Free Floating Anxiety: Narrawallee Inlet to Green Island and Ulladulla Harbour

Perhaps it started with the roadside breath test just south of Ulladulla at 9.00 am in the morning, more likely it was arriving at Narrawallee Inlet at 9.30 am, right on the agreed time to find the rest of the crew had kayaks packed and were ready to leave. Maybe it was the thought of a day book-ended by surf exits and entries. Whatever it was, I had a fair degree of free floating anxiety before I'd even slipped into my kayak.

Our plan was to paddle out through the - hopefully - small surf break beside the rocks at Narrawallee - plug north into a gentle headwind to Bendalong for lunch, and then cruise back with a stronger tail-wind. But, the best made plans and all that.

I've surfed my sea kayak at Narrawallee once before on an incoming tide with a one metre clean swell. Even then I had one particularly spectacular crash and subsequent dragged out swim into the beach that Alison remembered distinctly due to my rodeo like double pivot turn followed by rapid capsize on the biggest steepest wave of a short set.

Today the tide was running strongly in, and a brisk 15 knot northeasterly wind was blowing onshore. I felt like I went from a standstill to flat out paddling just to get through the bar. Timing is everything, and mine was simply good luck as the group was all waiting out beyond the waves and I felt pressured just to paddle out without waiting for a set of smaller waves.

Green Island is just under 5 km from Narrawallee, but with sea spray in the air and a headwind, it looked further. Rae and Alison immediately began paddling laps around Doug, Mike and I, as they are both training for the Hawkesbury Classic. My free floating anxiety increased. I was, as usual, well at the back of the group, grinding into a headwind that felt like a giant hand on my chest pushing me backwards. I tried to practice all the things Rae taught me about an efficient forward stroke - tap, not grind, keep the cadence up - always a struggle for me - drive from the hips, etc., etc., but nothing felt quite right, and I certainly wasn't going to break any speed records.

As Alison cycled by on her fourth or fifth lap past me, she confirmed that we would land on the beach on the south side of Green Island for some respite from the wind. Tap, tap, tap, I said to myself as I plugged on.

The surfers were catching some reasonably big waves off the reef at Green Island, but it was easy enough to land on the south facing beach, even though there was a bit of water that felt kind of squirrelly, or perhaps it was using an unfamiliar wing paddle to brace and rudder. It was nice to have some shelter from the wind, as when we looked north of Green Island, the sea was awash with white caps.

I was still reasonably keen to continue on to Bendalong. I like to practice paddling into the wind when I don't actually have to so that I know I can do it when I have no choice. But, as Rae said "that is a good idea while we are on the beach." Instead, we decided to paddle across the little reef between Green Island and the mainland, circle around Green Island and head back to Narrawallee. My free floating anxiety found something else to fix on. Would I capsize and get blown back into the surf?

I went first, which seemed a reasonable idea given my anxiety, and cruised through with no drama; luck again, as the waves were quite small when I went through. Doug followed closely behind me, then Mike, who got carried close too the rocks and buffeted around by waves breaking both in front and behind him - "Who thought that was a good idea" he said - and then came Alison, almost, as she rocketed up into the air on two colliding waves, and ended up out of her boat.

It was a bit challenging to maintain our position with the wind blowing us back on-shore and I dithered about whether I should paddle back over to assist, but Rae seemed to have everything under control and after a while, we could see Alison back in her boat, and Rae paddling through. Alison met us on the south side of Green Island. Apparently, paddling through the gap no longer seemed like a good idea to her.

With gusts up to 20 knots now, I found my big sail too much to handle given my degree of anxiety so I dropped down to my two thirds sail. Doug, however, was lounging comfortably in his boat with his full one metre sail, not even paddling. It was a fairly swift trip down to Narrawallee Inlet where the swell was looking messy but mostly due to the sea on top of the one metre swell.

I was anxious, of course, but figured I could make it in alive, if not dry, so was working my way in towards the beach when Rae called me back. It turns out the group was split, Mike and Alison wanted to paddle down to Ulladulla Harbour and a surf free landing, while Rae, of course, wanted to surf in, and Doug agreed. We decided to tentatively split into two groups, with Doug, Rae and I paddling in, and the other two continuing to Ulladulla Harbour, unless we three made it look super easy.

It was one of those awkward times sea kayaking where the wind is very quickly blowing you where you do not want to go, and the surf looks bigger and wilder due to a piled up local sea. Rae started in, but somewhere in the surf zone we saw the bottom of her kayak. Again, I dithered about going in to help but doing any type of rescue in the surf zone is problematic, perhaps even chaotic. Instead, we battled the wind out back until we saw Rae emerge onto the beach. That was enough to localise my anxiety and we decided to paddle down to Ulladulla Harbour. We gave Rae our predetermined signal and set off again.

It is a further 8 kilometres south to Ulladulla Harbour and I was not at all confident I would not be blown onto the rocks at Bannister Point so I stayed well out. Alison and Mike were near me, Alison at least was feeling the same, although she is a much stronger paddler than I, while Doug cruised along relatively close in shore.

Once past Bannister Head, our direction of travel seemed more favourable for sailing so the sails went up, although I found I had to brace on occasion or risk a capsize. Perhaps it was just my free floating anxiety that seemed to facilitate an entire storyline of things that could go wrong continuously unraveling through my thoughts. Ulladulla Head marks the northern entrance to the harbour and I recognised it from a previous trip. It was nice to paddle into the harbour, although it was not until we were right inside the breakwater that the wind and sea abated. As Mike, aka "local knowledge" said, "it was a good day, nobody died."