It is only when we get a couple of kilometres out into the bay that we start to feel the wind. The weather tracking stations are recording NNE winds in the range of 15 to 20 knots, and I have the familiar feeling of being back into training mode. Before we went to South Australia, we spent a lot of time paddling into the wind; which is good mental and physical training.
At North Head, the seas are steep, over a metre high, curling white at the top. We decide to make Richmond Beach our turn around point. Landing is generally easy unless there is a big southeasterly swell, and the beach is less steep than others along the Murramarang Coast.
We paddle in to check Oakey Beach, where the swell almost always dumps onto the beach, and then, with a little shelter from the wind, we continue north to Richmond Beach. I feel strong enough to continue to Durras, or at least further north, but today is the first real day of distance kayak training and I am leery of over-reaching early and ending up with an injury. At almost 60, I no longer believe I am bulletproof.
With the wind behind us, we make fast time back to North Head. There are a couple of small boats out, evidence that the Christmas holiday rush is building up on the south coast. Today is the kind of day when we would normally be alone on the ocean.
The five kilometres back to our home bay is the strangest I have paddled in the dozens and dozens of paddles I have done across the bay. There is clapotis all the way, so that the kayaks begin to surf down a wind wave and then hit a small wall of waves coming in the opposite direction. This is perplexing. The current just does not run that strongly out of the Bay and the Clyde River is long past peak. The current effects may be due to the wind over the land, which is blowing WNW at 15 knots. The result is that we have a bit of a headwind in both directions, doubling the training effect.
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