• Tide and Current Taxi: 2012

Just as the sun was rising, Leslie Shows and Helen Georgas and I drove out to Staten Island.

We wanted to get out to Shooter’s Island before boat traffic picked up in the Kill Van Kull waterway.

I had almost forgotten the other reason that I love waking up early;

the water was as smooth as glass.

It was like the whole world was waiting for something to happen.

Out in the bay, tug boats were nudging these massive container ships into port.

They passed the ships between them like a gigantic game of catch.

I have wanted to go to Shooter’s Island with Helen for a long time.

It is the best and weirdest place for beach-combing,

and Helen is the best beach-comber that I know.

She is one of the founding members of Underwater New York (along with Nicki Pombier Berger and Nicole Haroutunian).

Underwater New York is a digital collection of writing and art, all about things that wash up in the bay.

The best find that day, however,  was made by Leslie Shows:

a First Communion photo album, washed up on the beach.

It was filled with psychedelic images of little kids at church,

and back home after.

Then, somehow, the dad’s motorcycle makes an appearance.

It was the best thing I have ever seen washed ashore in New York,

but the shear density of the plastic stuff on the beach was amazing.

Walking through it with Helen and Leslie,

was like a mix between shopping,

archeology,

and playing Barbie.

One side of the island is covered with plastic,

and the other is glass and ceramic.

Each piece was like a little window,

into some mysterious past.

At one point  I found a 64 oz soda cup, which are now illegal in New York City.

“The newest relic on the island.” said Helen.

We decided to get back out in the boat,

and exlpore one more relic:

the drydocks of the Townsend-Downey Shipbuilding Company.

Now the are towers of burnt timber and twisted metal are a perfect home for nesting egrets.

We even found one tower that had fallen over,

so we got to look up close at the abandoned nests.

They were beautifully woven with strands of grass and reeds and plastic, all glued together with poop.

It was beautiful to be inside the toweres of nests and docks,

and we floated through corridors of rotting timber.

Little islands have begun to grow out of the docks.

We stopped back on Shooter’s before returning to land.

The southern end of the island was not as strewn with human waste,

and we could see down to the island’s unique coal rock sand.

We sat in the shade and chatted,

but traffic was picking up in the Kill Van Kull,

so we headed back to our little inlet.

Thanks Helen and Leslie for waking up so early!