| innuendos |
I paddled for hours trying to find a familiar landmark. By nightfall I was hopelessly lost in the vast expanse of the bay, a tarnished wildlife refuge comprising 10,000 acres of channel, saltmarsh and open water dotted with deserted islands. Around 8 p.m., I was tired and concerned about meandering blindly in the shipping lanes, so I took up residence on a soggy island and jogged in place to stay warm. It was 45 degrees now and windy. I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt.
My dubious sanctuary was within shouting distance of the Sebago Canoe Club in Canarsie, Brooklyn, just eight miles from my apartment--I could hear commuters racing home--but I didn't know in which direction. Before I got into the problem solving phase of my dilemma, I cursed myself for being dumber than any bivalve in the bay. Navigational incompetence aside, that's the beauty of Jamaica Bay: it's close enough to be easily accessible, but when I'm out there I feel far from home. Kayak aficionado Paul Theroux had it right: "True travel is launching oneself into the unknown--a sort of confrontation...And to me the most compelling trip holds the prospect of the unknown near home." That sentiment at least put a noble spin on freezing my ass off.
Since discovering Jamaica Bay in 1993 I've spent countless hours exploring this oft-neglected part of New York City. Located between JFK Airport, Far Rockaway and the Atlantic Ocean, the bay is, as one turgid guidebook said, "A remarkable, almost wholly unknown and--and considering the vaunted urbanity of New York--disingenuously rustic phenomenon." (If you really want to raise an eyebrow at a cocktail party, let it slip that you paddle in a disingenuously rustic phenomenon.)
The bay is a study in contradictions. Part of the Gateway National Recreation Area, which also includes the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, the bay is rumored to be the place where bodies with bullet holes and cement shoes come to rest. A great blue heron fishes in marsh grass while Concorde jets thunder over the Manhattan skyline. In Mill Basin, a 15-minute paddle from my kayak club, Italian families, many with huge satellite dishes atop their garish homes, hang out on back porches built over the water, just a short jet ski ride away from Indian shell middens. As you cruise along in a hidden channel with diamondback turtles, say between Duck Point and Pumpkin Patch Marshes, you're not far away from Howard Beach where Mafia boss John Gotti once docked his yacht, "Not Guilty." Lovers of nature and oxymorons couldn't ask for more.
Of course, jogging in place in mud on an island, my hands tucked under my armpits, such ironies lay dormant in the recesses of my mind. After five hours of paddling in circles, I considered my plight: if I didn't make it home by daybreak I had to endure 10 more hours of shivering on an island near one of the most crowded cities in the world. As the hours slipped slowly by, I spent a fair bit of time thinking about something Jeff Yeager, Executive Director of the American Canoe Association (ACA), said before the start of the first Finlandia Clean Water Challenge in 1993.
The day before the inaugural Chicago-to-New York 30-day ultramarathon, Yeager spoke about the virtues and challenges of our noble undertaking. A tall fellow with the sly smile of a kid who has placed a whoopee cushion under your chair, Yeager said: "This race will change your life." "Yeah right!" I thought. "After I paddle to Manhattan I'll be off shopping for the best deal on a sex change operation."
Well, hyperbole aside, he was right. During that month I got to know Joe Weight, a millwright who lived on a 24-foot sailboat, climbed large scary walls of vertical rock, or paddled 2,200 miles from Grenada to Puerto Rico. Mike Smith, a GM worker from Portland, Mich., who spent a month by himself in the Canadian wilderness--in February--and soloed the length of the Missouri River. Verlen Kruger, the legendary septuagenarian who's logged more miles than any paddler alive, impressed on me that you didn't have a be a superman to undertake trips most people thought impossible.
After the race I decided to paddle across the country. Mike Smith said I could borrow his expedition boat (designed by Kruger) if I bought him a six-pack of beer, and Finlandia said they would underwrite my trip if I paddled to Chicago to the start of the second month-long race. So on April 6, I started from southwest Montana on the Beaverhead River and paddled to the Missouri, up the Mississippi and Illinois, to the start of the second Finlandia--a 77-day, 2,600-mile adventure. (Paddler, Dec. 1996). When Yeager uttered that same, "Change your life line..." at the second introduction meeting I smirked wondering if this 800-mile race would 1) make me more maniacal about paddling; 2) cure me of the sport forever; or 3) mean I really would be looking for a good plastic surgeon.
In the first Finlandia I finished in the money; in the second I merely finished. That '94 race featured Olympian Greg Barton, five-time Molokai winner Dean Gardiner of Australia, and a handful of other first-class marathoners. Day after pitiless day I was depressingly far behind the lead pack and so tired and beat up that I vowed I was done with racing. However, two weeks after I returned home, I found myself thinking about training properly for the third edition of the brutal grind. And so two months after logging 3,600 miles in 107 days, I found myself in Jamaica Bay on Halloween training for the world's longest and toughest kayak race--that is until I got myself completely lost in my own watery backyard. I heard the planes taking off from JFK and noted the red blinking light on top of the World Trade Center, and decided to use it as a beacon to find my way home.
Once I was back on the water, though, I was too low to see the light. I wandered for a few more frightful hours, paddling in the foggy night though a labyrinth of narrow channels and back into the open bay. Around 10 o'clock I found land again and decided to stay put. By midnight a cold rain came down hard. Whenever I stopped jogging to rest I began shivering uncontrollably. Before my Missouri river trip I may have felt overwhelmed; however, that trip taught me a lot about remaining calm in volatile weather. Living outside in Montana in April I endured a handful of brutal nights, including a blizzard where temperatures hit -15 degrees F. I knew now that waiting out my scariest All Saints Night was mostly a matter of time. Don't get me wrong, I suffered, but I knew that I'd be fine once it was light. At 8 a.m.--16 hours and countless stationary steps later--I paddled back to the dock where I was received by a sleepless group of concerned (and exasperated) friends.
I went on to do another--my third and last Finlandia--and even though that race met an untimely end, I continue to race whenever possible. Occasionally, when I'm out training in the bay, I think (with humility and pride) about that harsh night, about Yeager's prescient comment, about the awesome Missouri river and imposing Great Lakes that inspired, intimidated and informed me so well as I made my way back to New York City. And when I fantasize about where I want to go next, I realize that world-traveler Paul Theroux was right, some of my most compelling trips have taken place very close to home.
-- Joe Glickman