Sunday, September 13, 2020

The Sunday Paddles: Just For Fun

Another weekend when the weather was nothing like forecast. Instead of three consecutive days of strong northerlies we had one day, and then two days of light winds. It seems no matter how long I delay when deciding on the location of the Sunday paddle, the forecast will always be stunningly inaccurate.



Given the forecast strong northerlies I, against my better judgement, decided on a downwind run and car shuttle. Well, we did the car shuttle part, but the downwind run was an easy paddle in a low swell and a wind that barely reached five knots.



With an casual day on tap, we extended the trip by paddling past the Tollgate Islands and Black Rock, landed on a very small island using a narrow channel between two rock reefs to access a tiny beach surrounded by cliffs, and explored the little caves and islets on the south side of Burrewarra Point before paddling into the Tomago River through the Mossy Point bar where there was barely a 10 cm riffle.



Last time Doug and I paddled this stretch of coast, we paddled both directions including home into a headwind, racking up a 40 kilometre day. As Mark Twight famously said (about alpinism), "It does not have to be fun to be fun;" sea kayaking does not have to be gruelling to fun, and this day was just kind of fun!

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