I spent the morning scouting the areas between Charles Park in Howard Beach and Hamilton Beach Park (I think it's called) in Hamilton Beach. Both straddle the north-east side of Jamaica Bay, and across from these parks you can (hear!) JFK airport.
Throughout the morning the wind was stronger than on previous days, but mornings on the water are always windy. I hopped from marsh to marsh, ducking between reeds and divets in the mud to escape the wind.
Impossible.
When I reached Hamilton Beach, I stood under the subway train tracks, piled up with huge boulders, watching two men fish under the bridge. There was also a large boat with an indescribable machine washing the edges of the bridge, which made so much noise that the wind seemed a trifle.
I managed, though, after several hours, to duck between two very tall plots of reeds surrounding a very deep divit (about two feet deep) through which a little stream of water ran through. I placed the shotgun mic as low to the ground as possible - so that I wasn't touching the few fronds that moved gently in the breeze, scratching the windscreen.
It was quite serene, and in a few instances (it's very hard to hear because of the competing wash of the tide) one could hear the "squeegee" sound of water evaporating from the mud. I'll have to bring a highly directional mic the next time to capture this sound .
