Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25038
ONCE-SHUNNED WATER WAYS ARE ATTRACTING URBAN PADDLERS AND SAILORS. RIVERS ARE CLEANER AND MORE ACCESSI BLE THANKS TO PUBLIC CONCERN AND ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS. ONE HUDSON RIVER SAILOR DIVES INTO THE REALITY OF WATER QUALITY. o :r: as ffi ro o c: <{ :r: u ii' 8 o if � The Hudson River-one of the US's premier urban rivers-has long been a void when it comes to water sports. No one sailed or even went near the water for fear of falling into a heavily polluted stew. However, with federal water qual ity legislation now in its second quarter century, there have been improvements here and nationwide. In May 1996, a New York Times headline announced " A Newly Clean Hudson Awaits Swimmers. " I had lived in New York City maybe five years before I discovered the Hudson River. As someone who had grown up on the water-swim ming, sailing and rowing boats-something was missing from my days surrounded by concrete, asphalt and unsettling vertical horizons. Being on the water gave me a sense of place and connection to the natural world. The first time I stuck my hand into the river was an epiphany. I felt, to paraphrase a writer whose name I can no longer remember, the sinews that bind this continent together. "In an urban environment you are separate from nature but when you get out in a kayak, you become a part of the current and waves," says Randy Henriksen, who runs the New York Kayak Company from his loft in Manhattan. In the past three years he has seen a huge increase in his sales of Nautiraid and Feathercraft folding kayaks to urban paddlers. These people, in his words, are becoming "in a direct and profound way, consciously aware that they are inseparable from nature." From Georgia's Chattahoochee to Idaho's Coeur d'Alene, rivers that were once considered off-limits are now being used by kayakers, canoeists, sailors and, in some places, swimmers. In Houston, a rowing club offers singles' nights on the Ship Channel. Kayakers now explore Virginia's James River. The Flint River in Michigan, choked with raw sewage within recent memory, supports both fish populations and sailors and paddlers.