I waited for Kris Timkin and Bryndolin Webster in Far Rockaway. It was a little scrap of land hemmed in by an off-ramp of the Nassau expressway,
but it looked just like a pretty beach resort.
They jumped right in the boat,
and we headed East with a strong ebb tide.
We were passing homes and docks on the south side of the channel,
and low lying marshy islands to the north.
This is what Long Island will look like for the next 100 miles, I thought to myself.
Suddenly a familiar smell,
downwind from a water treatment plant.
It reminded me of the years I lived in Greenpoint.
Kris told us the term used in ecology to describe areas between land and water: a riparian zone.
“The importance of the riparian zone is just starting to be recognized in environmental management and civil engineering,” she said.
It is important for both the land and sea.
I had a sudden desire to study the bank up close,
and we pulled the boat on dock to get a better look,
at Jordan’s Lobster.
“I must admit,” said Kris, “we thought that today would be much more difficult.”
I guess I had to think about my trip over the long haul, and it was hard to pass up a Jordan’s Lobster.
Back out in the boat, we wanted to explore the interior of one of the islands,
so we paddled up into a little creek.
These waterways must be muddy ditches at low tide,
and then at high tide the water rises up into the grass.
A true riparian zone, but not a very good place to camp, which is what I thought I would be doing that night.
We pulled into a channel on the Long Beach side,
and walked across the thin barrier island.
The temperature and the feel of the air was so different on the other side,
it was amazing that we had been a few blocks from the ocean the whole day.
It was like another universe.
We had traveled 8 miles.
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