Just call me Huck Finn
9 07 2007This past weekend I was kayaking along the Delaware River from Dingmans Ferry to Smithfield Beach. It gave me a chance to put my new inflatable kayak through a water trial.
I was a bit hesitant about getting an inflatable but it really is shaping up to be a great decision. Advanced elements makes a kayak that is light, quick to set up and works well. It doesn’t track or maintain momentum as well as a hard shell kayak but it does better than I expected (I did 21 miles in a little less than six hours and -even though I wasn’t racing- passed everything on the river that didn’t have a motor attached to it) and its portability is a huge plus.
Two events were especially noteworthy on my trip.
First, it’s not unusual to see park rangers patrolling the river, making sure no one is causing a ruckus, getting drunk and that everyone has their life preserver with them. This time was no different except this time the rangers had a couple of M4 carbines in their boat.
Now, I don’t know what kind of crime they’re seeing on the Delaware river but this struck me as a bit of overkill. The Delaware (at least within the area of the national recreation area) doesn’t host any commercial traffic, isn’t close to any high value infrastructure and while people visit it for fishing, boating and swimming, there are plenty of better opportunities for some crazed terrorist looking to kill people. I hope I’m wrong (all the rangers I’ve ever met have been professional, courteous, and a wealth of knowledge) but this looks like yet another agency that succumbs to the lure of post 9/11 money and fear mongering. It seems as if theirs an element within every law enforcement agency that is dying to militarize their organization. I’m a big fan of the military and think it has many valuable lessons it can teach other government (and many private) organizations but those lessons don’t have to be transfered verbatim. I’m just a bit dubious about every Tom, Dick and Harry carrying around a popgun regardless of the threat.
The second item of note on the trip was the really cool part. Twice I got to see a bald eagle flying right overhead. I’ve never seen one so close outside of a zoo so I was very happy that I decided to bring my camera around for the trip. It was nice enough to perch long enough for me to get about 20 good pictures of it. I missed the shot of it flying which would have been great but maybe next time. For now, this was a pretty big rush.
