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June 17th: Put in at Stuyvesant and went up the Schodack channel to Little Schodack island and back with some serious gunkholing on the way -- over 12 miles. Some pictures:
This is Houghtaling Island from the south. The Hudson River goes left, Schodack channel is on the right. In the old days the navagation channel went to the right.
The mouth of a channel. An irresistable gunkholing spot.
An intriguing channel. It got so narrow that I couldn't turn the boat around and had to back out for quite a ways. Where does it go? It goes to the end and then you have to back out, that's where it goes.
Great Blue Heron in flight. These are shyer than the eagles and more interesting in some ways. Beautiful.
Cormorants have set up housekeeping on this marker. There's a nest and a couple of little ones.
I've been off the river for a couple of weeks and so missed the yellow flag irises. There are just a few left.
The train to NYC goes slamming by.
Big carp were spawning by the hundreds. They hang out in enormous fields of water chestnuts and go nuts. Rowing through them seems to make them even crazier -- they bang against the bottom of the boat.
Eagles are easy to spot because they like to perch in dead trees. You really can't miss them, always see 'em. They've only been in this area for ten years.
I know of two of these little round islands. There's one above Coxsacki too. They were probably built in the WPA days for navigation markers.
The beautifully unimproved park and put-in at Stuyvesant. There's a nice coffee shop across the tracks too.
