Shearwaters, whales, wind, and sausages.
29-oct-2016
wx:
partly cloudy, warm, light winds => periods of rain => cloudy,
15+ knot northerly, easing.
Wildey
had originally advertised this as a weekend trip, hopefully to the
Tathra area. In response to not-so-stellar marine forecast, it was
later downgraded to an overnight trip in the Batemans Bay area, but
with a forecast for strong winds and rain on Sunday, it eventually
went as a Bawley Point to Maloney’s day trip. Sandy was showing
uncommon sense and skipped the paddle due to tendinitis in her elbow,
so it was just 7 sausages: the usual suspects (John, Mike, Mark,
Peter, me) plus Roy Harvey and Guy Reeve from Canberra.
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| It all started innocently enough (credit: Guy Reeve) |
After
meeting at Maloney’s at 9:00 (these guys would be terrible
alpinists) to leave some vehicles, it was 10:15 before we hit the
water. It was partly cloudy, but lovely and warm as we set off. The
low southerly swell and light winds made for mellow paddling (if
paddling like a madman trying to keep up to these seniors can ever be
mellow). Almost immediately whales were spotted offshore which spread
the group out, but we regrouped again after passing through the
narrows west of Brush Island – navigating through said passage
required a bit of care as the bigger sets were breaking most of the
way across.
It
was a fairly agreeable but uneventful paddle to our lunch stop at
Snake Bay – except for the unwelcome rain that had set in making
everyone cold as rain gear had seemed superfluous when we launched.
The landing at Snake Bay was a piece of cake, and just in time for
me, as my Raynaud’s had kicked in big time and I couldn’t feel my
hands. Interestingly, during the May – Oct time period I have seen
the beach at Snake Bay go from 100% pebbles to 80% sand and then back
to 80% pebbles.
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| Lunch stop (credit: Guy Reeve) |
Fortuitously,
the rain stopped for our lunch, and everyone was able to warm up. I
put on all my clothes, and whilst eating my lunch alternated between
drinking my tea and soaking my fingers in it. Near the end of lunch,
Wildey was complaining about the absence of the forecast north wind;
I, of course, was quietly rejoicing that I had got this far without
any near death experiences, and wouldn’t mind one bit if it
continued that way for the rest of the day. Then Killer observed that
the clouds above us were starting to move, and soon after that the
first whitecaps were seen.
We
launched off the beach, and by the time we were out from the shelter
of Clear Point, the seas were whipped up into a confronting frenzy –
how could a calm sea become so messy so quickly? It must have been
blowing a gale offshore because the 15-20 knots winds we experienced
were insufficient to explain the very steep 2m breaking wind waves
that had apparently materialized out of nowhere. I rafted up to Peter
and reefed my sail down to its “storm sail” size and with great
trepidation let ‘er fly. The stock Pacific Action sail is 1 m**2,
but our modified storm sail is but a third of that, and was perfect
this day – I could not have handled the full sail, and even the
middling 0.7 m**2 size could have been too much for me. It’s not
that it was so crazy windy, but with the very steep and breaking
following sea, everyone was finding conditions exciting – even
crusty old Wildey had a near capsize when a big one decided to break
on his head. Well that’s not quite true – Peter with his quiet
competence, hardly noticed a ripple.
I
was feeling solid, but a tad intimidated by the conditions, so asked
Peter to keep an eye on me, and after that, bless his heart, he
shadowed me like a hungry dog at mealtime. Having Peter standing by
to pick up the pieces should I come a cropper made it so much easier
to relax and just focus on the paddling, which of course, made the
paddling easier.
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| Bunch of kayakers hidden in the waves (credit: Guy Reeve) |
And
then came the whales. And I don’t mean the often sighted spout a km
away. Large adult whales were launching themselves clear out of the
water, and landing with loud BOOMs sounding very much like fired
cannons. Over and over again at close range they hurled themselves
skyward only to fall back to earth that a thundering boom.
By
the time we had got around Point Upright, Roy had had quite enough
and declared he was pulling out at Durass North. To my surprise,
Killer was happy enough to join him, and when the group elders (Mike,
John, Peter) decided we should continue on without our sails raised,
Guy also decided to pull the pin so as to not re-injure his shoulder
recently damaged in a mountain biking accident.
And
so it was just the four us from Point Upright to Maloneys. With
affirmations to stick close together and keep the sails safely stored
on our decks, we left the comparative shelter of Durras Bay heading
for the scary looking sea to our east. In a silent show of hands
(behind my back) I was voted most likely to capsize (true enough!),
so the three senior members of crew hung back keeping an eye on me
waiting to provide assistance. I figured it would be hard to find a
more capable and trustworthy trio of paddlers to be watching my back
(literally, as it turned out), so I actually felt quite relaxed about
heading off into what I feared would be a building gale – very
unlike me. Despite being the youngest in the crew, I was also the
slowest, so was paddling like a demon trying to stay ahead of my
support crew … until I happened to shoulder check on my compatriots
to find not one, but three sails deployed and catching a glorious
tail wind! So much for that plan! Up went my sail and off we went.
Ironically,
since three members of our party had pulled out, the wind slowly
began to fade, and the steepness of the waves decreased making this
section of trip far less harrowing than the one that preceded it.
We
hadn’t gone far before the whales entertained us yet again with
impressive feats of aerobatics. At times they came up behind us and
given the sea conditions it was tricky to keep an eye on them, so we
paddled on listening to the boom, Boom, BOOM getting louder and
louder … wondering if we needed to take evasive action.
After
the whales finally tired of alternately thrilling and scaring us, we
thought the nature show was over, but no, we then paddled and sailed
into an area of rafting shearwaters – a huge area where thousands
upon thousands of birds, exhausted from their long journey from the
north Pacific, were resting on the water. We paddled on and on
through an enormous flock of birds who were both bobbing in the water
and flying all around us threatening to slam into our sails. They fly
very close to the water’s surface and almost give the appearance of
water skippers (the really tired ones were in fact water skippers,
but I don’t think that was their plan). They make no noise, and the
silent swarm of birds skimming across the choppy water gave an eerie
other-worldly feel to the experience.
I
understand the shearwaters are only in these waters for a very short
time en route to their summer holidays in Tasmania. Mike has been
paddling these waters for a considerable length of time and never
experienced the shearwater flotilla before.
The
wind and seas continued to ease as made our way to The Bay. Except
for a bit of rebound as we approached North Head, rounding into
Batemans Bay proved no drama. Once past North Head my support crew
decided that against all odds I was going to keep the slippery side
down, so pulled up their sea anchors and left me in their spray. Just
as I was thinking I had actually made it and could relax, the three
of them went through a gap at the end of the reef off of Three Isle
Point … my heart sank. I knew how this was going to end. I am an
incredible rogue wave magnet, and despite seeing the Three Musketeers
sail through the gap unmolested, I knew in my heart that my passage
would not be so easy. As I approach the narrowest part of the gap,
there was a loud sucking sound, and a huge rock reared up out of the
water directly in my path. It is a good thing my mother wasn’t
around to hear my Tourette’s flare up. I madly back-paddled and
against all odds slowed my progress just long enough for the next
wave to catch me and cover the rock literally in the nick of time.
But the fun was only just starting: I heard a roar behind me and
quickly shoulder-checked: the predicted tsunami of white death was
rising high above me with clear plans to make me pay for a lifetime
of past sins. I paddled like my life depended upon it (it didn’t)
and prayed for an inner strength to save me from the ignominy of
screaming like a girl. Fortuitously the wave broke before reaching
me, so I was only left with side-surfing the foam through the gap …
and I was done. And in more ways than one, as I was starting to feel
a bit weary.
A
quick flat water paddle into the teeth of a much re-invigorated north
wind deposited us onto Maloneys beach, 28km and 6:15 after we
started.
An
amazing paddle I won’t soon forget.
