Canada to Key West Paddle – Day 43

August 13^th 2016
Yorktown Heights, NY

Today is Arlene’s birthday. Please take a moment and give her a shout out in the comments below. She’s been such a tremendous help and so supportive of this journey, both financially and physically. Today we’ll be going on a little road trip to Mystic Seaport in Connecticut to celebrate her birthday and enjoy some time together and that’s why I’m doing an early and abbreviated post today.

I’ve made some decisions on the relaunch. It will happen the middle of next week and I am going to take the inside passage aka, Bay Side. This means that I won’t have a continuous paddle to Key West, but will have to portage the kayak over portions of land where one bay ends and another begins. For me, it was simply not worth the hassle and risk paddling ocean side. I made this decision after getting another warning last night that due to Hurricane Sandy, some areas of the shoreline would be very dangerous to land on or paddle by.

I didn’t set out to break a record, take tremendous risks or prove a point. I set out to find peace and comfort on the water. Until I arrived in New York Harbor, I had just that. Since arriving in New York harbor, I’ve had very terrifying days and though we do need to face those days in life, we don’t have to walk headfirst into a firestorm. Therefore, I will not subject myself to those risks and put others in harms way, if I were in need of rescue from the situations I have been made aware of.

My good friends, Mary and Tom from Waterford, NY will be at the Jersey Shore when we arrive so I’m hoping to spend some time with them before launching again. I love how a chance encounter at a marina in Vermont has grown into a nice friendship on this journey.

Day 43 Done  in progress