New London's ledge light sits at the mouth of the Thames river. It can be seen from the shore but getting a good picture is difficult. I made several attempts at getting a picture from the shore; however, the pictures never turned out very well.The first nice day of spring - and the first Saturday I did not have to go into the office - was the perfect opportunity to clean the dust off the kayaks. I called up my buddy who just moved back to CT and asked him if he wanted to join.
I was excited to get the kayaks in the water. It would be the first time since the summer of 09. With only 5 hours of sleep I found myself pacing; waiting for David to show up. The plan was to drop the kayaks somewhere in the Thames river and have a leisurely stroll to the lighthouse.
David recently purchased an SUV which meant that we didn't have to wait for my roommates to get home to use their truck to transport the boats. I own a Honda Accord with no roof racks, which would make it impossible to use my car (so I thought). As I sat by the front window I saw David come around the corner - not in his SUV but in his brand new corvette.
We sat for a minute pondering our choices
. There was absolutely no way I was putting the kayaks near that beautiful red machine. We eventually came up with the brilliant idea to folded the rear seats down which created enough room for the kayaks to be wedged into the car. We secured a rope to the spoiler and ran it through the trunk into the car. The rope was then threaded through the front leashes of the kayaks to provide a handle for David to hold onto while we drove to the boat launch.Our spirits were high at this point; however, the only problem now was that I wasn't entirely sure if it was legal to drive my car like this... which meant that we would not be able to drive to the Thames to drop the boats in. We would have to drive down to the boat launch 1/2 mile away. No big deal...
We had a beautiful easy ride out to the light house. We stopped and talked whenever we felt need to rest. We arrived at the light house where I was surprised to find no signs prohibiting entrance onto the man-made island. Thus, I climbed up to get some pictures. It was an interesting task to get out of the boat. The bottom ledge was designed to have a boat dock, not a kayak. The lower part of the ledge was approximately 4 feet above my head. Regardless, I held onto a bumper as I hoisted myself up in a way a seal would... I tried to get David to come up but he was a little uncomfortable in the kayak to begin with, so climbing out onto a ledge which was 4 ft above your head was out of the question. Not to mention that the temperature was only 55 degrees - heat-wave for New England yes - but the temperature of the water was still extremely cold and we were a good half mile off shore...
The water was like glass. There was absolutely no wind on the way there - it was amazing day to kayak. On the way back was a different story. The wind picked up and made life a little difficult. Some waves were big enough to make their way into the boats, but we took it in stride. It really hadn't become aware to us how far we actually traveled until it was time to go back. We couldn't believe how tired our arms had become. Finally, we arrived back at the boat launch, 4 hours after departing. Neither of us really planned head for the long trip and we were very thirsty. We gathered the strength to carry the boats back to the car and secured them in the same fashion we did before. After we dropped the boats off at the house we retired at the local watering hole to rest our tired bodies.
The next morning I entered in our path to figure out how far we had actually gone. No wonder why we were so tired...(click on the photo to enlarge). During the trip I noticed a lighthouse south of our position, to the southwest of Fishers Island. When it gets warmer I will make a trip out to that lighthouse as well. If you have a kayak and live in the area, you are more than welcome to join. This time, we wont forget the beer...
