Stupid Or Dead

 The best thing about being dead is that you don’t know about it. It’s like being stupid. Ricky Gervais.

Another sunny day, another training day. Apart from a steady headwind on Sunday, our last two training paddles have ventured into the enjoyable category. Silly people (I frequently hear this sentiment on Endurance Planet) often say that you should only do things you enjoy. “Do the training you enjoy” is a frequent Endurance Planet refrain as if progress came from working your strengths and not your weaknesses.

The Malua Bay Cave

The dog people are all on the beach when we trolley down. It is a friendly bunch with happy dogs and most days the regular dog walkers are there when we come down to launch the boats. On my last paddle day (two days ago), only Les was there with his two old sheep dogs, but he waved me off as I headed out solo into a blustery wind and grey day.

Today it is sunny and the water is clear. We launch in calm conditions after patting all the dogs and head south along the coast. There is not much swell and the water is so clear and green, we can see all the reefs as we paddle over them. We paddle in and out of every little bay sticking close to the rocks. At Malua Bay, we finally find the cave, but the tide is too high to get in, even though the swell is probably low enough.

Just before Jimmies Island we land on a little beach, almost inaccessible except by boat, and share a thermos of tea. The wind is up, blowing the trees behind the beach and we are expecting a headwind on the way back. The temptation to go just a little further to paddle the gauntlet on the eastern side of Jimmies Island, however, is overwhelming, so we scoot south with a tail wind, and paddle the gauntlet back north right into a gusty headwind.

And then back to our home bay, trying to garner some shelter from the wind along the way by hugging the shore again.  No pictures today except an aerial view of the gauntlet on the east side of Jimmies Island.

Thoroughly Used Up

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a ride!” Hunter S. Thompson.

Hunter S. Thompson, as most will know, died by suicide in 2005 at the age of 67 following many years of chronic health problems and decades of alcohol and drug use. Years ago, after climbing a few routes on Hunter S. Thompson dome in Red Rocks, Nevada, I tried to read Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” We were, after all, camped at the BLM site just out of Vegas, but the book was a hard read for me and I never finished it. In true, millennial style, however, I have seen the movie!

This morning, after another paddle training day yesterday (headwind again), I got up feeling “thoroughly used up” and thinking that skidding “broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out” is not all it is cracked up to be. A week after being beaten about by my kayak in the surf, I’ve still got a gimpy leg, which is contra-lateral (that’s nice at least) to my gimpy tricep which I incurred during my two week trial of the P:E Diet “train to failure” plan; and, of course, there are my long standing bilateral hamstring issues. I’ve always thought the over-arching goal of all training is “don’t get injured” but with age comes some acceptance that completely avoiding injury when you train and perform year round is actually bloody difficult.

And, link to a great podcast on protein requirements for hypertrophy/strength/ lean muscle mass and training guidelines. 

Keep Showing Up

Another couple of paddle training days done. Not the big numbers we did before Bass Strait, but hopefully enough for our next long paddle trip. On Friday, we headed north up the Murramarang coast into a modest NW wind. Unlike the cliffs along the Booderee coast, it is impossible to get close enough in to the Murramarang coast to escape all wind so it was a bit of work getting up to Durras.

Instead of stopping at Durras, about our half way point, we decided to turn back immediately and have a tea break closer to the bay. Winds were expected to swing westerly, which is an off-shore, and increase in intensity, but we had some vague hopes that we might not have to paddle directly into strong winds at the end of the day

At North Head beach I was so desperate to get out of the boat, feeling excessively cramped and stiff, that I surfed in on the first wave of a big following set. As expected, the boat broached, no drama, but, immediately the kayak rotated 90 degrees and I was pointing back out to sea. Faster thinking would have seen me paddle back out and effect the landing again, but, all I can say is I was just so very cramped and desperate to get out that, like our old dog Kumo, who used to think “give me food, give me food, give me food now” on endless loop, all I could think was “get out of boat, get out of boat, get out of boat now!” I launched out of the boat, which immediately got sucked out to sea while I got knocked off my feet by a wave on the steep beach. All Murramarang beaches are steep and many is the kayaker who has fallen into the water after an otherwise successful landing.

No-one ever falls out on the right (seaward) side of the boat and my ignominious exit was no different. I was in waist deep water struggling to get my feet under me as a series of larger sets rolled in with the boat on the ocean side and ideally placed to become a 28 kilogram battering ram. First into my thigh and then sucked out again and onto my back and head. At some point, I just lay down, face ground into the sand and let the boat ride right over me.

Finally, I got my feet under me and staggered up onto the beach, immediately cold in the blustery wind and feeling quite bruised and battered. Inexplicably, I did not have a dry paddle top with me, but Doug did so I stripped off all my wet layers and put that one, along with a puff jacket I carry in winter. I limped over to the shelter of some rocks after bailing out the boat and contemplating with chagrin the amount of gritty sand that now coated the cockpit.

Shivering on the beach, I could see a long line of white-caps blowing past Three Isle Point, the off-shore wind was up. Back in the boat, we left the shelter of North Head Beach and confronted surf coming out of the bay. You know the off-shore is cranked up when the waves are running out to sea. As usual, time seemed to stop and it felt like we were barely moving but after a steady and tiring hour into the wind, we arrived back at our home bay. My quadricep had seized into a lump of knotted muscle and I limped home to a hot shower and late coffee.

Yesterday was a big swell day – 2.5 to 4 metres on the wave buoy. Normally, that would be a good wave height for surfing in the bay and the swell was penetrating far in, but, we are really in distance mode so we went out and paddled about 22 km in mostly light but cold winds watching carefully for bommies going off.

This is essential training, putting in the time and volume even if the immediate destination does not grab you – I have paddled north, south, east and west of our home bay so many times that, although the ocean is different everyday, one paddle can feel much like the last. But, training does not have to be glamorous, sexy or involve a breakthrough workout every day. Mostly, performance success comes from grinding discipline.

Expectation And Reality: Hyams Beach To Erowal Bay By Sea Kayak

There is a pod of dolphins swimming by the white sand beach as we pack our sea kayaks for a two day trip. Very quickly, an equal sized pod of humans gathers to watch and photograph. It is mid-winter, mid-week, the nearby streets are lined with “no overnight parking” signs, this place must be the ultimate shit show in mid-summer during school holidays. Close enough to Sydney to garner hordes of day trippers who don’t mind driving a few hours each way to walk half an hour and then gather dust in the local cafes.

I have only paddled this particular section of coast once before and that was on a day when the swell was larger rather than smaller and after almost 30 kilometre of rebound we were all glad to get into more sheltered waters.

The further we paddled from the beach, the stronger the wind became until we had a decent following sea and gusty winds pushing us along. I was glad to have a paddle jacket on but a bit nonplussed by conditions as, despite the strong wind warning, I had not expected quite such blustery conditions. Expectation is everything. We mentally prepare for the conditions we expect; when a mismatch between expectation and reality occurs it takes even the most mentally flexible among us a moment or two to revise our expectations.

We had a short stop on a sheltered beach during which time I endeavoured to switch from my wing blade to a flat blade (much better for bracing), but, owing to poor maintenance on my part I was unable to assemble my flat blade. Turns out we were soon out of the wind and my wing blade was a reasonable choice.

Passing between Bowen Island and Governor Head we turned south and were almost immediately sheltered from the wind. This is a spectacular section of coast to paddle. Big cliffs, waterfalls over the cliffs, caves ranging in size from large to less than a paddle width wide, there is lots to see and we took our time paddling south. At Stony Creek we slipped in through the reef to the sheltered little bay. A lovely spot to stop and rest a moment. At Steamers Beach, there was barely a wave so we landed for a short break. This beach is usually a nasty landing spot with a big shore dump, so it was nice to land for no other reason than we could.

One final section of cliffs with some big caves followed before we rounded St Georges Head and straight into a strong headwind. At times like these, I sometimes wonder if we are making any progress at all, but, after about half an hour, we were able to turn north and paddle with the wind across our boats and suddenly paddling was so much easier. We quickly found a tiny beach to land on and settled ourselves for a spectacular sunset over the Budawang mountains.

Next morning, the wind was still blowing light WNW but by the time we had packed up and left camp, it was essentially calm. We wandered north along a series of bays and headlands until three bigger beaches – Summercloud Cove, Mary Cove and Cave Beach – and then a long paddle west along Bherewerre Beach to the bar at Sussex Inlet.

I have had easy entrances to Sussex Inlet and harrowing entrances that were instructive but painful. On this particular day, there was not even a riffle over the bar and a gentle current was running north up the inlet towards St Georges Basin. We had a break on the north side of the bar enjoying the winter sunshine and then paddled six kilometres north up the inlet to St Georges Basin. We could just see Erowal Bay, 7 or 8 kilometres away up an eastern arm of the big shallow bay, so just over an hour’s paddling and the trip was at an end.

Photos courtesy of DB.