10/26/09
With Dorothy dropping me off at Annsville Creek the started off a leisurely 9am. What a change from the leef peeper traffic mayhem of the day before.
Today I was skipping bringing the tent, sleeping bag, 4 liters of water (still had 5 aboard), the pantry and kitchen sink all stayed in the car. Figuring out how this redistributes in the kayak took some fiddling and was getting fed up with gear or my coffee content was getting low.
Once I finally shoved off the day promised to be another picture perfect Fall day. Once out of Annsville Creek and into Peekskill Bay I was able to see the Bear Mountain Bridge to the North as I was crossing over to the West Bank.
Bear Mtn. Bridge from Peekskill Bay
I knew I only had three hours of ebbing tide working in my favor but also didn’t want to burn myself out so yes Neil, I was keeping a Touring pace. 
The area of the river past Indian Point is not one of my favorites as it very industrialized and today stunk of sulfur. Given this I was very appreciative of a nice tailwind that cropped up which allowed my to deploy the sail and scoot along to Stony Point in short order.
Stony Point
Stony Point Lighthouse
At this point the wind had died and the length of the Tappan Zee/Havestraw Bay was syrupy smooth. I know, odd adjective, but the surface of the water almost had a thickness to it. Staying along the western shore made for better sightseeing and as after Croton Point on the east shore, the river becomes more and more developed. The west shore on the other hand begins to break into the Palisades Park region and makes for quite a contrast to the opposite shore.
Northern Palisades
As the ebbing tide tailed off I finally crossed under the Tappan Zee Bridge and was able to see Piermont about 1.5 miles to the south. At the west shore where the Pier of Piermont juts out into the River is a very nice public launch and community garden. Nice sand beach to land on and a little boardwalk with benches made for an excellent lunch stop and rest-em-up for the next leg which would be all against the tide.
Just getting southward again takes a bit of doing as the Pier extends about a half mile out into the river. Once around the point I used the light south wind to sail back toward the Piermont Marsh and tried to use the periphery of that for any slackening of the wind and tide it might offer as I continued against the tide.
Piermont Marsh
It’s an interesting perspective peering up at the cliffs towering over you along the Palisades but there are also other events on along the river that can just crop up, like this apartment fire in Yonkers.
Hi-Rise Smoke
Don’t know how that ended other than the smoke stopped after about 20 minutes.
Finally pulling up onto the beach at Alpine, NJ at 5pm sharp makes for 28.1 miles with the George Washington Bridge just visible 8 miles further down river. For launching or landing this is a very pretty day use area. There may be a $5 per car parking fee but there is bathroom, picnic, water and snack facilities available for the paddler.
Alpine, NJ Landing
For a GPS Google Map of the day’s travels, click or cut and paste the link below;
See you on the water,
Marshall
