Far north-east coast trial run provides some important lessons
Policemans Point, with Eddystone Lighthouse in the distance.
Northern side of Eddystone Point, with Stumpys Bay around the distant corner.On the morning of November 14 Chris meet up with three other paddlers – who would accompany him for the first few hours of his paddle – at the picturesque seaside village of Binalong Bay, on a perfect paddling day – the sun shining and almost no wind. It was to be the start of just over 100kms of paddling, spread over the following 30 hours or so.
The wind was to play a fairly significant factor in the trip, which consisted of around 13 hours of actual paddling time. While the photos you see above suggest that the weather was great for the trip, alas that was not to be so. Around midday on Saturday a southerly wind began to blow, the wind was accompanied by menacing clouds and by 1:00 pm, what had began as a paddle into a very gentle head wind had turned into a surfing session on a very choppy 1.5 - 2 metre following sea, with very cool 25-30 km/hr winds, wiping up the surface into a mass of white-caps. These conditions continued until final landfall at Stumpys Bay was made at around 5:15 pm.
Waking to an overcast morning and a wind that while it had dropped in speed, was still blowing in from the south east, pretty well the direction the days paddling would be heading. The trip up had been a bit rushed, which had meant that Chris's plan to carefully simulate the planned paddle / rest schedule had not been adhered to all that well.
So it was that he set of with an eye on the time and a determination to stick to a system of 1/2 hourly breaks (during which a goodly amount of fluid and some energy rich food was to be consumed), this proved to be an excellent test of the system that will in theory provide the team with the hydration and energy needed to keep going for the whole 26 days of the 'real thing'. On completing the second day, which had consisted of multiple at sea rests and three land based "bum breaks", Chris was surprisingly fresh and apart from some wind-burn, felt great.
