NYCkayaker advice on Hell Gate at max flood

[mark handy]

Thank you to the eight people who responded to my request for circumnav advice. I blended your very helpful information together and came up with a plan that worked well. The ideal conditions today helped, too, of course.  I've never seen the Battery so calm.

We got chased off the little beach just south of the Manhattan Bridge by a NYS Parks officer.  I had heard of that prohibition at some point, but there were no signs and I had forgotten what I heard.  It seems like a wrongheaded rule.  Anybody know the rationale, or to whom I should complain? There is a similar beach just north of the bridge. Is that one legal?

Hello to whomever I waved to at the yellow sit-on-tops in LIC.

The trip took us six hours.  I don't understand how people can do it in under four. We had a total of maybe one hour of rests, on land and on water, so scratch all of them and we had five hours of paddling. We didn't work all that hard, except on the Harlem, so maybe subtract half an hour for pushing hard all the way.  Then the remaining 45-minute reduction comes from where?  Pure muscle?  Fast boats?  Clockwise instead of counterclockwise?

Thank you again. See you on the river.

Mark