By Emily S. Rueb, Published August 29, 2013

“Now in its second year, the [North Brooklyn] boat club has more than 190 members paying the annual $40 membership fee, a testament that the best stretch of shoreline is your own. The resolute community of paddlers has embraced not just the opportunity for recreation but also a continuing crusade to clean up Newtown Creek, a commercial waterway that snakes between parts of Brooklyn and Queens.

‘Once you realize you’re not going to die or get covered in toxic sludge,’ Leif Percifield, 30, of Williamsburg, said after a row from Brooklyn to the Bronx, ‘it’s pretty relaxing.'”

Read the full New York Times article about the North Brooklyn Boat Club here.