City floats new idea: a water map to paddle by

It’s warm and sunny, but I’m told not to get too comfortable. The water around the Bayside Marina in Queens is 47 degrees - so a slim chance of hypothermia still exists, should I capsize my kayak and abandon myself to the mercy of the depths.

I’m playing hooky with Dorothy Lewandowski, Queens Parks & Recreation Commissioner, who’s showing off one of the spots on the five-borough Water Trail Map she pioneered in time for the summer boating season.

The project arose out of Lewandowski’s love of paddling - this will be the sixth summer since she and her husband took up the sport - but there’s also an element of New York pride at work.

“Back in late fall 2006, I Googled ‘water trail in New York City,’” she says, “and you didn’t get anything. You Googled ‘water trail’ in general and, all across the country, municipalities had water trails.”

New York has long been home to water-going clubs. Kayak and canoe organizations exist in each borough, each with favorite launching and landing beaches. It was time to link them together.

“I wanted a connection that showed if you get in at point A, what’s your next opportunity to go from here to there,” says Lewandowski.

In other words, when we launch from Bayside Marina, where can we end up and what can we see along the way?

A glance at the online map shows that a short paddle will take us around Fort Totten to a scenic landing spot in Little Bay. From there, the experienced paddler could continue into the East River for a panoramic gander at Manhattan. Before us, the Throgs Neck Bridge stretches into the Bronx, almost impossibly huge against the blue haze of the morning.

Not long after Lewandowki’s fateful Googling, Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe asked the five borough commissioners to propose projects for the end of the Bloomberg administration that could add to the outgoing mayor’s legacy.

Encouraging the use of local waterways, Lewandowski proposed, would open the doors to another type of recreation. The idea was approved and she put an announcement online - an act akin to sending a press release on what she calls “the water wire.”

“There’s this whole underground network of kayakers where it [spread] like a wildfire,” she says. “People were excited about it.”

Volunteers came forward to scout locations, take photos and propose launch sites that should appear on the map. Paddle aficionados are still writing in with tips, picnic spots and new pictures to update the site.

Around the same time, Lewandowski got a call from Barbara La Rocco, the president of Going Coastal, a group that promotes the enjoyment and preservation of the waters around New York City.

“She called me and said, ‘I actually have funding to create a guide for circumnavigating Manhattan,’” says Lewandowski. “So I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting if we take your grant and do it for the entire city?’”

“We had been working in parallel universes,” says La Rocco. “So we contacted her and said this looks like a beautiful marriage.”

The printed guide included 28 sites - the online version is up to 30. Paddlers can plan an itinerary with launching and landing points, survey interesting sights, look up tides, currents and safety information and link to kayak and canoe clubs with boats available for rent.

As our small group prepares to launch, other kayakers slip into the bay, fishing rods at the ready.

“You see people fishing off a dock,” says John Wright, the commodore of Brooklyn’s Sebago Canoe Club, who encouraged Lewandowski’s kayak interest. “Then the fish move away. But in a kayak you can follow them.”

Lewandowski came to kayaking via another sport: baseball.

“My son was playing baseball, my husband was the manager,” she says. “They’d play doubleheaders, they were always doing practice, and they were a traveling team so they were all over. I was a baseball widow.”

She realized that a couple hours on the water was better than hanging around an empty house on sunny afternoons.

“So then my husband said, if we’re going to do it, don’t buy like a little [Wilderness Systems] Pungo or whatever,” she says. “He said, we live on an island, let’s get ocean kayaks and do it right.”

Her first kayak was one she describes as “sturdy,” though a kayak will never feel like a stable boat. She nabbed a second one this spring, a sporty, low-volume Nigel Dennis Kayaks Romany model, virtually unused by the previous owner. She puts it to good use as we pass Fort Totten, attempting a roll that necessitates a low-key water rescue from Wright.

Once Lewandowski is righted and pumping water from her cockpit, Ray Fusco, director of the Mayor’s Cup New York City Kayak Championship, an elite race around Manhattan, has his turn. He rolls twice, quieting any doubts I had about the water quality. For extra points, his baseball cap and sunglasses remain intact.

“The hat never came off,” he says with a grin.

These kayakers hope the Water Trail Map will open the world of the New York City waterfront to people who might never have known it existed. Traditionally, New York’s kayaking community has been tight-knit, their excursions dependent on the ability and curiosity of the paddlers.

BY PATRICK HUGUENIN

Daily News