Week aboard Mystic Whaler teaches river program

Each year, on the cusp of summer, as the striped bass make their way from the Atlantic Ocean up the Hudson River, so, too, comes the Mystic Whaler with her captain and crew to contribute to the Clearwater mission: education, conservation and celebration of our Hudson River. With an 83-foot-long deck, this four-sail, gaff-rigged schooner is host to the Clearwater education program. Schools and organizations – and on specific dates open to the general public – register for three hours of sailing on the Hudson River, embarking from the Mystic Whaler’s port of call for that week: Cold Spring, Beacon, Poughkeepsie, Kingston, Hudson and more.

This year I had the honor of serving as a week-long, onboard educator teaching at each of the learning stations: Life in the Hudson River, Water Quality, Navigation, Geology, Hudson River Valley History, and the Hudson River School of Art. The Life station was an opportunity to learn interesting facts, for example, while ocean fish come up the Hudson River to spawn, the eels live in our river as adults and swim to sea off Bermuda to spawn – how those inch-long infant eels possess stamina to swim back from Bermuda to the Hudson River is beyond me! Water Quality: while we are still struggling with our legacy of pollution such as PCB, our river does have a healthy amount of dissolved oxygen to support marine life. Navigation: when sailing downwind, we know that the wind pushes us, but sailing upwind, by the shape of the sail the air is actually pulling us. Geology: there are only two fjords in the northeast – one off the coast of Maine and the other in our very own Hudson Highlands between Peekskill and Beacon. History: the Hudson River was the focal point of the Revolutionary War as the British sought to separate those bastions of independence – Massachusetts and Virginia – and to isolate the new government in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Art: an opportunity to gaze upon those same landscapes painted in the 1800s emphasizing nature, God and people’s place in creation.

The adage, “wisdom from the mouth of babes,” was certainly true of the school children on these voyages. Talking about natural resource conservation, when one student was asked to define stewardship, responded, “Acting like there is a tomorrow.” It is amazing how while we cerebrally acknowledge that we have to live in our own tomorrow and that an entire generation follows ours, how little we look – and act – beyond our own immediacy. Another student, when talking about contaminants to our environment, was asked to define pollution, responded, “Things being in places that they don’t belong.” How insightful: for garbage, sewage and chemical wastes do have a proper place – just not in the Hudson River. That simple response I found philosophical as well: polluting our minds with thoughts better reserved for another time, polluting our bodies with tobacco better left in the fields, polluting our spiritual lives by cares and concerns which crowd out our souls like an invasive species.

As the week concluded and the head educator thanked each of the volunteers, she acknowledged one volunteer in particular for his meaningful instruction at each of the learning stations. The volunteer took this departing opportunity to instill in us one final insight. “We manifest what we love,” he began, “and each of us is doing what each of us loves.” He continued, “Walt Whitman writes that ‘the efflux of the soul is happiness.’ While Whitman also writes that happiness ‘pervades the open air, waiting at all times’ the source of happiness begins within us – it is not so much that we have to look for outside things to make us happy. And that is true of love: it flows both ways – Muhheakantuck. Love does surround us, and does flow into us, but the source, the efflux of the soul is love.”

Skip Doyle is owner of Outdoor Skipper: a New York-licensed guide service offering hiking, biking, camping, paddling and skiing outings throughout the Hudson River Valley. He can be reached at OutdoorSkipper@gmail.com. His is founder of Esopus Heritage, which serves to preserve and promote the nature and historic places in the Town of Esopus. As a volunteer for the Adirondack Mountain Club, the Appalachian Mountain Club and other nature preservation organizations, his outdoor offerings can be found at MidHudsonADK.org, AMC-NY.org and OutdoorSkipper.com