Wallabout Bay: The Bone Shore

"When a man died he was carried up on the forecastle and laid there until the next morning at 8 o'clock when they were all lowered down the ships sides by a rope round them in the same manner as tho' they were beasts. There was 8 died of a day while I was there. They were carried on shore in heaps and hove out the boat on the wharf then taken across a hand barrow, carried to the edge of the bank where a hole was dug 1 or 2 feet deep and all hove in together. It is reported that 11700 and odd was buried at this place and in this manner." -- Christopher Vail, of Southold, aboard the Jersey, 1781

The Hell Ships of the Revolutionary War dropped their grisly argosy in the the waters of Wallabout Bay, and the bones were left there for decades after the war. Edwin G. Burrows described the skulls on the coast "as thick as pumpkins in an autumn cornfield."

Outwardly, matters are much improved these days! But let's paddle to the Navy Yard and check out the site of some of the most intense gentrification ongoing in Brooklyn. We know that on land there are luxury shops and bespoke boutiques -- but what horrors lurk at the water's edge?

I will add more slots as (or if) more stern paddlers sign up. So if you're on the waitlist, don't worry! 

• Skill level: Intermediate with some beginners (see what this means here)
• Meet: 4:00 PM
• Launch: 4:30
• Paddle to Wallabout Bay.
• Explore.
• Think of the horrors of war and the outrages consigned to the dark, cold water.
• Think of of humanity's inhumanity.
• Restate the negativeness of the universe. The hideous lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of humanity forced to live in a barren, godless eternity like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror, and degradation, forming a useless bleak straitjacket in a black absurd cosmos.
• Have a snack?
• Slack to flood at 31st St.: 5:50 PM
• Sunset 7:32 PM
• Return, clean up, feel alive: 7:00 PM
• Release: 7:30 PM
  
• Trip leader: Michael (he, him, his) / michael at thelasthaskell dot com
• What to wear and bring

Bring lots of water! For more on what to wear and bring, see the club website.

We're unlikely to find any bones as they were all removed to the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument in Fort Greene Park. But we might find a dock where we can tie up for a little while, so bring a snack if you want to. 

Map: By Bernard Ratzer; marked by Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:22, 5 July 2015 (UTC) - http://bklyn-genealogy-info.stevemorse.org/Map/1766.Vill.Bklyn.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41375777

Historical and quotations from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_Ship_Martyrs'_Monument and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Jersey_(1736)

Additional material from Saturday night.