Birgit Rathsmann wants to swim across Hell Gate, the channel south of Wards Island, famous for its treacherous current.
She has wanted to make the swim ever since she read about Emilie Muse, a daredevil woman who swam across it in the 1920’s.
She wants to go inspect at the area to see how hard it looks. I told her that I think there might be a few minutes when the tide is slack in Hell Gate, where we might be able to paddle across. But my undisclosed mission is to try and talk her out of it.
The best way to convince her might be to go have a closer look, I thought.
We took my rubber raft on our bikes over into Queens.
Hell Gate. From up here it looked calm, but we could see strong eddies and whirlpools in the current.
I imagine it would be hard to swim out of the way of the big ships that use the channel.
We inflated the raft and waited.
An hour and a half after high tide, the current looked completely still. This would be the time to swim if you were going to do it.
I wanted to get the boat out into the channel and see how long the current remained slack; how much time would a swimmer have to cross?
A few minutes ago the water was rushing around these rocks and now it was barely moving.
We waited for another tug and barge,
and slipped across the Hell Gate channel.
Ward’s Island.
On the way back, we could feel the current starting to pull us West at a few knots.
I think a swimmer could make it across the channel and back in about 40 minutes, if she timed the tides like we did today. That is assuming there were no boats. Now it is up to Birgit’s husband to talk her out of it. Rick – tell her its against the law!
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