.Day
118 - 21/9/07
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Goolwa & Out the Murray Mouth
Steve's Report: Today the wind was behind me when I got onto the lake at Point Sturt. The wind was around 12 knots which was a lot less than yesterday and it was from behind. Yee ha. With such a long fetch the waves are a lot faster. In the rivers I paddle faster than the waves but today they rolled underneath. Top speed was 10.4 km/hr and I was nearly always up around 8.7km/hr so I was flying. Actually it was more like flying by the seat of my pants because I was only guessing where to go. In the end I was in exactly the right position after some educated guesses.
Amanda rang when I was near the mouth and I had a bit of a teary moment but then the mouth beconned and adrenalin kicked in.
The surf had been roaring and that was some concern because there were no discrete waves crashing so I knew there was a reasonable surf a few kilometres before I got there.
Anyway, all gear checked, film crew filming and it was off over the bar. I thought I did pretty well really. I had spent a while working out a path so headed right for 500m and then cut back left for 100m and then hit the gas pedal and straight to sea. There were some close calls, some bashing through white water and then I thought with a bit of luck I was through.
The crew did too. They stopped filming and then headed off. That's when I saw a big bugger about 200m out. Luckily it broke about 100m in front of me. The white water was about 4ft high and I thought if there was only one that I could crash through. No such luck! The wave drove me backwards 200m, broke the rudder off and then allowed me to slide over the back. Maybe a reasonable bloke would have called it quits but I was still upright even though I wasn't in the channel where I wanted. Anyway I gave it another shot and got out another 100m before things turned nasty. So, there I was in the cold water, paddle lead rope broken, and kayak back in about 100m from me.
No worries, I thought and set off for the kayak. Got to it too. Turned it over, started to hop in and then bugger! Got tipped out, kayak went 200m away and out of site. Bloody big swim I thought. I think this is when the crew figured out things were amiss. After about 10 minutes I had given up all hope of getting the kayak from the water. I had decided to get to the beach and then look for it. My hat, sun screen water bottle etc were all over the ocean but I wanted my hat so found it. Then, lo and behold there was the kayak about 30m to my left. I swam over, climbed in and paddled onto the beach. I managed to keep my hat, the radios were tied on, and although the EPIRB cord was tangled around everything I had not set it off.
Man, I was cold. Kareen got some warm clothes on me (including John's shirts) and we went back into Goolwa where Randal welded the rudder for nothing. More about him, his business, the water police etc next instalment. I need a big feed and a sleep, having had enough excitement for one day.
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