Exploring An Abandoned Ship Graveyard By Kayak!
Our guide tells us that this is actually a privately-owned ship graveyard. A salvage yard has owned it for decades. The city wants it gone and has sued to get rid of it. It’s an eye-sore, apparently. However, what’s the owner going to do with dozens of rusty relics? Absolutely nothing. They’ve been counter-suing because it turns out it's cheaper to stay in court than actually clean up the mess. Only in NY! In the meantime, we took advantage of this site to do some epic exploration.
P.S. We learned on this trip that the refineries surrounding this entire area had leaked petroleum-based chemicals into the bay for years. These chemicals are heavier than water and sunk to the river bed. And over more years, the tide has buried these chemicals with 2 to 3 feet of sediment. So, instead of cleaning everything up, environmentalists and conversationists agree, it’s better to just leave it alone because cleaning it up will actually do more harm to the ecology than cleaning it. Very… interesting.
