The smoke last weekend prevented me from a planned long bike ride, so I resolved that I needed to do SOMETHING endurance-based for the Fourth of July. S has made me leery about riding my bike around on the roads on drinking holidays, plus the morning was wet (don't care the moisture itself so much as hastened drivetrain destruction), so biking was out. What about water-based options? I haven't been out in my single much, and I wasn't sure about what to expect in terms of holiday traffic on the river, so a long solo row to Troy was out. But what about kayaking? Well, why not?
I had to clean out a mouse hibernaculum from the kayak, plus cobwebs, and then I was ready to go.
The morning was utterly beautiful - light rains at the tail end of overnight thunderstorms, plus flat water, and hardly anybody out there.
Lots of debris from the recent rains. Hard to take photos with a phone in a damp case:
I saw two of my rowing teammates out, but they didn't recognize me in my kayaking disguise.
I also encountered a stand-up paddleboarder near the Menands bridge. He had started in Ottawa and was on his way to NYC, with a stopover in Albany on his way.
"I'm a writer," he explained.
It seems to me like more often than not the people I encounter who are on long-distance journeys say they are writers. Do we need to say this to justify ourselves? I don't know. When people ask me questions when I'm in the middle of a brevet, I try to say things that will end the conversation as quickly as possible. But on the other hand, I suspect the encounters on waterways are at least somewhat different from the encounters in roadside convenience stores.
In any case, it looked like he was having an absolutely fantastic time, and had a great setup, and I was more than slightly envious. For all I know, he could wind up writing an amazing and poetic piece about environmental justice that makes congresscritters weep and reallocate egregious amounts of defense spending towards river Superfund cleanups instead. And that would be fantastic.
On the other hand, I had my own day's adventure to attend to.
To the Troy Lock, once again!
This is what you do when you're in the lock, waiting for another boat to arrive, slightly bored, slightly nervous: selfies.
And while you are waiting for the water to rise, it's a great moment for taking a timelapse photo series (you must click through to animate):
I paddled all the way up to Waterford, where I found a rubber duck perched on a rock:
To judge by the number written on her underside, another Duck Derby escapee.
When I moved her to take her photo, I discovered that a dragonfly was in the midst of using her as a perch to molt and dry out!
I decided to eat my lunch while watching the dragonfly blow out its wings and body to its adult configuration, as the sun had come out and the patch of shade by the duck was a pleasant spot. Another timelapse to click on:
Did you know that the veins in an insect's wings are actual veins, that contain hemolymph? That is how they unfurl them: they pump hemolymph into them, to stiffen them up. It was also interesting to see that, towards the end of watching the dragonfly, it started to pee a bunch (not pictured). In retrospect, that makes sense: during the aquatic phase of its life, it has ready access to water. It might even be like the crabs that take on extra water to facilitate molting. But once molting has concluded, that extra water is extra mass to lift, so pee it out.
I wasn't sure how long it would take the dragonfly to dry out completely and spread its wings. My sense is that that part of the process can take upwards of an hour. So I shoved on. I took a couple quick detours to pass under additional bridges in Watervliet, like this one, near Lock 2:
Plus a stop on Peebles Island, to use the restroom and refill my water bottle. It started to get warm once the sun came out.
I also passed beneath two other bridges on either end of Van Schaick Island (not pictured). I believe that brings my Hudson River bridge total up by 4 more new bridges.
Not the greatest photo series, but the heron perched on this tree limb had its beak wide open when I encountered it back by the Menands Bridge:
On the return trip, I wound up picking up as much flotsam as I could carry. My dislike of disposable beverage containers continues, unabated.
The most entertaining finds included a pink toy ball, and my third waterway coconut find! Alas, this one, too, was already rotten. But not all that far gone. The quest continues.
Altogether I managed 21.5 miles in just over 9 hours. I did exactly zero kayak training beforehand, so my arms were very tired by the end. It was a strange feeling, to be exhausted but have zero soreness in my legs.
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