication between each other. Once we lost each other in the dark (even with our lights on) and even our whistles didn't help alot since I couldn't tell what direction it was coming from. Other than that it was a great trip.

Here is Richard going under the Bayonne Bridge. Construction on the bridge began in 1928, and eventually cost $13 million. When it opened on November 15, 1931, it was the longest steel arch bridge in the world and was deliberately built a few feet longer than the Sydney Harbour Bridge, The same pair of golden shears used to cut the ribbon for the Bayonne Bridge was sent to Australia for the ribbon cutting of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. In the next few years they are going to have to rebuild or build a new bridge to accomidate the new giant freighters from China that will be 60 ft. higher. The future life of the Newark Harbor now depends on raising the height of this bridge.

Here we are approaching the lighthouse in the New York Harbor at the entrance to the Newark Harbor with the Verazano Narrows Bridge in the Background. We had high westerly winds crossing the bay from Liberty State Park.

911 Memorial in Bayonne. Standing more than 100 feet tall, “To the Struggle Against World Terrorism” honors victims of 9/11 and the 1993 World Trade Center bombings and serves a symbol of solidarity in the fight against world terrorism. Created by Russian sculptor Zurab Tsereteli, the memorial was a gift from the Russian people. It resembles a giant teardrop.

Richard coming across the bay with lower Manhattan in the background.

A track of our trip: