Madison Ave. back on the Passaic

 Tuesday night Eric and I led another kayak paddle on the Passaic River for Madison Ave. members. It was a wonderful evening. This has been a wonderful time to have fun with each other and enjoy the beauty of God's creation right around us. Everyone seems to be discovering the truth of Psalm 23 of the Lord leading me beside quite waters and restoring my soul. This time Penny, Tony, Pat, Paul, Patti, Emma, David, Caleb and Gideon came out. After a bit of instruction everyone hit the water and did great. We paddled south from the Elmwood Park "marina" to the Route 46 bridge.

 Just look at the beauty of the river. The moon was also coming out and you can see it reflected on the water in front of me. We even enjoyed a final moonlight paddle back. It was pretty much dark by the time we landed but after loading we all enjoyed ice cream cones at Guernsey Crest

Kayak Kamp: Day 5

Friday we paddled the Delaware River from 8 1/2 miles above the Delaware Water Gap.  This area is all part of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area and Worthington State Forest.  We have been learning how National & State parks and recreation areas belong to all of us. Also how every river is held in trust for the people of the state. In other words every river is our river!. Read more about that HERE. After dropping my car off at the gap in order to fetch the van we drove north along the Old Mine Road to the Poxono Access. It was a beautiful day and we had some current to help us along. We paddled 5 1/2 miles before we stopped on the shore for lunch. Joey's father Paul MacCracken joined us for the paddle today. 

After lunch some of the group enjoyed swimming in the river for awhile. You can see from the picture above how clear the water was.

 Here we coming out of the final big rapids headed toward the Rt. 80 bridge.  One of the attached videos shows the perspective of going through the rapids from the deck of my kayak taken from Caleb Engelhard's gopro camer.

After we got back to the beach at the gap everyone enjoyed a refreshing swim while Pastor John and Mr. Eric retrieved the van and trailer. Victoria & Elijah even swam all the way across the river to Pennsylvania and brought back some stones for us. It has been a wonderful week in every way and we are very thankful to God. When we got back to the church we had a small presentation of completion ceremony for all of our paddles and thank you's for Mrs. Englehard and Mr. Eric.  Check back next year for more on the River of God School of Paddling.

Kayak Kamp: Day 4

Today we began our day with devotions and then went to visit Mr. Gerry DeJong at DeJong Iron Works near E. 18th St. & Hamilton. Last year Gerry personally built our kayak trailer donating all parts & labor. It holds 12 kayaks and includes a gear box for our paddles, lifevests and other stuff. Its wonderful. We then went back to the south launch on the Monksville Reservoir where you see us launching below.

 We paddled around to the north launch area, went swimming and then paddled to "pirates island" below. We didn't find any pirates but did enjoy having lunch and swimming off the island. Just watch out for those hissing swans and snapping turtles. Mrs E. challenged everyone to identify two animals they saw and had a treat for all who did. Altogether we identified nearly 20 different species of birds, fish, animals and insects that God created.

 The water felt great on a warm day. After lunch Eric & Dominic paddled around the island and served as lifeguard to our swimmer - who all had on their lifevests by the way.  We then paddled around the shore toward the dam and back to our launch. Check out some of the videos above.

Kayak Kamp: Dav 3

 Today we visited the Great Falls National Historic Park to meet Sperintendent Darren Boch and Ranger Ilyse Goldman. We are so thrilled that the National Park will help us celebrate our history and the importance of the Passaic River and Paterson. Here Ranger Goldman is talking to Naomi

 We then went and put into the Passaic River at the Hawthorne access. We paddled upstream about 3/4 of a mile and then back down. Here is our whole camp.

Elijah

Victoria

Joseph

Al'lena

Shyear

Tayshawn

Justice

Naomi

Mr. Eric

Dominic

Mrs E.

 As we paddled downstream we went over the fish weir just above the Fair Lawn Ave. bridge. Native Americans built this nearly 300 years ago and it is still there. They caught the fish by net or spearing them. We had lunch at the Fair Lawn access and pulled out in Elmwood Park.

Paddling under the Broadway/ Martin Luther King way/ Route 4 Bridge

All in all we had a great day paddling almost 6 miles. We picked up plastic bottles in the river to recycle as part of being caretakers of God's creation and cleaned up the area we we landed at the Elmwood Park boat launch. We  ended the day with ice cream at Guernsey Crest.

Kayak Kamp: Day 2

Today we began our day with devotions about a "tale of two rivers" from Genesis 2.  Between these two rivers God placed the Garden of Eden and gave Adam & Eve a job to do of taking care of the earth. However they broke the beauty of creation in disobeying God and were thrown out of the garden. We reflected on the brokenness of sin that we see in so many different ways in our lives and world. The Bible teaches us about God's good creation and how people fell into sin. We're glad that's not the end of the story. Today we paddled at Lake Waywayanda, a beautiful state park in north-west NJ near the NY border.  It took us just under an hour to get there and we had a wonderful time on the water. Today Mrs. Patti MacCracken was our female volunteer.

 Here is Mr. Eric rounding up any stragglers.  Actually everyone kept up very well. We even got to paddle through some lily pads and see how their roots went all the way to the bottom of the lake but their leaves and flowers floated on the water to reach the sun.

We stopped for lunch on a nearby rocky ledge area and enjoyed hiking around and feeding the fish. We ended the day with a swim at the beach before we loaded up and came home.

River of God Kayak Kamp: Day 1

Today we began the first day of Kayak Kamp with 9 young people along with leaders Eric White and Alisa Englehard. This year we have Al'lena, Joseph, Shyear, Tayshawn and Dominick back from last year along with Naomi, Victoria, Justice and Elijah. After our devotions on Genesis 1 and God's creation of the heavens and earth....and waters we had some basic classroom kayak training. Then we headed up to Monksville Reservoir. Once there they all learned how to adjust their life vest, put together a paddle, unstrap and unload the kayaks, carry them together, adjust their seat and foot pegs. Then we practiced some proper paddling techniques and got everyone comfortable floating in their life vest. After lunch we paddled out thought the lost forest to where the Wanaque River flows into the Reservoir.    

Here we are at the Long Pond Iron Works. This iron furnace functioned over 100 years ago to melt the iron out of the oar rock. The waterwheels were turned with water from the river and powered bellows that kept the furnaces hot.

 We had a great day and everyone did terrific  Here's a group shot outside of the hidden Pirate Cove.