Sunrise is a small slice of joy that happens every day. Free for everyone to enjoy, no screen, no money, no special accoutrements required, just roll out of bed and enjoy a few minutes of uninterrupted wonder before the routine part of the day begins. Glorious.
Perhaps, even better when you finally crack over the 60 kilometre in a day mark, and start to feel that this big kayak trip ahead is something you can actually do.
Apart from a particularly nasty blue bottle sting, the day unfolded extremely well. The calmest sea conditions we have had in many weeks with only normal rebound and clapotis. No wind to speak of until we were about 10 kilometres into the return journey, and then, a delightful tailwind.
The only mark on the whole trip was when a blue bottle wrapped itself around my hand almost 20 kilometres from the end. I could not get the damn thing off, the tentacles were so sticky, and, I managed to wrap some of them around my mouth – don’t ask me how – before Doug came over and picked the last remnants off.
I’ve had blue bottle stings before but this one was particularly nasty and painful. Luckily, I had my sail up as it was hard to paddle very well with my hand burning and throbbing. Hours later, the ache had spread up to my shoulder. Turns out, the thing to do for blue bottle stings is soak the affected part in as hot a water as you can tolerate. When I finally did this about eight hours after the sting, I did get relief, and drugged up I went to bed at 7.00 pm and slept like someone who had paddled 60 kilometres and been stung by a nasty sea creature.
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