Paddling the Hudson with Nancy

 

First time out:

STUYVESANT LANDING

My friend Nancy asked if I wanted to go kayaking with her on the Hudson River. It was June 20, 2020 and I thought that sounded pretty good. She borrowed a kayak for me, we met at her house in Valatie, and drove the two kayaks down to the river on the roof of her Subaru. Stuyvesant Landing is the name of the little place we went. It was not fancy but we got the kayaks into the water and paddled across the river and up the Coxsackie Creek. It was just gorgeous, a word I know I overuse but really the only word that works to describe so many of these kayak adventures, this one and the ones that follow.

Here's a pic I found online of Stuyvesant Landing.

Here's another. To back up my "not fancy" claim...

Here's Nancy. aka "Nielson".

A tree growing out of an exposed root ball on the east bank of the Hudson, just south of Stuyvesant.

Here's a tree root ball at the mouth of the Coxsackie Creek.

Here's me on a beach on the banks of the Hudson. I had NO idea there were beaches on the banks of the Hudson River. Amazing. Nancy brought cherries; I threw the pits over my shoulder. I hope cherry trees grow.

Paddling into the beach.

Paddling away. (I didn't bring my camera that first time out, so all pics were taken with Nancy's phone.)

INDEPENDENCE DAY

So, for our next paddle, Nancy had the bright idea of kayaking out into the middle of the Hudson River to watch the 4th of July fireworks. I kinda had plans to hang with the boy that night but when I told him that I had a chance to watch the fireworks from the water, he more or less told me I'd be nuts if I didn't do that. So I texted Nancy and told her I'd love to go, if she still had room for me!

She did, and we put in at the city of Hudson kayak launch, which looks like this one below. It's so easy to get in and out of your kayak and get in and out of the water with this kind of kayak launch.

We got going around 6, 6:30 and paddled over to Athens where they had a completely different kind of kayak launch. It was amazing and I fell in love with its simple, instictive utility. It's the EZ Kayak Launch, as seen here:

If you wanna see it in action, click here: EZ Kayak Launch promo film. Then we went back out and paddled around "Middle Ground Flats", a big island in the middle of the river, with a really nice beach on the south end of it, a place called "Camp Swampy".

Hudson with Nick

Hudson around Island

Catskill/Ramshorn Audubon Preserve

Saugerties and about

Rhinecliff up to bottom of Saugerties outing

Nutten Hook

Rhinecliff to PYC