This post breaks the record for number of fotos, but the very existence of waterway focused on, yesterday as well,  Coney Island Creek, is thought by some to be the stuff of urban legend.  A little over a mile long, CIC spanned by a handful of bridges and blocked off under the Belt Parkway;  it encompasses a world in that distance, and once was on the drawing boards to become the “Gravesend Ship Canal.”

Here’s the launch beach just west of Kaiser Park  near the “mouth” of the creek.  And on the beautiful sand . . . is that the shell of a newly-discovered species of sixth boro terrapin?

Au contraire, it’s our mighty vessel, Marie’s self-built and decorated T & C Taxi.  Another one of her beauties was featured in this post from January 2010.

The yellow submarine is just one of the wrecks, maybe the only identifiable one.

With the tide farther out, its research sub design is more evident.

As we head up the Creek, the landmark Parachute Jump shows how near the beach is.

These wooden barges and scows are less identifiable than

fairly recent power boats, which even had registration numbers on the bow.  In the morning light, the reflected red is pretty, as is

the green on the underside of the 17th Street Cropsey Avenue bridge;  the paint job which seems unfinished, given all the equipment around.

We paddle farther upcreek, here under the Stillwell Avenue bridge.

We pass under the D train and a little farther past

dove farms screened off from Shell road by vines.

On the opposite side of the creek near the Belt, egrets, cranes and gulls congregate.

People manage to maintain private resorts or at least arbors to sip morning coffee in silence with the birds and the Creek.

This is the end.  From top to bottom here, the F train, the Belt, and Shell Road.  And from beneath that wall, water bubbled to its own surface along with … stuff.

On the return trip, we spoke with the painting crew, who seemed quite shocked to see us.

A whole industry of crab farming happens on this improvised dock made of remains of a scow.

A swan family blend into (tries to maybe) its surroundings.

And before we return to our beach, we wonder about the identity of this wooden vessel,

this tug, and

whatever this vessel was.

If anyone knows how to discover the identity of these wrecks, please get in touch.  I wonder if any mermaids–so prolific on the south side of Coney Island–ever make it up here.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.