Feature - December 2006 Sea Kayaker Magazine

Into the Fray
Two hours after launching, we were surfing a messy 10-foot swell with waves breaking all around us. On our left, cliffs rose straight up from the sea a thousand feet, and there was no place to land. We enjoyed surging forward on rearing waves, but we also felt the seriousness of undertaking a circumnavigation of this island, even though this was its less demanding side.
We pulled our kayaks up onto a small sheltered beach at Lagoon Bay with just five minutes of daylight left. Trys made us a vegetarian shepherd’s pie as Gemma and I put the tent up. We sat under some trees in the dark, shoveling our first evening meal into our mouths, looking into the black to the north.
The wind stayed behind us for two more days, and we averaged 25 miles per day. We paddled along a countryside lined by sandy beaches and steep red rocks, all carpeted with lush green trees. Gannets made detours to flutter above our heads in wonder, and fat shags—with white bellies and black overcoats—struggled to take off and get away from us. We rafted up and held our tarp high above our heads. Laughing, we let the wind carry us along at about two knots, but I have to admit that my arms hurt more from holding the tarp up than they would have from paddling. Navigating was interesting when all we could see was grey fabric!
On the morning of our fourth day, we were battling into a Force-4 headwind. We had reached Freycinet Peninsula, one of the top tourist attractions in Tasmania. Rugged red mountains of granite rose steeply from the sea, with just the occasional break of white-sand beach. Beautiful as it was, there weren’t many places to land, and the wind stirred up the sea into short choppy waves that slammed against our bows and slowed our pace to less than two and a half miles per hour. We battled on, but the gusts picked up throughout the day until whitecaps crashed around us. We didn’t dare stop paddling to eat as we knew we’d be blown backward as soon as we took a hand off the paddle.
Sheltering from the persistent, strong headwinds on Tasmania's East Coast.

Sheltering from the persistent, strong headwinds on Tasmania's East Coast.

For eight of the next 12 days, the wind picked up to at least Force 4 by 9:30 A.M. We started off setting the alarm for 6A.M. and getting on the water by 7:30, but it soon became clear that the only way to make any reasonable progress was to be on the water at first light and paddle hard until the wind picked up. On our 10th day, the alarm went off at 4 A.M., and we crawled reluctantly out of our cozy sleeping bags into the cold and dark. We were on the water as the red light of dawn oozed into the sky. It was the first time I missed the 6 A.M. radio forecast because I was up too early!
Once on the water, the morning stillness and the quiet were broken only by the gentle splash of three paddles slicing into the water. When the wind came on those calm mornings, it came on suddenly. In 10 minutes, it transformed the sea from velvet calm to angry whitecaps. We gritted our teeth, put our heads down and held on to see how long our energy would last. In those first hours, the hiss of the wind and the stinging bombardment of the cold, saltwater spray on my skin made me feel alert and alive, attuned to every nuance of the sea—lifting a hip to let a wave ride under the kayak or putting in a long powerful paddle stroke to lift the bow onto the crest of the wave in front.
As we grew more tired and our progress slowed, the game with the sea stopped being fun. We forced it for a bit longer—none of us wanted to be the one who suggested stopping—but usually by early afternoon, we were lying on a beach looking up at the tree branches, hoping that tomorrow they wouldn’t be dancing so wildly. At times we battled fatigue. The early mornings and long hard days took their toll, but day after day, we forced ourselves out of bed to get on the water by 5:30.
Worse for the Wear
The morning that a headwind picked up at 5:45, just minutes after we’d launched, I realized that I was exhausted. I’d used the last of my resources to gain a few hundred yards. It was almost more than I could bear. Would the wind ever stop? I paddled off on my own, my stroke limp and lazy, ashamed that my motivation had finally vanished. I wanted to cry. Then incredibly, the wind started to drop. By 10 o’clock, the confused chop had settled into a small, undulating swell and our ears rang with silence.
A high-pressure system lingered for the next week, allowing us to make good progress toward Tasmania’s northwest tip. There were strong tides and a labyrinth of shallow sandbars in this area, so timing was critical to make sure we weren’t stranded as the tide went out. If we paddled hard, we knew we could get around the corner in two days of forecasted good weather, but we’d have to start a 15-mile crossing at 5 P.M. With the target in our sights, we set off optimistically on a straight line toward the headland. By 9 P.M., we were less than two miles away, but the sea was disappearing from beneath our hulls at an alarming pace, matched only by the rate the sun was dipping below the horizon. We’d failed to read our chart, which showed the deep water channel was much farther north than our direct path. Sandbars appeared all around us, and the creeping darkness made it impossible to choose an intelligent line. Time and tide were waiting for no women, and we had to make a choice quickly. Our earlier optimism crushed, we decided to go back a mile or so to a headland called Shipwreck Point, where we knew we could land. We paddled, dragged, then carried our heavy kayaks back to the peninsula and up the beach. Two hours later, I tried to sleep and block out the thought that we’d have to do it all again the next morning.
When the sun rose, it took another two hours just to get our kayaks back to the water—then we had to get in and out of them several times as we tried to weave through sandbars and shallows. The tide was rising and we had plenty of daylight, but time was still against us. We’d been told that if we didn’t cross a certain very shallow channel precisely at high tide, we’d have to turn back or risk being stranded for 12 hours. The alternative was a much longer route that would make it very difficult for us to get around the northwest tip that day. It was a shame to be in such a hurry, as the wildlife in these sheltered waters was wonderful. Hundreds of black swans floated on the still sea and took off in huge noisy flocks as we approached. Several times the gray shapes of rays flitted under our kayaks, and a school of dolphins fed in some small tidal rapids a few yards away.
We finally paddled over the shallow channel 30 minutes after high tide. It was overwhelmingly tempting to keep going. There was still a foot and a half of water underneath us. Surely our arriving a half-hour late to the landmark couldn’t be that critical? We took the gamble and continued on. It looked like we had about two and a half more miles of shallow to cross before we reached the safety of deeper water.