• Tide and Current Taxi: 2006

When Jackson McDade heard about the Tide and Current Taxi, he knew just where he wanted to go: the Staten Island Boat Graveyard.

This is about as close as you can get to the ships from land.

But we found a little river in someone’s backyard,

and cut quietly through to the Arthur Kill waterway.

We floated out into the graveyard,

and began to explore the wrecks.

We floated right up to the decaying ships.

In some cases, we were able to float right through.

It is difficult to understand from the pictures how big this stuff is,

or to get a sense of what it feels like to stand close to it.

There is something ominous about the whole place.

In fact, Jackson told me that being around sunken ships is one of his greatest fears.

He has no fear of heights or violence,

but the depth and darkness and not knowing what is just under the surface of the water,

he thinks must be related to the very idea of death.

Jackson doesn’t believe in reincarnation.

But he said that if he did,

he might think that in a past life he died at sea.

Not on the Titanic or anything like that,

but maybe as a sailor on a commercial ship.

It is easy to imagine, walking around in some of the wrecks.

From up here we noticed something disconcerting.

The tide had gone out so far that the creak from where we came was just a muddy bank.

We had to find another spot to take out the boat.

We pulled it up the bank,

through the woods,

and eventually back to civilization.