This past weekend saw the travelling circus that is the early spring paddling season land in central New Jersey. After a very successful Paddlesports show, I headed up to the Big Apple with Justin McGiver, an IR tech rep, and his girlfriend Jen, whose car had broken down in Jersey.
We crashed on the Upper West Side at a freind’s apartment overlooking the Hudson. We stopped off at Paragon Sports, an amazing sporting goods store right in midtown Manhattan, 18th and Broadway. That place is awesome.
It was a rainy and windy day, so Jen, Justin and I headed to the Natural History Museum as our next appointment wasn’t until 4:30. The museum was awesome, and afterwards we headed downtown to Pier 66.
At Pier 66 Eric Stiller runs a paddling school, boat storage and general fun place for paddlers to hang out (Manhattan Kayak Company). Word of caution: bring your workout clothes, this dude is fit and will have your heart rate up with his dryland paddling workouts in about 30 seconds!
We then headed over to Hoboken to stay with a good buddy, Andy Griffiths, of Buzzlemani fame and now sales rep for Zico (www.zico.com).
The highlight of the trip was defintely our paddle from Liberty State Park out and around the Statue of Liberty.
It was a warmish morning, but with plenty of wind, clouds, tides, currents, waves and boats (big ones). As we were rounding the front of the statue, we even caught a few surfs on some rolling 3 foot waves. You can catch a glimpse of the water conditions in the middle pic.
Our guides on this day were Alex and Bill from Campmor. Big thanks to those guys for setting us up with boats and paddles.
The view from of Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Statue were awesome! If you live in that area, get a boat and get out there!
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