Paddling Through “Eagle Central”:
Hudson Islands the Hard Way

By Alan Mapes

“Eagle Central”, my friends Julie and Michael call it. They love to paddle the Hudson near the river towns of New Baltimore, Coxsackie and Athens. There are several bald eagle nests along that stretch of river – I know of four nests, but suspect there are more. The day before my birthday in mid-July, I paddled a loop from Coxsackie to the mouth of Stockport Creek and back, right through Eagle Central. I realized too late that I was doing it the hard way.

My target for the day, besides the birds, was to explore a newly restored channel behind the Gay’s Point area of Hudson Islands State Park, near Coxsackie. Why restore that side channel? A quote from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website says it well:

“Historically, the upper portion of the Hudson River estuary between approximately Athens and Troy, consisted of braided river channels. Intertidal and shallow water habitats within these channels supported emergent and submerged vegetation and functioned as important fish habitat.”

In other words – the Hudson was even more of a paddler’s paradise than it is today, with important parts of it lost to dredging and channelizing the river over the past century or more. The Gay’s Point restoration project was finished in July 2018, reconnecting Little Nutten Hook bay and what we call Brickyard Bay, behind Gay’s Point.

Not knowing what the new channel was like, I planned to get there not long after high tide. The tide range (difference between high and low) is around three-feet there, so it can make a big difference in shallow areas. I knew the tide would be ebbing (dropping and flowing south) as I returned north to Coxsackie, but decided to live with having to paddle against some current. Other paddlers were smarter about their trip planning - more on that later.

It was just an hour before high tide when I launched at Coxsackie ramp. The river’s flood tide (flowing north) had slowed down and would reverse soon – remember that natives called Hudson the “river that flows two ways.” The paddle from the launch to Four Mile Point beach was an easy one, with the remaining current and a moderate north wind, pushing me along. The effort was mainly keeping the old Dagger sea kayak tracking south, as the tailwind tried to turn it around. I dropped the movable skeg fin all the way down, and that took care of most of the turning factor. Remember – skeg or rudder up to go upwind, down to go downwind.

There was not much traffic on the river. I saw four other kayakers and two large cabin cruisers. One cruiser was going fast and pushing out a very large wake. Boats like that seem to put out the largest waves of any craft on the river – much more than tugboats with barges and more than ocean-going freighters. I have to think that creating such waves must mean that a lot of fuel is being burned in the process. As for me, my fuel was almonds, chocolate and drinking water.

Bald eagles found me almost right way. Perhaps a half-mile into the paddle, an adult with a nice white head and tail, flew out from a perch along the shore. Another soon appeared circling over the far shore. When I landed at the beach at Four Mile Point, about three miles down the river, there were five more eagles in view at once! From there, I lost count as birds appeared and disappeared, circling around as they hunted for fish. I’m sure I saw at least a dozen, but it could have been nearly twice that. The dark immature eagles (ages one to four years) outnumbered the mature birds by at least two-to-one.

After a stretch break at Four Mile, I crossed the river to Stockport Middle Ground Island, and checked out the holes in the sand bank at the south end. Sure enough, dozens of bank swallows were coming and going from their nesting holes – feeding their young, I suspected. On the back side of the island, a young eagle was perched on a sump along the shore, near a nest site. The north wind was still blowing strong, in my face now, the tide was going down fast. Not knowing if the new channel would even be passable, my determination to paddle the new channel was wavering.

I thought about pulling out the phone and calling Julie and Michael to ask if the channel would still be passible at mid-tide. About then, two kayakers approached me, going the other way – sea kayaks, one white and one red on top. Sure enough, it was the two of them, making a similar loop paddle but with much better route planning. 

They started from the Athens State Boat Launch to the south, riding the flood tide current north through the new channel and returning after the current changed to a south flow. Ah, but I got more exercise doing it the hard way, I told myself. They had two nice bits of information for me. The young eagle I’d just seen was likely one of the three young from that nest, they thought. They had seen three young still in the nest just a few days before. They also let me know that the channel was, indeed passable, and that I should keep to the right going through the spatterdock “forest” in Little Nutten Hook bay on the other end of the channel.

The two water plants most in evidence along this side channel of the Hudson are spatterdock and water chestnut. The chestnut (not the same thing as you find in Asian food) is an invasive alien and floats on the water surface. It grows in great abundance, choking out back bays of the river. Spatterdock, on the other hand, is a native plant and grows about two feet tall on the shallow tidal mudflats. At high tide, it is completely covered by water. At low tide it is often completely exposed and it can be a challenge for a paddler to see over it when following a channel through the flats.

Armed with the knowledge that I could make it through the new channel, I headed up the long Brickyard Bay. The eastern shore of the bay is lined with old cast-off bricks from the old Empire brick factory – several hundred yards of shoreline is completely covered with bricks. I stopped to photograph a young eagle perched in a cottonwood along the bay, then made my way through the new channel. The wind remained fairly strong in my face, but my Greenland stick paddle gives me a great advantage in fighting winds like that. My GPS showed 8.5 miles of paddling as I came ashore again at Coxsackie.

If You Go:

• Free parking and launching are available at Coxsackie, Athens and Stockport. An informal launch is found at Four Mile Point Road. Porta-johns are available at Coxsackie and there are vault toilets at the Gay’s Point landing of Hudson River Islands State Park.

• Be aware of the tide predictions. Expect some areas to become quite shallow around low tide. Mid to high tides will give you better passage through the river’s side channels.

• Be aware of boat traffic and the location of the shipping channel. Crossing the channel at right angles will minimize your time in the channel. Large ships may be moving faster than you think, so use caution.

• If you need to gain experience with a large river like the Hudson, make a first trip with a paddling tour company, or with an organization like the Adirondack Mountain Club.

• Practice good paddling safety, including wearing life jackets at all times, and making efforts to see and be seen by other boats.

Alan Mapes (alanmapes@gmail.com) is a sea kayak instructor and guide, certified by the American Canoe Association and Paddlesports North America. He lives near Delmar and offers kayak instruction through the Capital District Kayakers.