River Rat Recorder

The 1904 lightship Barnegat has come to rest in the back channel of Petty Island.
The 1904 lightship Barnegat has come to rest in the back channel of Petty Island.

Traveling the waterways around Philadelphia, one encounters the last vestiges of an earlier way of life, the era of heavy industry. Sometimes, those relics are a few pilings and the remains of a bulkhead. Sometimes, the rusted skeleton of an old machine or an abandoned barge or ship. Like any other city, Philadelphia and Camden are built on the bones of previous civilizations. Here and there, those bones poke through. Occasionally, they have been incorporated into the fabric of the “new” city. A select few have been preserved as parks or historic sites. This gallery isn’t about those. It is about the largely forgotten but still visible fragments of the industrial age.

Located on the edge of Delaware Bay Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge is a curious place. It reflects the federal government’s interaction with nature in the 1930s. A WPA project aimed to create a refuge for birds, not by preserving an environment that was already there but by creating an ideal environment for them. Dikes were built to create freshwater ponds in addition to the saltwater ponds already there. These dikes also support a road. One tours the preserve by car, getting out for short hikes through various landscapes. In mid-March, the birds were abundant, and the landscapes appealed to anyone with an appreciation for wetlands. On a rainy day, driving meant shelter was always near at hand, but at another time, long hikes in a vehicle-free environment might be appreciated.

Schuylkill River Sojourn

A five-day camping and kayaking trip down the Schuylkill River is like being in a time machine with a touchy controller, rocketing back and forth through a few centuries. Paddling and camping to traverse the river goes back thousands of years. One passes nuclear cooling towers and lock keepers houses. The rumbling, clacking trains accompany the drone of highways, all following the river to Philadelphia. There are remnants of the canals that preceded the trains and trucks. In places, one can almost hear the footfalls of the mules and the encouragement of the bargemen. History is much more than Washington’s army becoming a proper army while wintering on these riverbanks

Schuylkill Sojourn kayakers reach Philadelphia.

A glance back

beavers

A recent New York Times article about Canadian’s love-hate relationship with the beaver set me off. The animal is seen as destructive because dam building and pond making encroached on human endeavors mainly by creating ponds where none had been before.

Crafts Creek enters the Delaware.

Seamanship

Tides for the beginner

What if you could access a force that doubled the speed of your boat? What if you could avoid a force that would cut your progress in half?

Kayak on a beach at low tide with marsh grass.

Seamanship

Don't Get Run Over by a Tanker

The ships and barges own the channel, and the kayaker has no rights in the channel legally, physically, or philosophically. The best place for a small boat is in the shallows, where a ship would have to plow through many tons of muck to reach a kayaker; ships don’t do well in mud.

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