The Load off Laska

The Stand-Up Paddler

Crabbers had stood up in flat bottomed Shrewsbury River crab boats for maybe a century before Laska was born. Let the fact checkers check the facts, in fact, if I could land a whale to finance this project, I’d have one built. There used to be one in the Twin Lights Museum. I do not know where it went, I lament its absence.

Laska grew up crabbing those shallows, without ever knowing there was such a thing as a Shrewsbury River crab boat. Standing up in the bottom of the Lincoln was much more difficult.

The action continues: On the way out from the Better Duck Inn, Laska was sitting, paddling on the Rumson side finding the current and avoiding headwinds. The hull of the canoe was not entirely flat, but it was not the shallow “V” that best suited the river, either. It took her an hour to get past the mouth of Oyster Bay, also known as Polly’s Pond, which may or may not be just the northern end of the Bay, culverted and covered, sadly, by Shrewsbury Drive at the foot of the Avenue of Two Rivers, more or less.

The river narrowed and the current accelerated as the solo paddling woman followed the contour of the shoreline’s sharp north bend, towards the Sea Bright Rumson Bridge. It was a paddle that she had done many times since she got the Lincoln. She knew what she was doing, in fast moving water and boat wake that bounced from one side of the bulkheaded portion of the river to the other. Imagine white water.

Past the bridge the river opened up again some, slowing the paddling down, but with a good view of the marshlands that lay to the south of where the Navesink, joined in. Decent sized turtles could be seen at times sunning on the almost beach like banks next to whatever else had washed up recently. Laska’s scavenger instincts kicked in, but she saw nothing worth beaching the canoe for this time.

The triangular bit of water is Oyster Bay, bottom left was where this bit begins, and it ends where the two rivers join.