“Part of the joy of sea kayaking is exploring new places and creating your own experiences.” Kevin Stiegelmaier, Paddling Long Island and New York City)

  (me taking a quick nap, photo by Maria Brown)

The water today was smoother than any previous day, and a light wind seemed to pull across Napeague Bay on our way to Montauk Harbor. I would never say a day of sea kayaking is a lazy day; every day on the water offers a new experience or a new perspective. But today was relaxed, quiet and full.

Three young men were setting up the lifeguard stand for their work. One was entering Stony Brook next fall and was majoring in Marine Vertebrate Biology. His excitement reminded me of my own feelings years ago. I still enjoy seeing that sense of possibility. The best of professors still take a bit of that feeling into their work–curiosity and possibility. I remind him I am not a scientist, but I want to learn all I can about this place, scientifically and culturally.

What does that mean?, he asked.

Well, in a specific place, we need science to understand what’s there and how and why it’s come to be, but we need culture to explore the values of what’s changed it or even why it might be preserved, I posited, fumbling with my chin hair.

He surveyed the beach at Albert’s Landing and seemed to connect the lifeguard stand he’d be working at all day with the beach surrounding it and the Peconic Bay stretching out before us. He nodded a thanks and returned to prepping his station for the day’s beachgoers.

*****

We were able to cut across Napeague Bay since the wind was mild. We were aiming for Cherry Point and after that the village of Napeague. Napaegue Harbor is guarded by Hicks Island. According to Larry Penny, in the 19th century, there were two inlets into the harbor and left Hicks Island, just that, an island. Now, Hicks Island is more of a tombolo, a former island that is now attached by the rising bar of sand.

We could see rusted chunks of machinery on the beach before landing at Hicks Island. Also a large partial, brick chimney stack stood watch over the metal ruins. An osprey had made a nest in its top and watched us closely from the fish trap poles.

In a nature column titled “The Gems of Napeague,” Mr. Penny notes in the 1940s the area was “residence to a thriving menhaden rendering factory owned by the Smith Meal Company which produced fish meal and fish oils” (Penny, “The Gems of Napeague”). Menhaden were ground into meal to make oil and fertilizer. By the late 60s, the menhaden or bunker were starting to disappear, and this plant had closed with all but a skeleton crew by 1972 (“Dismantling the old Smith Meal fish factory in Promised Land, 1972”). The area is under some dispute about ownership and protection; we did not venture from the beach, nor did we see signs about restricting access due to plovers, terns, etc.

Just after Goff Point, Hither Hills State Park begins. And while we could see only parts of them, the Walking Dunes are just on the east side of Napague Harbor. Hither Hills Park extends the width of the South Fork here and we would be crossing the southern beach in a few days. The park is an extensive forest just above the beach area.

We began to cross Fort Pond Bay which dips south near to Fort Pond in Montauk. A few big boats came in fast and wake-filled, until they neared the buoy. Just across the bay was Culloden Point, which got its name from the ship that ran aground in 1781 (http://easthamptonstar.com/Archive/1/Whats-Name-Culloden-Point). Divers can still see some of the wreckage not far from the shore. We had planned to stop at the beach near Gosman’s, not far at all from the point. It was a leisurely paddle to beach. We knew the next trip would not be as easy, so we could plan the trip around Montauk Lighthouse for another day.

*****

A note on paddling on calm water.

As I would find out when sea paddling in open ocean and riding 3-4 swells, sometimes kayaking keeps you highly attentive to the task at hand. You pay constant heed to balance, paddle height, rudder direction, the next wave, the menhaden popping the top of the water around you as though you are in a popcorn kettle. You notice a slight change in wind direction. or when a large bubble/gurgle/splash happens just in front of you and the water around your kayak shimmers with menhaden fleeing the scene of some predation by something large, all happening inches beneath you. Your focus during these times is clear and a sense of self-preservation and safety stokes the fires of whatever endocrine system reaction needs to take place for you to notice … where … you … are.

What do we do when the wind is calm and the seas smooth, and the only task is light repetitive paddle strokes, over and over, over and over, hour and hour? Are we OK with noticing the smaller and less obvious landmarks and “seamarks” (I’m guessing this isn’t a word)? Here is the day … a slight sound of water trickling the front of the kayak, perhaps the wind moving languorously through the bayberry and oaks, a tern here and there diving for silversides, an osprey returning with a bunker in its talons, the next land point to aim for, which in all honesty from the kayaker’s vantage looks similar to the previous points we’ve aimed at all day. There’s the easy way to pass time with a paddling partner, talk. Maria knows the area and the science to understand it well. She knows Larry Penny and has worked with and against folks to preserve parts, places and critters on this island since the 1980s. If the day gets monotonous, all I have to do is ask a question relating to the above and she’s there as hedge fund of information and history. She’s also wise and patient, so most times, she waits on me to ask. I notice sometimes I’m asking out of a sincere desire to know, others to pass time. There’s a moment in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot where the two characters mull such a scene:

Vladimir: That passed the time.
Estragon: It would have passed in any case.
Vladimir: Yes, but not so rapidly. 
However, when we let unneeded talk go silent, the next way to conjure up a perspective to keep a kayak going forward is to dig deeper with the paddle into the repetition of strokes, counting them as breaths to ten, much as one does sitting through the first meditation sessions. Make it to ten without losing your place for a few times, and you notice time does pass rapidly. Task, task, task, wait butterfly wing distraction, and return. Task, task, task, task, why is there a moth floating toward Gardiner’s Island 50 yards offshore, and return. What’s really rough on the novice buddhist is when your teacher changes it to counting inhales, not exhales, and later still no counting at all. Task is comforting for us; we are a species who need work. The problem is when task or work becomes habit, instead of constant and calm awareness. Paddle stroke one to ten, paddle stroke 4,137, each nothing special and each new.

I’m learning much about Long Island’s history on the trip; I’m also learning about the ecology and places with a smattering of their history. Others lessons are even more local, personal I might say. What is this circumnavigation when the water is smooth and I can’t avoid being stuck with myself in the kayak? Then, even a 17-foot sea kayak doesn’t seem long enough for all of myselves. At other times, when I let the slight wind do the talking, and count for a while … one, two, three, ….

and then, quit counting,

and just paddle, just paddle,

and let the water density and my shoulder curl move me forward. Finding and making home arises as much from this practice as doing the homework and knowing what’s here. In another way, maybe this is the greater activism … to listen and begin to see more clearly with more than just our eyes and minds. Maybe we can slow down and do the hard work every day, making our tea or coffee in the morning and remembering where our water, tea bags, and gas for the burner come from, or putting the kids to bed and telling them a story about this place that has some resonance with a deep history and the naïve creativity of a newcomer’s view, and be in our place with creative engagement instead of opinion or habit.

A couple of years ago I came across Wendell Berry’s line: “The dominant tendency of our age is the breaking of faith and the making of divisions among things that were once joined. This story obviously must be told by somebody. Perhaps, in one form or another, it must be told (because it must be experienced) by everybody.” Wendell Berry, “Toward a Change in Standards” in Life is a Miracle : An Essay Against Modern Superstition (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 2000), 133-34.

It struck me this is exactly how most of us are living, and while it is a sobering story, it isn’t necessarily a tragedy. We are living in an age of divisions, so too we are living in a politics and communities of divisions, and a natural world of managed plots of preserved nature separated by marginalized landscape. However, this doesn’t exclude the hope of finding connection; it just excludes all the idealized connections we’ve been given to now. It’s a story that’s painful and beautiful, full of loss and promise, but now, it is a story that must be told. Most of our homes are made up of some kind of fractures; most of our watersheds and bioregions are remnants too. These fractures are not just external; they begin with our too easily allowing our daily lives to fall into habit. Recognizing this is a time to begin to honestly and truthfully see the loss, begin to listen, and live without rigid ideals which are never the way things are. Maybe the real restoration of home is that fragile and beautiful moment where domesticity meets wildness again and again, when ritual doesn’t become routine or habit, when we do our best to benefit all those around us, humans and nature, our neighborhoods and the environment, by having consideration and style about our lives, meals, partners, homes, and places. Maybe I can just paddle.

*****

A few folks lounged on the beach, but they had little interest in us. I smiled at a child who came to play with the boat’s rudder. His dad told him to leave it alone and not bother us. Please, it’s OK. It’s good to be bothered, I said.

We wandered out onto the riprap of the jetty to watch the fishing boats wandering in and out. It has been a good day’s work.

We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. But habit is a great deadener.
― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot