Up the Creek Without a Paddle, Part I

We stopped for food, matches and supplies at Bohack’s in Smithtown on our way to Boy Scout Camp Wauwepex in Wading River. Many supermarkets closed in winter east of Smithtown. It was January 1953. I was 12. We drove out from Merrick on Route 25; there was no expressway.

After setting up our tents and digging a hole to put milk and other food into so it would not freeze, I got into a canoe sitting by Lake Wauwepex. I never heard of a wet suit, the acronym PFD had not yet been invented, and I was wearing boots, dungarees, a flannel shirt, a wool sweater.

My friends pushed the canoe out into the lake. I did not have a paddle, nor did any of us have common sense.

After what seemed like a long time on the water, I was really scared. Someone tossed me a short piece of 2x4.

That was my first “paddling trip.” Times have changed.

Now, when I go paddling, I wear a PFD (personal flotation device), neoprene booties, a dry or wet suit in cold weather or a bathing suit and bare feet in warm weather.

I don’t paddle much in cold weather anymore. I love the sun and warm days, and I like to roll over in my kayak. I have graduated from a splintery spruce 2x4 to an ultralight, 205-cm-long carbon fiber paddle.

My next paddling trip was in 1969, in a canoe on Lake George with my daughters, ages 3 and 6. We wore life vests. The water was so rough from boat wakes that I was afraid for the safety of my daughters, but we got back to shore safely. I have since become very safety-conscious.

The movie “Deliverance” came out in 1972. My eyes were glued to the screen, and I knew I was in love (with canoeing). I read the book twice and saw the movie many times.

Then I bought my first canoe, a Skimmar fiberglass canoe, from Luce Hardware in Riverhead. I thought it was the cat’s meow, since most people had aluminum Grumman or Michicraft canoes.

I really got into paddling about seven years later, with my first trip down the seven-mile-long Peconic River. To paddle a canoe on the Peconic River, you put in by Connecticut Avenue in Manorville and paddle east into Riverhead. Average time is four hours.

Most of the river is narrow and twisting, except for the mile-long Peconic Lake. The water is slow moving. The fishing is good, especially on Peconic Lake. There are places to stop for a swim and a picnic. It is beautiful.

One day in the 1970s, George Bartunek, my daughter, Diana, and I, and three other paddlers, did the first (western) part of the river in 25 minutes after three days of hard rain. It usually takes an hour, but this time the water was moving so fast we hardly had to paddle. That was fast and fun!

State Senator Ken LaValle, his aide and Riverhead town Supervisor Joe Janoski wanted to paddle the Peconic with me as their guide. Months later, the Peconic River became part of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act — which became unpopular a few years later; it was too restrictive.

The Peconic Paddler logo was a canoe and a swan. Swans gave us trouble for a few years. They usually attacked a canoe’s stern paddler. The canoe would flip, spilling out coolers of soda and food, car keys, wallets and cameras.

Fishermen would alert me. I would get into another canoe with two dozen paddles to throw toward the swan (never hitting it). Then it would swim away so I could rescue my canoe and my customers’ gear. Eventually, the attacks stopped.

“Paddle the Panoramic Peconic.” I have paddled the river dozens of times in kayaks and canoes, and on stand-up paddleboards and prone boards. The river is as beautiful now as it was the first time I paddled it 45 years ago.

Paddling the Peconic started me on a career of selling canoes and kayaks and paddling in many places on Long Island and other places around the world.