A pair of Staten Islanders kayaked and climbed through a ship graveyard last month, and they have the GoPro footage to prove it.
Ed Pollio, owner of 5050 Skatepark, and a friend went out to Staten Island's boat grave yard two weeks ago and uploaded an edit of their footage to YouTube on Monday. The footage shows them paddling under rotted pieces of boats and climbing aboard an old ship.
"I knew it was like a place everybody wanted to go but would never do it," Pollio said. "I felt like of a lot of times people want to live through somebody else and I always wanted to do it."
To get to the spot, the pair went through the marshland past the Sleight Family Graveyard off Arthur Kill Road and then kayaked a bit to get up close to the ships.
The graveyard, also known as the Witte Marine Scrap Yard and currently owned by Donjon Recycling and C & M Metals Recycling, is the only place in the city to dump unused ships and was promoted as a tourist destination by the city in 2013.
Even though the spot is owned by Donjon Recycling, Pollios said he didn't think he was technically trespassing because he went through public marshland to get there by water.
And while climbing up on old ships might seem like a dangerous idea, Pollio said he felt safe doing it.
"They've been sitting there since they were placed, as long as the tides right you're not really in major danger," he said. "The water was super calm, I wasn't fearful."
