Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Our paddle on Sunday may very well be the most memorable of winter 2014. We’ll remember it for all the things that didn’t happen – like, wind. Or wakes. Or frozen fingers. Or anxiety of any sort. We floated in an atmosphere of utter calm like we’ve never seen before. Not a breeze, not a boat. Just an eerie, otherworldly stillness. Air temperatures around 54F, water 34F.
We glided across the Sound to Sands Point, Long Island (40 52.001 N 73 43.760 W), passing the 1849 lighthouse at haunted Execution Rocks. The only boat wakes were our own.
A pair of silent barges appeared, up from the City. But even their usually dramatic wakes came at us only as glistening mounds of water—like rows of satin bolsters—almost indistinguishable from the sky.
No creatures were stirring except a curious seal or two. We did discover a beached whale, however, in sight of the NYC skyline…
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
After lunch, we rounded Huckleberry Island and headed for home. On this weird, windless day, patches of floating ice looked like tropical islands (the airplane view). Jim and Alex couldn’t resist doing some icebreaking.
Not far from HHYC, we came across a huge flock of birds (brant?) on the water. Thousands of them. They didn’t vocalize much — but the rustling of 10,000 wings sounded “like an old plane on the tarmac” (Alex) or “thumbs rifling through an enormous stack of paper” (Jean). Can you hear them? Click on video below and enjoy a Moment Of Zen:
