Pimped Up Rudder

Find that your stern lifts and you broach when paddling in steeper seas?  This rudder might be the answer.  It is a tandem rudder which apart from having more aesthetic appeal than its smaller cousin, gives you more control when conditions get interesting.

We did a down wind run in 20 knots for 30 kms in Moreton Bay.  This is a shallow bottom bay so your wave period is short and the waves are steep.  The few times I broached in the breaking swell was due to the setup of the rudder - there are a few settings for spring tension to keep the rudder in position and I hadn't wound it up sufficiently so the rudder was not fully down when I was on a run (not to mention smacking into a few jelly fish which caused the rudder to lift).

We spent the first hour and half of the 3 hour paddle, running across the front of the wind and swell, before turning for a direct line down to our destination.  The conditions were a little scary in places with the swell pushing up onto some shallow banks and breaking into deeper water.  I hit 27 km/hr surfing into the shipping channel and there wasn't a lot of control happening!  Once we were across the shipping channel the size of the swell dropped off for our run into Manly harbour.

A salt water injection

The past two weeks have proved to be a little difficult to find my way free to get in some paddling, but I escaped for a few hours on Sunday afternoon to surf some wind waves in Moreton Bay.  It had the main ingredients of salt + water so it was all good!

I am starting to kick around some ideas for a bigger paddle in 2015 and have commenced some preliminary research for three to four weeks away island hopping through Queensland waters.  No firm plans as yet but the two main options are exploring the northern end of the Capricornia Cays or heading north and paddling the islands that dot the Queensland Coast from Townsville to Mission Beach, which will include Hinchinbrook Island.

In 2010 I paddled out to the bottom end of the Great Barrier reef from Fraser Island and island hopped my way up through the southern end of the Capricornia Cays.  It was an amazing experience paddling up to 100 kms off the coast in pristine waters and large seas, including the 96 km open sea paddle to Lady Elliot Island.  I'd be keen to repeat this experience, with the only caveat that these are very exposed waters and getting weather bound on these remote coral cays is almost guaranteed.  If it wasn't for needing fresh water it doesn't sound all that bad really!

Paddling up the islands dotting the Queensland Coast would be a little more protected from large swell coming from NZ as we would be paddling inside the Great Barrier Reef.  The only problem here is Crocodiles and some very nasty marine stingers, neither of which would be good to be in the water with.

In the mean time I will be working on my photography skills and there may be a few more land based shots than usual, as one of the reasons for this blog was for somewhere to catalog some of the images I capture along the way.

Its not all about the kayak

For me kayaking is a medium that allows me to explore the natural world in way that I become immersed in nature. Each trip I plan has more island time than kayaking time - a chance to explore, discover and capture images of this amazing planet we live on.

One of the critical bits of kit I take with me is my camera collection which to date has consisted of two under water cameras and one point and shoot land-based camera.  The underwater cameras allow images and video to be shot of the journey on the water, as well as underwater as a lot of my trips are out to islands and coral atolls around the Great Barrier Reef.  I generally have more underwater footage than above water footage when I return from these types of trips!

My family have just added to my camera collection and have supplied me with a new DSLR camera for capturing land-based images.  Now I am going to need to find some more space to put another 1 and a bit kilograms of camera gear!

I've spent the past couple of weeks fast tracking my knowledge and experimenting with the new camera in a range of different lighting and environments - Google has been my friend!

All roads lead to Noosa

Noosa is one of my favourite paddling destinations, just an hour and half drive from BrisVegas. I have surfed here since the 70's and can understand why people travel from all over the world to visit.

Today we had an outgoing tide and some messy swell coming in from the North which meant wind and swell against tide on the Noosa Bar, a constantly changing shallow bar which has swell pushing out of deeper water breaking heavily onto the outside banks before pushing into the river mouth - 200 meter rides with the right conditions.

The plan was to spend the morning surfing at various destinations from the Noosa Bar, around to Alexandria Bay on the eastern side of the headland and back through the three bays; Granite, Tea-Tree and National before surfing the bar again if we had any energy left.

The Noosa river offers a number of good places to launch from that are close to the bar - here we are taking off from a canal off Weyba Creek.

Graham joined us for a surf at the Noosa Bar, but the conditions weren't surf ski friendly today.  For the start of a spring long weekend in Queensland and the end of the school holidays we had very little company on the water.

There was more swell running than expected and the outgoing tide had the waves standing up - my kayak bow is in there somewhere!  We experienced some lumpy water today with a lot of rebound off the cliffs around the Noosa National Park headland.  There was some bigger swell running around the headland so running the gauntlet in Hells Gates was off the agenda, but Granite Bay was picking up some of the swell so we had some fun runs back into the more protected bays as we made our way back down to Noosa.  The following is some kayak cam of the surfing around Noosa.

Up the coast for a quick surf

I had to sneak an early paddle in on Saturday this weekend due to a list of jobs at home that has started to seriously affect my lifestyle!  An early start and an hour or so later I had the kayak in the water at Mooloolaba with a plan to do a short paddle around Point Cartwright to find some surf along the open beach at Kawana.

There wasn't a lot of wind around so we had glassy conditions on the water and fat meter of swell running on the open beach.  The waves were dumping onto the shore break, but were forming enough on the outside bank to pick up and surf through to shallow water.

We only ended up with about 15 kms paddled after returning to Mooloolaba to practice some rolling and balancing (well attempting to balance).  The lazy surf must have been enough to prepare me for some serious gardening (and not of the rock variety!)

I finished the garden off on Sunday so it is all planted out.  On to the next thing on the list - retaining walls that need replacing...:-(

Some video footage shot around Point Cartwright.

Salt Water Injection

I've just come off the back of a busy week finalising a tender response, getting two large scale software development projects ready for implementation and basically staring at the walls of my cubicle going slowly insane.  The murky waters of the bay weren't going to cut it this weekend.  I needed an injection of deep blue water that only ocean kayaking can give you.

With perfect conditions predicted, we took off from Mooloolaba to paddle out to Mudjimba (Old Woman) Island which is a 20 km round trip if you stop off for a surf along the way. 

We took off at the top of the tide to head out to the island with a plan to do some rock gardening and surf into a rock lagoon which is sheltered behind a rocky outcrop on the north-western corner of the island.  If you can make it in behind the rock wall then you have access to the island.

The island is surrounded by a rock reef which is one of the best reef breaks on the East Coast when the swell starts to wrap around the island.  The swell that was running today was missing the island and building onto the coast which gave us a somewhat easy access into the rock lagoon.

The Shearwaters (Mutton birds) have been in residence, clearing out their nests ready for their nesting season.  You can only walk around the rocky edge of the island as the middle of the island is a mine field of Shearwater nests.  After visiting the island residence, we did a walking circumnavigation before jumping in our boats and heading off for a surf on some north shore beach breaks.

We had a great surf on the way back with some very nice peaky waves forming on the outgoing tide.  I had a first today as I slotted my sea kayak through a barrel that was forming, prepared my high brace for a thrashing, but somehow came out the other side of the barrel onto a clean wall - should of towed my surfboard along!

Thanks to Gaza and Jonathan for keeping me company - we were like stoked grommets by the time we headed in for lunch!

Where did the wind go?

A bloody headwind slog today with the promise of a downwind paddle for the trip back that failed to deliver.

Winding the clock back to last Saturday, I stood on a razor clam when walking the kayak over a shallow weed bank.  These clams are well named and I ended up with a deep gash across the ball of my foot.  A doctor visit, some antibiotics and a taped foot saw me out of action for a week - for those who know me you should take pity on the people who have to put up with me when I am house-bound...

So I may have been a little stir crazy so didn't mind a slog into a 10 knot headwind for 17 kms with the promise of a 10 knot tailwind for the trip back.  It wasn't until I jumped in the boat and found I couldn't use any leg drive with my injured foot that a headwind slog started to look a lot more daunting.

Anyway, propped up on some caffeine and a mix of other sports additives I slowly made my way across to Mud Island where we found a shallow rock inlet which had a sand bottom surrounded by coral banks. There was a high sand bank in shade of some trees that we made our way towards before being monstered by a few thousand midges.  We beat a hasty retreat to the coral bank where we setup for morning tea in the sun, but with a lovely breeze blowing on our backs.

You can see the wind on the water in these photos - it was a 10 knot easterly which would have been a perfect tailwind back to the Yundah Street boat ramp.  We shortened our break so we could catch the wind.  The tide was on the way in and it has risen sufficiently so that we could paddle out over the coral bank which was now covered by a foot or so of water.

The wind was pushing our boats around as we got ready to depart, gusting in every now and then and filling our sails. 

So with this promise of a fun paddle/sail home we took off...and then the wind dropped away.  Our sails hung limp and dejected.  Jono took the direct line back whereas I went wide hoping to pick more wind and swell up.  We met back together near the airport on the other side of the shipping channel to have a depressing discussion on the lack of either wind or swell for the next 8 km slog back to our put in point.

Still, it was better than being house bound for another day!

34 kms.