There is good news and bad news for Washingtonians looking to rent a kayak in the DC area. Three more locations are opening for paddlers in the next ten days. Most locations will open for Memorial Day weekend. I’ll make an update that week too.

Northern Virginia

• Belle Haven Marina, south of Alexandria – OPEN NOW
  This marina is a few miles south of the Capital Beltway (I-95/495) off of the George Washington Memorial Parkway and Mount Vernon Trail.

Maryland

• Chesapeake Paddle Sports, Deale – May 5
  Located near the Bay, there is are adjacent restaurants and shops.
• Atlantic Kayak Co, Indian Head – May 6
  In addition to rentals, Atlantic has tours the of the Mallows Bay Ghost Fleet.
• Whoof on the Wharf, Edgewater – May 13
  A dog-focused operator (many vendors allow dogs) along the South River. They are adjacent to a restaurant as well.
  

Now the bad news – no National Harbor

Boating in DC will not be operating out of National Harbor this season. Word around the docks is that the contract was not renewed by the resort. An inquiry to National Harbor were not returned after one week.

This is a big loss for kayakers. National Harbor was a great place to paddle. I enjoyed bicycling across the Wilson Bridge from Alexandria to get my work out in. Nearly every season, a friend and I included National Harbor as part of our “triathlon” – cycling, kayaking, visit to Port City. He joked that the artificial reefs in the cove called “the Spoils” were “kayaking – after the apocalypse.”

“Arm, in Case”

In 2021, an artist named Jeremy Thomas Kunkel surreptitiously placed an art installation in the Spoils.

Each sculpture is composed of a disembodied, life-size human arm, from just above the elbow down to the hand. The fingers clutch the handles of a boxy suitcase. In all, there are 10 identical works, yellow in color, positioned close to the Maryland shore upriver from the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.

Lost luggage: In May, 10 strange sculptures showed up in the Potomac River – The Post (soft payway)

The sculptures rest of the chunks of the original Wilson Bridge that were left there as artificial reefs. If you have your own watercraft, it’s a good place to have lunch mid-paddle.