River Day 2 happened today, but I stayed on shore, among other things revisiting day 1.  My attempt here is to impose chronological and spatial order.  For starters . . . off Global Terminal in the Upper Bay, could there be a more diverse set of onlookers?  If the original Henry had seen indigenous equivalents of these, he’d have gotten his artillery out.

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Lined up just south of the Statue before 9 am, helmsman of Shearwater resorts to an ancient coping device.

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Around that time, Gateway Towing’s Navigator exited the Buttermilk Channel with an unidentified cargo on barge Sea Shuttle, which

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looked like this as it passed.  Anyone hazard a guess?

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Around 9:30 near Pier 82ish, this avian-wannabe brown truck cuts through the procession, triggering a siren/horn/hailer reaction in Lady B;  NYC Ducks simply continues and Lady B relents, all the official noise notwithstanding.  I suppose Ducks is commercial traffic and as such immune.

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Near Inwood a half dozen or so swimmers, each one escorted by a kayaker, make their way out of Spuyten Duyvil Creek and southward toward Battery Park City.  Swimmers and River Day processionistas remain largely indifferent to each other.  Can it be that New Yorkers have such passion for swimming that they spontaneously make their way in numbers around the island?

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This is lo-res, but after watching Onrust grow for over a year, I enjoyed recognizing its jolly crew, but who’s the guy in the red jacket and enormous feather in his cap.  Doesn’t the whole crew get ginormous feathers in their caps?

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If you read Juet’s log for June 1609, you learn that storms carried away Half Moon‘s  foremast.  What would that look like?  In my other blog, I try to channel Hudson’s thoughts, using what’s recorded in Juet’s journal to speculate on rambings in Henry’s head . . . historical fiction, of course.

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Yonkers gives each vessel a cannon salute.  Some return the salute.  I believe Onrust doesn’t, or maybe I was just not hearing things.

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Here a lone canoeist watches the procession from near Alpine, off the Palisades.  Does anyone know the design of local Lenape canoes of Hudson’s era?

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Large exploreNY400 banners hang from the vertical supports on either side of channel under the Tappan Zee Bridge.  Half Moon shows the scale.

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I regret I couldn’t follow Day 2 . . .  but I hope to catch up for Day 5.

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For a short video of the procession passing Battery Park City Day 1 around 9:15, see old salt blog here.

All fotos taken Day 1 by Will Van Dorp.