Why You Should Not Eat Bananas While Sea Kayaking

We are weaving our kayaks between rocks and swell along the coast south of Sunshine Cove when I look down and nothing but rocks is under the front of my kayak which is suspended in air as the water draws back, back, back, as a bigger wave gets setup to roll through. I pause, paddle in the air, and the micro-seconds I spend thinking “paddle forward or back? Forward is not good, must paddle back” are too long and without me even knowing how or barely why, the kayak is upside down.

I’ve capsized before. Like rock climbing, if you haven’t capsized kayaking, you aren’t really trying, but capsizing in surf surrounded by sand is one thing, next to lots of sharp, oyster and barnacle covered rocks quite another. Upside down, and with the boat shifting in small swells, I was disorientated. I felt my sunglasses float off my head and disappear. Next, my paddle, only loosely held in my hands slipped, I tried to orientate myself to roll up, thinking, “if I can just get the paddle into position, the next wave will roll me up” but before that happened, I panicked, my thinking brain shut down completely and the cowardly lizard brain we try to keep tucked away so as to meet our audacious goals, began screaming “you’re going to drown, you’re going to drown.” I actually had trouble finding the pull on my spray deck, but, after what seemed an age but was likely a minute, I burst to the surface.

Doug and Fish Killer were both nearby looking somewhat stunned, although Doug had seen the whole thing unfold. “Get away from the rocks,” they yelled. I pushed the boat away from me, towards the open sea and began swimming. My life jacket floated up and made swimming difficult. This has been a discussion topic among local sea kayakers lately after one of our crew had a capsize incident and the victim was unable to get back into his boat because his life jacket was riding up. Life jackets have to be uncomfortably tight to NOT ride up when you are immersed, and who keeps their life jacket fastened uncomfortably tight? Only the terminally nervous amongst us, and hardly anyone on a calm, sunny day.

I kept swimming. Push the boat out, then swim, push the boat out, then swim. It was slow going, but I wanted to be a good distance off the rocks before getting back into the boat. Meanwhile, Doug and Fish Killer were discussing how neither of them had a tow rope handy. I don’t know that Fish Killer owns a tow rope as his usual strategy is to paddle a long way from everyone else thus ensuring he is never called upon to tow anyone.

My short tow is on my boat, ready to tow and equipped with a quick release shackle. I’ve used it more than once and now I never paddle without it. Just as I was unclipping my short tow to give to my two ill-equipped companions, Doug found his short tow in the pocket of his life jacket and finally, the boat moved at speed away from the rocks with me hanging onto the stern and kicking.

My first thought was to re-enter and roll, but, although that is a neat party trick, the boat ends up full of water, so Doug and I did the usual T rescue and heel hook entry. It was simple, as it was, stupidly calm water, and I felt stupidly foolish for having capsized and then failed to roll. I have a perfectly good, ambidextrous roll, at least when I know I am going to roll. When taken by surprise that perfectly good roll gets shouted down by the panic stricken lizard brain. The same lizard brain that makes your legs shake when far above the last piece of gear on a rock climb.

It was quite chilly being wet through so we paddled along to the nearest beach where I went ashore to get the last of the water out of my boat (it was slopping around my legs and butt) and change into a dry top. This required stripping naked to the waist and on this day of all days, everyone on the beach, the same people who normally ignore our kayak group, all wanted to come up and ask about the kayak, or my clothing – wet and inadequate – or where were we going, and isn’t it a cracker of a day on the water?

I grunted some churlish replies and hastily stripped off and changed into a dry top which quickly soaked through as the water leached up from my wet paddling tights. Second note to self of the day, take a full set of dry clothes in winter; the first being “don’t capsize in winter.”. Bizarrely enough, I had a head lamp, but my dry top was only chance as I had been going to wear two layers to paddle in but had peeled down to one before we left.

We continued on. I gave the rock gardening a much wider berth. At Rosedale, we landed on the beach for a break in the weak winter sun. Doug and I had tea and home-made cheese scones. Fish Killer had bananas. Bananas are a bad sign in a paddler. Based on several years of data, Doug has recently calculated the “banana equation” wherein the number of years of paddling left in a sea kayaker is equal to five minus the number of bananas brought on a single day paddle. Fish Killer had two bananas.

Old people and bananas. Don’t say you have not noticed it. There is a certain age, which can vary by a decade, wherein old people become old people because they begin to eat more and more and more bananas. A generous explanation could be that their bodies crave potassium, but why don’t old people eat kale or silver beet? No, the explanation for the increasing quotient of bananas in the diet is the desire to eat something sweet which requires minimal mastication. Just before Doug’s parents went into the aged care home in which they now reside, they were eating about 14 bananas each per day, and nothing else. The Del Monte banana truck drove straight from Mexico to their apartment block in North Vancouver. Metro Vancouver ended up with a banana shortage.

From Rosedale, we paddled back to Sunshine Bay by way of Black Rock and the Tollgate Islands, then, it was home for dry clothes and hot coffee.

A Day Along The Murramarang South Coast Walk

The Murramarang South Coast Walk linking Maloneys Beach to Pretty Beach and traversing the entire length of Murramarang National Park is now open and already proving justly popular. In many ways, this is a typical Australian “long” distance walk¹: the walk passes through several small coastal villages and is never far from civilisation. Road access along this section of coast is plentiful. Every beach, even the most tiny, can be visited with only very short (less than one kilometre) walks from the nearby trailheads. And, the walk itself, has been created by cobbling together much existing track.

Conversely, much new track has been built and the new track is superb: well constructed and located, and supremely scenic. There are hundreds of fantastic viewpoints and the track visits every beach along this section of coast, even the most tiny. The only downsides, and these are minor, is that water is not available at Oakey Beach campground so must be carried from South Durras or Maloneys Beach (about 8 kilometres from South Durras); the signage is a little confusing (many three way junctions are completely unsigned), public transport between the two ends of the tracks is (for all practical purposes) unavailable, and Durras Lake is more often open than closed meaning a deep water crossing (up to my chest yesterday) is generally required.

As autumn trickled into winter with a series of gloriously sunny but cool days following each other, Doug and I made plans to walk the full Murramarang South Coast Walk in a day. The website lists the walk as 34 kilometres, but, at the end of the day my Garmin watch had recorded a distance of 38 kilometres and about 900 metres of elevation gain and loss. To be fair, I had two navigational errors along the way where I missed the track leaving two of the camping areas (as previous, signage could be improved) and we walked from Merry Beach which is a couple of kilometres north of the official start of the track at Pretty Beach.

Early in the morning, Doug dropped me at the new trailhead at Maloneys Beach and I started the walk by stepping up the brand new staircase which cuts off the old section of track that wrapped in from the north. It was a beautiful morning with sea mist rising in the cool clear air. Right away there are stunning views south to the Tollgate Islands and the beaches and headlands south of Batemans Bay.

At North Head, the coastline heads due north and the track follows closely along the coastline through a stunning forest of spotted gums and burrawangs. The trail is marked by signs featuring a kangaroo and there are kangaroos everywhere, often comfortably lazing on grassy verges behind white sand beaches. So habituated are the macropods to humans that they barely look up as you walk by.

There are lots of little lookouts along the way and the track dips down and traverses empty white sand beaches between headlands as it wanders north. I had breakfast in the sun at Richmond Head enjoying a fantastic view up to Flat Rock Island while sitting on a log in the autumn sunshine. At Cookies Beach, I topped up my water from the tank attached to the toilet block before continuing north along the beach. The full length of Beagle Bay is only about five kilometres, but the sand is soft and the beach steep in parts so this section can seem long.

At Durras Lake, I met Doug who had waded across the inlet upstream of the wave break. Luckily, the beach was empty as I had no swimmers and had to strip virtually naked to cross as the water was almost chest deep on me. My feet were starting to get sore and swell a bit in my shoes so the cool water actually felt good.

Finally, at the end of the long beach, I walked up the newly aligned track over Point Upright. At dead low tide, but it must be dead low, it is possible to walk around the rock platform to Depot Beach and return via the Burrawang Track over Point Upright. It is worth the short detour to Point Upright to look over the coast that you have already walked.

Between Depot Beach and Pebbly Beach the route lies around a rock platform. This is another place you need low tide, but not dead low. I had to sprint a couple of sections between waves and so called Tranquility Bay was not very tranquil and as it faces due east, it may be tranquil only infrequently. At Pebbly Beach, the resident macropods were laying happily in the sun. This spot is “known” as a place to see wallabys on the beach and there are always people driving in, snapping a picture and leaving again. Thus is modern tourism.

From Pebbly Beach north to Pretty Beach the trail has been completely rebuilt and is wonderful. It traverses several small beaches and follows the coastline closely on bush tracks above rocky headlands. There are fan palms and burrawangs and pockets of dense rainforest. At the south end of Island Beach near O’Hara Island, the track descends stone steps for the last time and the remainder of the walk is beach or rock platform until the steps leading up to Pretty Beach. Standing at Pretty Beach as the sun set and sea fog misted across the jagged slopes, it was breathtakingly beautiful and satisfying to have walked the coast of Murramarang National Park.

But, Doug had parked at Merry Beach, so I had a couple more kilometres of bush track and beach to get to the car and drive south to pick Doug up. At Snapper Point, one last lookout to the south and, as the sun set and the air rapidly cooled, I walked the last desolate beach to the car.

1 At just 34 kilometres I’m not sure the Murramarang Coastal Walk qualifies for the category label: “long distance.”

The Seventy Kilometre Week

Near the end of April, on a whim – often the best reason to do things – I decided to accummulate 70 km on foot (running or walking) in a week. Seventy kilometres on foot, in a week, is not really very far. When we paddled across Eastern Bass Strait, we paddled 70 kilometres between Deal Island and Killecrankie in a day, and, ultra-runners have now gone far beyond 100 kilometres, even 100 miles, and are now regularly cranking out 200 mile races. On a personal level, it’s not that long, since I did 30 kilometres in a day myself, the day after a 24 hour fast.

Much to my chagrin, I was 2.2 kilometres shy. A distance that could easily have been rectified by an extra 20 minutes on any given day.

Most of each days ten kilometres were quite sensible. I’d walk along the coastal track that wraps around the bush covered headlands and dips down to cross sandy beaches, or I would run around on the single track up in the forest behind town. There was, however, the one weirdly silly day when, after the Saturday Park Run (five kilometres), I walked to pathways end and back to my bicycle (which I ride to the Park Run) and, finding I still had an extra kilometre to do, I pushed the bicycle for a kilometre instead of riding, thus guaranteeing that I spent the last half hour cycling home, in the rain, without a coat. I did, however, tick off my ten kilometres.

And Another While...

Since, “it’s been a while,” it has been more of a while. Life is busy sometimes, and days, even weeks pass without a block of time to write. We had a weekend down at Tathra which started sunny ended snowy – at least for some. Winky, that giant of a man in both stature and reputation in the sea kayaking community had organised a “roll and rescue weekend” to take place in the Bega River at Tathra. Mid May is not exactly my idea of a great time of year to spend upside down in a kayak, but, sometimes you just go along to activities to support your mates.

There were a few of the regular paddling squad, dispersed between the ACT and the south coast in attendance, and even a fairly large contingent of Victoria paddlers. The Victoria folks are probably more used to cold water but at 16 degrees, the Bega River felt freezing even with a wetsuit on.

On Friday, Doug and I had driven down to Kianinny Bay and met Neil and Rae to paddle what I call the “Kianinny Coast” which is the short stretch of coastal cliffs and sea caves that runs south from Tathra to Wallagoot Beach. The Kangarutha Trail traverses this section of coast and is well worth a walk along if you are in the area. But, as with many coastal areas, the best view is from water level and a sea kayak.

Despite a reasonable swell running, we were able to paddle through many of the gaps between rocky islet and shore including right into Games Bay where it was dead calm! It was not that elusive weather day of our dreams where a half a metre swell allows exploration of the many gauntlets and caves but it was pretty darn good and one would be churlish to complain about a day out in sunny, calm weather on such a spectacular section of coast.

Around camp that evening, there was some pre-emptive moaning about the cold water expected on the morrow, but I was committed to the idea that if I didn’t think the water was cold it would not feel cold. Except it did.

I did not do a lot of rolling on Saturday. I did, however, try Winkie’s “rolling paddle,” a monstrously long paddle with a straight blade on one end and a T handle on the other, the paddle end wrapped in closed cell foam so it is impossible to pull on the blade, and also a “stick” or Greenland paddle. No swims for me, except right at the end when I did one token “re-enter and roll” just to say I had done one.

Some practice with scoop rescues and a stirrup rescue convinced me that the former is near useless but the latter is a game changer for folks that are too weak, uncoordinated, or both to perform the more usual “heel hook” entry.

On Sunday, a Storm Force warning was issued, Doug and I drove home to avoid the bad weather but I gathered that Winkie was out on the beach with a hardy few followers as the wind blew, the rain pelted down and the wave height topped 10 metres off Eden and Batemans Bay.