Kayaking at Sunken Meadow State Park on Long Island, NY – mind the whitewater…really?

Sunken Meadow is a fantastic place to paddle with access to the beautiful Nissequogue River and Long Island Sound. 

Figure 1: Beautiful day on Sunken Meadow Creek

If you go, the New York State Parks Department has a great Kayak & Canoe Guide to New York State Parks that includes Sunken Meadow and presents the kayak launching and parking areas saying, “launch sites are at east end of Parking Field 3 to access Long Island Sound or the Nissequogue River: north side of service road to beach; directly east of parking lot to salt marsh.”  Sounds simple enough, and it is if you follow these directions and observe the signage displayed at the park itself!  Never having been there before, I did an all-too-brief scoping out of these kayak launch areas and decided instead that I could put in the creek right behind the parking lot and therefore a bit closer to my car than the signage indicated.  Big mistake. 

This creek, Sunken Meadow Creek, is an embayment of Long Island Sound, and a relatively small one at that.  As such, risks posed by currents and obstacles weren’t uppermost in my mind.  However, if I’d bothered to read the fine print of the Parks Department kayaking guide, I’d have seen that it also says “kayaking/canoeing in creek west of salt marsh prohibited…”    In my defense, it’s not entirely clear what is meant by "west of salt marsh", because it’s salt marsh all around – west, east, north and south.    But another bit of info that I missed is that the map in the guide (see Figure 2) labels a “Dam” where a footbridge crosses the creek…uh oh. 

Figure 2: NYS Parks map of Sunken Meadow State Park, in part

Heedless of these warnings, I launched my kayak at dead-low tide and began paddling down the creek at a leisurely pace.  Soon I realized that the creek had some current, at least then at low tide.   Looking well ahead of me at a wide footbridge that crosses the creek I noticed a bit of whitewater, “that’s unexpected”, I thought to myself.  By the time I was close to the footbridge I could see a grouping of rocks forming something of a wall/dam under the footbridge with water spilling over and through it.  Crap!  The only opening in this dam appeared to be on the left but my kayak was now moving at a decent clip to the right!  I did some emergency maneuvering but didn’t quite make it to the opening in the dam so had to fend off the rocks with my hands, levering my kayak manually into the shoot that spat me out into calm water!  Phew, mishap narrowly avoided. A reminder that it pays to read the signs and scope out the launch.

So, if you go, launch downstream of the footbridge! The little rock dam in the creek is likely only a problem at low tide since the rocks stand only a foot or so proud of the water at that time.  I had a beautiful and relaxing paddle around the mouth of the Nissequogue River after that bit of excitement. 

Figure 3: Aerial showing parking, Sunken Meadow Creek, and stone Dam