Grand Island Circumnavigation Report

Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper staff & friends undertook an eventful, if grueling, spin around the big island this past Saturday during Paddles Up. We had Riverkeeper director Julie O'neill in the bow for part of the trip, I paddled "amidships" and in the bow, and Riverwatch Captain Yuri Hreshchyshyn took the stern. Our vessel was the battered but sturdy canoe Riverwatch 1. None of us had ever made the trip before, either by canoe or kayak.

Yuri and I launched from Big Six Mile Creek marina into the West River in a dense fog at about 9am. The air was dead calm and the water smooth and glassy. We took a little trip toward Canada and invoked the interest of the border patrol, but no one stopped us (thankfully, since Yuri's passport was safely locked in his car at East River marsh). In an hour or two we made contact with Julie and picked her up somewhere near Fix Road as the fog lifted. With all of us aboard and paddling (and Julie an ex-rower), we made good time but were awfully short on freeboard. We were having fun, laughing really hard and maybe almost capsized on a couple of occasions, especially with big boat wakes rolling in from different angles, but made it to Little Beaver Island for our first break.

Then it was on to East River marsh, passing and greeting the scores of Paddles Up paddlers on the way (who were by this time returning). Our timing was just right as we got to see pretty much all of the boats this way - what a great turnout! At East River Julie left us, having her son's 7th birthday party to attend. We launched again, with more freeboard but less power, into a very disappointing headwind that negated our long-awaited downstream drift.

Through heavy powerboat traffic and high seas we plied the East River, finally catching the strong current and losing the headwind somewhere around the south Grand Island bridge. We rounded the bend near Tonawanda Island and began looking for the north bridge, way too soon. Seemingly hours went by and no bridge, and Yuri suggested that we had been paddling so long, perhaps they had taken it down. Finally he went on hunger strike, vowing not to eat one more Triscuit until the bridge appeared. I began to enter an alternate reality, sleep-paddling while imagining I was a fish under the river, between being shaken into alertness by the larger wakes. Eventually we stopped paddling and drifted helplessly. The bridge obliged by appearing around the next bend.

With the hunger strike over, we paddled across to Cayuga Island to stop at Justin Tyme on the River to fuel up. We tied up next to the cabin cruisers and dragged ourselves over the seawall, fighting the desire to lie down and die, and instead sat outside on our sore asses and ordered some dinner. After a brief rest it was back across and through the gap at the point of Buckhorn State Park in a pinkish sunset.

This is the part of the trip involving anguish. We spent a while paddling in the Navy Island torrent, standing still, having intended to cut the corner of the island. There was also a sail we attempted to deploy but I won't get into that. We pulled into Eagle Overlook the worse for wear, to pee and regroup. We relaunched and crept up the shoreline. Darkness fell. A big moon rose. We paddled. I took a break while Yuri paddled. Crickets chirped in the warm evening air. We paddled some more. Our harbor light appeared in the distance! Hooray! We began to paddle very hard. The light did not get any closer. We were out of sweat. The lights of another boat appeared way in the distance, merrily motoring into the harbor. We began to paddle very hard again. A car went over the bridge over our harbor, far far away. Yuri hurled the paddle into the bottom of the boat and quit. I paddled while Yuri took a break. The moon rose some more. We paddled some more. The bridge over Big Six Mile Creek loomed at last above us.

We scraped onto the launch at 10PM, thirteen hours and many miles after our departure. Listlessly, we rejoiced.