Today was a first. The first time in almost a year of Sunday paddles when we have landed and ended the paddle early. There was a gale warning. Nothing new there, Sunday seems to be guaranteed to be the one day a week when the Bureau of Meterology (BOM) will forecast a gale. In case you didn't know, the BOM issues a gale warning when winds are forecast between 34 and 47 knots. For those that don't think in knots, multiply by about 1.8 or think about wind speeds between 63 and 87 km/hour. That is a pretty strong wind.
However, in our defence, gale force winds were not expected until mid afternoon when a strong southerly would blow in. Before that we had hot, dry, unpleasant and very strong northwesterly winds blowing. The NW winds were only forecast to be around 15 knots, nothing we could not deal with, so, our plan was to paddle south for an hour or two, turn around and come back, arriving back at our home beach before the southerly winds became too strong.
We met Mike at our local beach where, even at 8.30 am, many people were already swimming, it was that hot. And, there was a cracking NW wind blowing. A stream of white-caps was blowing past the entrance to the bay. The day before, while I rolled over and over and over in the bay, Doug had paddled south for a few kilometres in similar conditions, albeit with somewhat lighter winds, and he had reported some difficulty paddling back as the wind was strong enough to snatch at the paddle blade.
Today the winds were even stronger so I suggested we paddle northwest into Batemans Bay so we could assess how comfortable we felt in the wind before heading south. It was entirely possible that if we paddled south we would not get back until the wind had changed direction and I was not prepared for that long a day out.
So we paddled around the northerly headland and across the next bay. The wind was not too bad as we were still getting some shelter, but, at the next headland, there was a froth of white caps streaming past. I would have kept going, it would be difficult to make progress, but it was safe paddling as we were close to beaches at which we could easily land, but Mike did not want to paddle into that kind of wind, which, given it was blowing at over 20 knots, is fair enough.
We turned around and started paddling back. I was staying close into shore where there was some shelter from the wind, but Mike and Doug were further out. All of a sudden, I felt a strong push against my back as if from giant's hand and my paddle was almost torn from my hands. Looking out to Mike and Doug, I could see great plumes of spray blowing up and a wind dervish appeared to be chasing Mike along. Later, Mike said he just braced as the gust blew past as he could do nothing else.
By the time we had regrouped before the next headland, the wind was a solid 30 knots with much stronger gusts. I was worried about us being blown off-shore as we went round the next headland and, had anyone had any trouble, such as a capsize, in that wind there would be little any of us could do to help.
This is the classic low probability/high consequence situation. In all likelihood, we would all paddle around the headland to the next beach and be back where we started within half an hour. All I could think, however, was that this short paddle in an area where I have paddled dozens and dozens of times before is no hill to die on or be injured on, or lose a boat.
It was a simple matter to surf into land on the beach, walk five minutes along the street, pick up Mike's car and our kayak trolleys and save all of us any potential grief.
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