Late Summer, Lovely Shores

How can it be that I hadn't paddled my favorite shores of the Hudson River until summer was almost over? Well, weather was a factor, with storms forecast for several days almost every week this past month.  Old age and its aches also played a role, since access to my favorite shores lay either a steep descent through the woods while carrying my canoe, or a long tiring paddle from the easier boat-launch site upstream.  But the lure of those lovely waters, where the river runs behind a large island to meander calmly among quiet coves and into a Tussock Sedge-studded marsh, won out at last. And my best paddling pals Ruth and Sue said yes to my plea for them to join me.

Best of all, we were blessed with one of the closest-to-perfect days of the summer for paddling the river. Not a breath of wind was rippling the water, and only the friendliest of fluffy clouds were floating in a blue sky. Here was the beckoning view from the Sherman Island Boat Launch Site:

And what could make me happier than to have my dear friends along?  Here's Sue, with her camera ever-ready to record the glories of a late-summer floral bonanza along the banks. (Or of any visiting insects. Sue is remarkably adept at getting great shots of bugs.)

And here's our mutual best-buddy Ruth, a passionate "bryo-phile" examining the various mosses and liverworts bedecking the riverside rocks.

I'd wager that most folks with a distant destination would set off at a faster pace than we did.  But how could we hurry past such beautiful banks as these, studded with rosy puffs of Spotted Joe Pye-weed (Eutrochium maculatum)?

Whoa! Who wouldn't tarry to take in the fabulously colorful blooms of bright-yellow Sneezeweed and flaming-red Cardinal Flower? (Helenium autumnale and Lobelia cardenalis)

The elegant pink-tinged white blossoms of White Turtlehead (Chelone glabra) also deserved a lingering look.

Granted, the small glossy flaps of this rock-bound liverwort called Streamside Stippleback (Dermatocarpon lurida) would not call to every paddler to move in close to this bouldered shore.  But we don't get to see this liverwort very often, and when it's dry it turns a nearly invisible gray-brown color against the gray-brown boulders it lives on. Lucky for us, wavelets had recently wetted it, rendering it glossy green and very visible to us.

Ah, we were close to our destination now! A rocky Potter Point projected into the river just ahead, marking where we would turn to enter my sought-after quiet backwater and coves.  But first we moseyed into this small quiet marsh, where large tufts of rosy-tipped Tussock Sedge (Carex stricta) were beautifully reflected in the shallow water.

On almost every spiky dead tree stump that poked up in this marsh, spiders had created their webs.  Even as noon approached, droplets of morning mist still clung to the webs and glittered in the sun.

Here, we have entered this quiet backwater behind a large island, where a series of rocky promontories project into water less affected by the stronger currents of the open Hudson.  I call this particular promontory "Bear's Bathtub," due to a large basin in the rock, almost always filled with enough water that a bear could immerse itself in.

As we approached Bear's Bathtub, we passed beneath steep rocky banks that held extensive carpets of mosses, some bright green and others vividly pink.

I love how this heap of bedrock is topped by masses of greenery, some herbaceous (Wild Sarsaparilla), some woody (Basswood saplings), some ferny (Rock Polypody?), and lots of mossy, including one of my favorite mosses, Common Apple Moss. 

Here's a closer view of the spherical spore capsules that suggested the "apple" name of Apple Moss (Bartramia pomiformis).  The capsules are green when young, but now as they grow ready to release their spores, they turn brown.

Here's a closer (although not perfectly focused) view of those Bartramia pomiformis spore capsules:

Growing weary of paddling by now and growing aware of the long paddle back against the river's current, I ventured into only one of the three small coves that line the shore of this backwater. That was  where this beautiful patch of Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata) offered me a delightful reward for my efforts to reach these "favorite shores" of the Hudson River. I'm so glad I made the trip.