Narragansett Bay 2024

For the third year in a row, I brought a group of paddlers from my club out for a taste of the sea in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. This year, I asked along a fellow instructor and members of his club, Hoboken Cove Boathouse. Between the two of us, we had seven paddlers, most of whom had their first experiences paddling in tidal swell.

Getting out there was the first challenge. I have a small pickup truck that can tow the club’s trailer, which we loaded up the day before; I can also carry two boats on top of the truck. We hand-trucked the trailer down the bike path from the club to the street, where we hitched up and started driving.

The thing is, in the lower part of New York state, trailers are not allowed on the parkways, and nearly all the major roads are parkways: the Henry Hudson Parkway, the Hutchinson Parkway, the Bronx River Parkway, and so on and so on. I’ve learned to work out my routes ahead of time and ignore whatever driving apps tell me to do; it really helps to have a copilot. We drove up Broadway to 207th street, where we crossed and got on I-87 (the Deegan) to I-95, which we took most of the way out to Rhode Island.

“Day Zero” is the driving day and set-up-camp day. We arrived late afternoon, right as a major cloudburst dumped water; after about half an hour it stopped, and we were able to set up camp. A few people went into town for dinner; I heated up some ratatouille I’d brought, and ate in my tent when the rain picked up again.

It was an auspicious start to the weekend.

Day One

Working with another instructor was great. Instead of second-guessing myself, I could look at the same information with a peer and talk through to a reasonable, shared conclusion.

In this case, it was realizing that based on the weather and sea conditions, Day One would be the best day to be on the sea, instead of more sheltered water. We like to evaluate people before we put them in new conditions, but the sea was relatively mild, and with tropical storm Ernesto working its way up the Atlantic, the next two days were promising to be bigger. We set out for Sakonnet Point, our farthest venue, but the best variety and available parking.

We split the group in two, and after we warmed up in a marina, went out to sea and found some rocks.

The sea was mellow, but we did have some nice swell to practice timing going over and around rocks. There was a curious phenomenon wherein the least experienced paddler in my group would set out just as an unusually large set would come in. It was a bit hair-raising, but EA stayed upright and managed to paddle through each time, happy as a fish.

We came around to a surf spot CC (my fellow instructor) and I know from past experience. We landed for lunch and, after general conversation, talked about surf and had the students survey the environment.

As paddlers based in the New York City area, it’s rare that we get to paddle in surf conditions, let alone coach in them. This was near-perfect for an introduction to surf: waves 1-3 feet, a distant break, varying challenge levels left to right. CC was on the water and I coached – as much as I could – from the beach.

I have to say it was a really good surf session. We frontloaded some information and gave feedback to students on their runs; there was a lot of experiential learning in timing and the importance of body position and trim; there were some successful rolls in situ, and what carnage occurred was happy carnage: everyone got back in their boat and tried again.

Day Two

On our second day, we looked at the forecast and decided the ocean was too big for our group. I drove down to the southern tip of the island we were staying on and took plenty of pictures and video to show to the team. Where we were camping was so mild it was hard to imagine big seas, and with the previous day’s success, CC and I could tell that some in our group would not have flinched at taller waves with longer periods. Showing them really helped put visuals to the numbers.

We opted instead for a spot neither of us had been to previously but had been informed of by some local friends. In a spot where an old railroad bridge forms a narrow constriction, we could find a place to play in current, and that’s what we did.

We kept the group together initially and split up after lunch. We practiced breakouts and eddy turns, and then getting up and staying in position on a wave train that formed as the current peaked. We broke for lunch, and then some came back to practice ferrying and rescues in current, while others worked on rescues in sheltered water.

We loaded the boats a bit differently for the drive back to camp. The day before, one of the racks on my truck had come loose, so I was only moving boats using the trailer. That’s since been fixed, but was absolutely a reminder to check your mounts and rigging on every trip, and to use front and stern lines for safety.

Day Three

Our third day brought some unexpected challenges.

First was, the sea conditions were predicted to be big again, but not as big as previously predicted. This time, instead of pictures, we brought the paddlers down to the southern tip of the island to see for themselves what was happening.

Second was, we didn’t have to go far for more sheltered water. After packing up camp we launched off the north end of the island into a broad harbor that we thought would get some swell, but in fact was so mild as to be barely noticeable. There was current, and we didn’t want to get swept down to the bigger sets, but we didn’t want folks to be bored either. The challenge was to keep things interesting but not too interesting.

CC and I had an idea to build on some of the previous day’s learning about draws and pries, and getting paddlers to link strokes instead of thinking of them discretely: Moving from a bow rudder to a hanging draw to a stern draw, for example, or making tighter turns by varying their level of edging.

We also made time to try out some rescues, both self-rescues and assisted rescues for disabled or unresponsive padders.

A couple of paddlers got off the water a little early owing to a chill, but with the rest I managed to find a final bit of rock play that was a bit tricky: primary and secondary swell hitting at different times, and varying levels in each set.

It was a busy day, with a catamaran race and air traffic above. The broad expanse of the western part of the bay made for a very different scene than the Hudson River in New York.

By mid-afternoon, we took off and packed up, driving home into what became a very intense rainstorm, delaying our arrival by hours. We dropped off the trailer and agreed to unload and wash the next day, which we did.

It’s been very gratifying to bring paddlers out to Narragansett Bay, to get a taste of the sea. Sharing this experience with others is a delight, especially to see people whose experience