Time again for the Sunday paddle, and,
after a busy week, I was scratching my head for a good paddle that
could accommodate a diverse group under conditions that could only be
described as interesting - 15 to 20 knot southerly winds, two swells
with a combined wind and wave height of up to 4 metres. In the end,
my plan was for a relatively safe, but not without it's challenges,
paddle south from Wimbie Beach, so paddling into a head wind in what
would surely be lumpy seas.
Most sea kayakers don't seem to like
paddling into the wind. However, I consider this an essential skill
in a solid kayaking repertoire. Not being able, or willing to paddle
into the wind seems to me the equivalent of refusing to skin uphill
to ski downhill in the backcountry, or ride your mountain bike uphill
so you can flow down single track. The hard graft is also an
essential part of the experience and should be embraced. Resilience
and strength is built by doing difficult things, not taking the easy
way.
As it turned out, however, only two
people signed up. One was, of course, Doug, who is up for anything I
suggest, no matter how hare-brained, and the other was Rae, who in general,
as long as it is kayaking related, is also up for anything.
Heading out of Ulladulla Harbour
With only three of us committed it
seemed sensible to do a more interesting trip that involved a car
shuttle. I don't like car shuttles - they eat up time and spew out
carbon. Many times, however, they seem a necessary evil. But, if we
were going to car shuttle, I wanted to find a car shuttle that
allowed for a solid day paddling with minimal shuttling. I also
wanted to run the trip out of Ulladulla as mostly Rae and Neil make
the trip south to paddle and it seemed only fair to drive north
occasionally.
And so the plan to paddle north from
Ulladulla to Sussex Inlet and across St Georges Basin to Basin View
was hatched. This plan should give a minimum of 40 kilometres of
paddling (about 30 on the open ocean), an interesting bar crossing
and a car shuttle of only 60 minutes. It seemed like a bargain too
good to be true. The only problem was my somewhat piss-poor
preparation.
St Georges Basin is a large lake with a
narrow outlet channel that meanders six kilometres out to sea with an
average width of around 150 metres. So a big body of water has to
rush in and out a narrow passage with the tide change multiple times
each day. Now, as any rookie knows, or at least should know, the
change of tide at the ocean does not correspond to when the tidal
stream into or out of the lake changes. So tide change at the coast
may be 2.35 pm (as it was for us) but the water in the lake will
continue to run out - often very swiftly - for hours after this.
Heading north under sail
Not only does this mean that paddling
up the channel will be slow hard work as you fight a strong tidal
current, it also means that any waves at the bar will stand up as the
tide runs out against rising ocean water and swell. Finally, the
other danger, perhaps the most significant, is that anyone who
capsizes and comes out of their boat will be washed out to sea and
into bigger waves with more dangerous conditions and not into the
safety of the channel and away from the waves.
Rae had anticipated many of these
things that I had not and she cautioned that we should not try to
cross the bar until around 4.30 pm, about two hours after tide
change. It turns out, this is an underestimation of how long the
tide runs out and three or even four hours after low tide at the
coast is likely a better benchmark,
Initially, I had said Doug and I would
leave our place to head north at 7 am. I am an old mountaineer, not necessarily an old, bold mountaineer, but an old mountaineer
in any event and mountaineers leave. Throw up your breakfast in the dark early, because mountain days
are long and dangers frequently intensify with daytime heating. So, my knee jerk reaction to any trip is "leave early."
Heading north from Bendalong
So, we ended up leaving Ulladulla
Harbour at 9.30 am, around about 3 or 4 hours too early to catch the
tide right at Sussex Inlet bar thanks to a slightly faster travel
speed (around 9 km an hour) and my not taking the time to work
backwards to decide on the time to leave. What is inexplicable to me
is that I know this stuff, and have done for years.
We had a good tail wind to push us
north from Ulladulla Harbour although the sea was lumpy and bumpy.
The swell was up, maybe three metres for the biggest waves but not as
terrifyingly large as our last trip from Moruya to Ulladulla. We got to our lunch spot at Bendalong, which was busy with
weekenders, at 11.30 am and way ahead of schedule.
While eating an early lunch, we began
discussing the next stage of the journey. There were unknowns. None
of us had actually paddled into Sussex Inlet bar and trying to gauge
exactly what the bar was like from looking at historical images on
Google Earth only convinced us we might find anything when we got
there from a steep wall of breaking waves to a narrow passage that
was at least deep enough to paddle. We were hoping that the little
rock island off the point at the bar would at least reduce the
intensity of some of the swell, and our plan was to wrap around this
to the north before coming back south to find a passage through. Rae
had got some information from Marine Rescue at Sussex Inlet, but they
only cross the bar very sporadically and only one hour each side of
high tide. Certainly, we had not seen any boats at all since leaving
Ulladulla as conditions at sea were "interesting."
Doug passing Berrara
Crossing these bars is tricky,
particularly in a big swell with confused seas. In a kayak, we have
no hope of out-running any waves, and sit so low in the water that
even getting a view of what is ahead can be impossible. If we could
not get across the bar at Sussex Inlet, we would have a 10 kilometre
paddle back into the wind and swell late in the day to confront. It
would be doable, just.
So, it turns out we had a fair bit of
time to kill. Rae wanted to leave at 3.30 pm, Doug wanted to leave
at around 3 pm, and me, well, I don't do down-time well so I thought
"why not leave now?" Luckily, sense prevailed and we ended
up starting paddling again at 2.30 pm. We spent about 30 minutes
surfing the little waves that were wrapping around the headland at
Boat Harbour and Doug managed to capsize in a wave quite close to the
rocks, but luckily rolled back up again before his boat ran onto the
reef. About 3.00 pm we headed north.
It was a bumpy ride north. We tried to
paddle in towards Berrara as none of us had ever managed to land
there, but there are a lot of reefs off-shore and the waves were
breaking a long way out. I almost got cleaned up by a big one when
my sail cord slipped away from me and I was faffing around with my
head down. A quick sprint paddle and I nipped over the back of the
wave just before it broke. Sometimes I shudder to think how many
times that happens.
Finally, around 4.15 pm, we arrived at
the heads at Sussex Inlet and wrapped around the reefs and islands to
the north and, as planned started heading back south. There was no
clear way into the channel, the waves were closing out the entire
passage and it seemed like the tide was still running out of St
Georges Basin even though the tide had turned two hours ago.
Paddling in behind the reef towards Sussex Inlet
We spent some time paddling back and
forth looking at potential routes in. There was one or two narrow
escapes from breaking waves again as we tried to get in close enough
to see without getting cleaned up. Doug and I would probably have
tried to land on the beach, or at least get right into the swash zone
and paddle south along shore, but Rae was keen to try towards the
middle of the channel. I think this is actually where the waves were
biggest and the big sets were coming through strongly.
Finally, after watching for a few
minutes we decided to give it a go. In better conditions, that is, a
smaller swell, I think you might be able to diagonal in from north to
south, but we had no chance of that without getting caught by
breaking waves so we attempted a more direct route in. At some
point, Rae just took off, Doug started following, but then hesitated
and tried to turn his long 580 Mirage around to head back out again
as a bigger wave picked up. I was following Rae but hoping to come
in on the back of a wave - what a laughably futile plan - when I saw
Doug's boat spike up and crash down and he was over and soon out.
My boat immediately broached and I
reflexively leaned hard into the wave. For a while, all I could see
was breaking wave but when I did manage to look up, I saw with glee
that I was hurtling in towards the beach. So Rae and I made it into
the swash zone where there were lots of breaking waves but none
really powerful and turned to see Doug arduously trying to swim/wade
his boat in.
I felt quite powerless to help and
dithered between trying to paddle back out and tow him in to landing
quickly and swimming out to help. In the end, as he seemed to be
making progress, albeit slowly towards shore, I did nothing but watch
and worry. After a while, he got on his feet and was in less
powerful waves and was finally able to turn his electric pump on and
even get back in the boat.
Somewhere between Berrara and Sussex Inlet
We were all wet and a bit chilled so we
paddled into the calmer water and edged into an eddy so Doug could
bail out the remaining water from his boat. A hoard of gawkers came
down to ask what on earth we were doing and where had we come from.
So now it was 5 pm, we had a 10 km
paddle against the tide, were all chilled and there was still that
hour long car shuttle. We did manage to sail a bit up Sussex Inlet
even though the wind was sporadic in the passage and we definitely
had a strong current to paddle against. Upon arriving at a boat ramp
and picnic area we reassessed. We would be lucky to be back in
Ulladulla before 10 pm at night, and, as Rae said, the interesting
part of the trip was over, so, with little hesitation we called it a
day and Neil, who was kindly assisting in the car shuttle, came to
pick us up.
It had been a grand adventure. One of
those trips where you dance along the fine line between adventure and
epic, never knowing for sure if you will make it out the other side.
