Short and long kayaks surf session

Here is the video related to last post:

Thanks Mark for letting me use the footage.

First try

During the weekend I had my first opportunity to surf a short boat. Not a great day for surfing as the waves were short and dumped quickly after forming but I had fun.

Punching out through the dumping waves.

It was during a weekend aimed at developing the skills of the trip leaders within the club. There was going to be a session of surfing and one of the instructors suggested to bring short boats for the occasion.

The mob gathers out of the break zone

I have no short boat but some of the guys who brought one didn't want to use it and I jumped at the opportunity to borrow the one that Dave brought. Most of the other leaders in the water were with their sea kayaks doing exercises on landing and traversing the soup.

 

Punching the waves.

Playing the soup.

If you put a brave face the waves are nicer.

However being in the short boat I just wanted to ride the waves. It was not a proper surf boat, more like a white water kayak. However at a bit short of 3 meters long it is a lot more manoeuvrable than my 5.3 sea kayak. It also has a flatter hull that makes it easier to carve on the face of the waves.

 

I was in the water taking the waves for around 1 hour and at the end of that I was starting to get the feeling for this type of kayak. Definitely I need to do this again.

Mark stayed on the beach and was filming and photographing the session. Thanks Mark for letting me use his fantastic images.

I was with a GoPro attached to my helmet but soon after it touched the water it fogged up and no good images came out of the memory card.

RIP my old friend the camera

Last entry didn't have images from that day. Apparently my head is stronger (with the helmet) and better sealed than my camera. A few weeks ago it died, my camera not my head nor the helmet, while being trashed against the sand and rocks in a surf session. One moment it was working and the next, after a couple of rolls where I ate some sand, it wasn't. Later I discovered water inside the lens and sand in the battery compartment. I sent it to Nikon and I was told a new one is being sent on the mail.
Here is what I could recover from that memory card.

What an afternoon

Yesterday I came back from paddling with a nice feeling. Not that feeling nice is uncommon after a paddle but yesterday was special for the low expectations I had at the beginning of it.

I had a good long paddle on Saturday and I only had a couple of hours to be in the water yesterday, so long was not in the plans. Being a holiday I knew the surfers would be all around the beaches so surfing my long boat was also out. The swell was between 1 and 2 meters and being alone didn't encourage to go among the rocks.

I put in and started to paddle out from the beach. The swell was not big nor powerful so I went to some rock formations to practice a bit of timing surfing over them. It was a good warm up but I wanted more!!!

I paddled around the small head to see how the rock garden on the other side was. It was out of the question. Big rollers were washing the rocks and the gaps were not visible :-(

I kept paddling along the long beach, trying to find a spot with few surfers. The holiday and the warm water lured them all out and everywhere with decent breaks was overcrowded. I kept going.

I spotted a solo SUP trying to surf around a sand bank. I joined him for a little while until we discovered the few and very spaced sets of bigger waves. Those waves dumped on the sand bar and the one I took dragged me broaching, after a couple of rolls, all the way in. At the end it threw me on the beach when the last bit of force dumped on dry sand. I launched again and kept going.

While paddling I saw two big fish, approx. 1 meter long it seemed to me, swimming past me. I had never seen before from my kayak so big fish swimming by.

After rounding another headland I was at the beginning of a 2 km long beach. I thought 'I must find some spot for me here'. It was also around 4.30pm and the surfers were starting to go away. Soon I found a deep sand bar way out of the beach. It was perfect. No surfers, some 50 meters wide with the bigger sets spilling in the centre and pockets moving to both sides. It was fantastic! As the swell rolled straight onto the sand bar, the waves stood to what I estimate 2 or 3 meters faces. I was riding them probably 1 meter ahead of the white and my bow was not hitting the bottom of the wave. They got very steep, and of course, the faces didn't last long and broke. However I had 2 means of escape: the one I used more often was paddling faster, some 45 degrees of the wave direction, in that way I went out of the sand bar just as water exploded. The other, plan B, was used when I didn't manage enough speed to escape to the side. It was to brace and let the white water carry me some 50 meters until it reformed in a deeper 'pool' of the sandy floor before continuing on to the beach.

While riding those waves I saw a big shade floating nearby. It didn't appear to be moving and I approached slowly with the hope it was a turtle. I didn't want to startle it. I took my time and when I finally got close enough to see clearly I discovered it was a huge plastic barrel. It had been drifting around long enough to have grown a little colony of barnacles. I tried to push it to the beach but got interrupted by a wave, when I rolled up my 'turtle' had 'swam away', I didn't see it again. At least in other areas I recovered 2 fishing buoys, 2 plastic bags, a piece of foam and many pieces of plastic wrappers.

Plan B, the unexpected brace and wait, was used twice only. The second time, when the soap released me I discovered my spare paddle bag, which is carried on my back deck, was loose from one end. I though it dangerous to keep surfing with that loose end. It could hit me in the back or I could lose the spare paddle completely if the other anchor point failed.

It was about 5.30 already, I had been surfing for 1 hour and the sun was setting down on the land. I started to cover the 4 km to my car. I was feeling good and did the distance in an almost sprint. Almost 30 minutes later, with tongue hanging out, I was in front of the rocks I had played at the start. With the tide a bit lower the gaps to go over were more exposed but I was in tune with the swell of the day already. That over the rocks followed by a ride of a wave to the beach was the perfect end for a fantastic afternoon.

Just for the record I don't think it's a good idea!

'Just for the record I don't think it's a good idea!' those were Matt's comments before I got more personal with the coast.

We spent 2 nights in an island. The second day we managed to do a circumnavigation of it. The coast is so rocky and full of features that I couldn't resist playing close range.

I think the video (and Matt's comments in it) says it all

Storm, foam and murky waters

Summer is over. It is not just the calendar showing the 3rd month of the year but the weather too. Specially during the last few week ends. Weekdays were mostly good and weekend were definitely not good. Lots of trips cancelled due to bad weather. I tried to go out anyway but some days it was a bit rough to venture out by myself but really good if I could gather 1 or 2 more to keep an eye on each other.

Last friday the buoy readings (a buoy that measures the swell some 10km from the coast of Sydney) at the time were of median swell of 4-5 meters and tops of above 10! The forecast for saturday was with strong winds and high swell. I sent the call out to see who wanted to go for paddle. However everyone had either the kids or the work or something else. I think they were just afraid of the big waves :-) Anyway, my wife was also afraid of the waves and asked me to stay home. Good excuse, right?

Sunday again a rough day but nothing could keep me inside. I went to Palm Beach thinking "if it is too rough I can launch from the bay side which is only 500 meters away and stay paddling in the protected waters." When I parked on the ocean side there were signs of 'beach closed' and not even the surfers were doing their stuff. Is that a bad sign?

I changed into the 'rubber' uniform and dragged the kayak to the shore. There I had the first surprise of the afternoon. The beach was mostly white. Covering a good portion of the sand was a thick layer of foam.

Evaluating the conditions

Of course beyond that was what looked as angry sea. I though maximum that can happen is coming back swimming, right? So in I went.
The first line of breakers were some distance away but the white water kept rolling with strength and when hit me the water bottle was taken from my deck. I usually put it inside to go through the breaking zone but I had forgotten. I quickly fished it out and opened a bit of spay skirt to throw it inside. That was the moment the next wave decided to launch its attack. It put my kayak on the side and pulled the spray deck out of the rim. The synchronized attack of the waves went on relentlessly and right after I realized my skirt had come completely off a bit bigger roll of white water engulfed me and filled the kayak with water and me with foam. I made a strategic retreat to regroup on the sand.

End of first round. I retreated with a kayak full of water and foam.

After removing the disguise of broken washing machine and empting the kayak I prepared to start my counter attack. The strategy: frontal charge, but without water bottle on deck.

The combat was ferocious with great display of strength and tenacity from both sides. I managed to advance a few meters to be dragged back a portion of that, another bit forward and another bit of forced retreat. A ball of foam was blown to my face, my enemy was playing tricky now. I managed to clean it with my hand just in time to see a breaky washing me completely and send me back again.
It took me while. In the end I made it out of the surf zone, although the waves kept breaking out there. My spray skirt had imploded and during the heat of the battle I had not realized. My kayak was half full of water. Luckily my electric pump was still working. After emptying the boat I paddled a few kilometers against the wind.
I didn't want to paddle too far from the coast but I couldn't stay too close. With so many storms lately, many sand banks had formed just out of the beach and suddenly big waves were breaking like surf where they shouldn't be. Also the water was not the normal grey color the ocean has when it is stormy. It was murky, brown like a river, even a few hundred meters away from the beach.

The waves were big, producing very large explosions of water

The forecast didn't mention anything about thunderstorms but after my experience last December I didn't want to take any chances and when I saw a few darker than the rest clouds I came back.

While approaching the landing I was thinking "I am going to be trashed, I just hope I don't get hurt." Well, I didn't get hurt and neither was trashed. I managed it pretty nicely coming in the lips of a wave and stopping before it broke. Then I got lucky and a lull allowed me to paddle all the way in until I landed.

An interesting afternoon with lots of foam and river color like water on the ocean.

The water cannon

Some time last year we visited the 'Dragon's Den'. I don't know if that is the real name but that was what we called it since. We didn't get to see the dragon but we heard it loud and clear. After that we never got to paddle to that point again, at least when I was present.
Last week that changed. With a relative benign sea state and a large group we managed to reach the point again. 'Would the dragon be inside?', 'What will be his mood today?' I was confident that with the NE swell the dragon would be happy and playfull.
Apparently the dragon is not such, it is a metamorphic entity that during this last visit mutated to the form of a water cannon. Still it was in a good mood and played with us a lot.

Rob bracing the rebound.

A few meters rised the courtain of water, who is behind?

Proud of Sydney, Mardi Gras city. Lots of rainbows that afternoon

Wade ready for the next rebound

Blown for 30 km

I was going to help Rae with a club paddle. The club has some regulations and you can't organise a trip if the wind forecasted is above a threshold. That limit made us suspend the club trip. However it didn't stop us from doing a good paddle out of the club organisation. We decided to do a car shuffle with a paddle down wind and down swell of 30km. We told Matt what we were going to do and he jumped on board.
Sydney is split in 2 parts, north and south by Sydney Harbour. Also to the south there is a first limit to the urban expansion at Botany Bay. That stretch from the Bay to the Harbour is what we paddled.
I used to paddle that area a lot until I moved to the very north of Sydney but I had never paddled the whole coast in one go. Both launching and landing points were in protected waters, however well before being in the ocean we started to feel the force of the swell and the white cups hitting from the side. A small thin shower was added to the mix producing a very annoying sensation when it hit the face being blown by the wind.

Someone told you can't see the wind, but I can in this image!

Later the rain stopped and some sun light was filtered through the clouds producing a nice effect on the confused surface.

Matt floating on the conditions.

After a little while we turned and we started "flying" to our destination. Big swells, smaller seas and the wind in the back helped us along.

Rae Rides

Watch out Matt!!

The week before we had a big storm in all the east coast of our big island Australia. It produced floods in the north over 1000 km from Sydney. It also created traffic problem in the city. Apart from making some big conditions on the sea it also produced some confusion with birds. We saw more than the usual number, including an Albatross who flew between Rae and me with its legs still in the water.

A lot of birds, more than usual

Rae and the big swell modelling for the camera

After a bit over 3 hours of being carried by wind and swell we got to the harbour. After entering it, what usually is calm and pretty protected, was not. The harbour was funnelling the little west in the wind and causing a lot of little wind waves. I could not let the chance pass and went playing close to shore for a bit.

Recipe: take a wave, compress it under the rocks and then let the pressure out.

Neil, Rae's partner, picked us up from the harbour and drove us and the three kayaks back to the starting point to pick our cars. Thank you Neil!!! Before starting we told him we would be back at 1 pm. This was the best estimate for an ETA I have seen. At 1 o'clock Rae was resting her bow on the sand of the landing beach.
A really nice paddle. Enjoy the video.

PS: Rob, you missed a good one!! :-)

The Red Submarine

Miserable weather today gray, cold (for a summer day) and raining. No paddling. Hopefully tomorrow.

With off water time, my kid playing with his friends and my wife preparing her friends baby shower I decided to compile another short video from last week. Sorry about the fogged images.

I went surfing with my kayak. Not excellent waves but it was fun anyway. I have been practising some pirouettes on my sea kayak and I managed to do an endo (put the kayak perpendicular to the water surface while on the face of the wave and complete the 180 by falling with he tail pointing to the beach).

About to plunge head first back into the water

Later a wave decided to take revenge and when it broke on top of my head my skirt imploded. When the white water receded I was paddling a red submarine.

Red submarine

Rock gardens and surf

 

I finally managed to get to paddle with the guys from the 'south'. Not that far south really but enough to have to plan it in advance to catch up for a paddle. They are the 'wild' guys, the only paddlers I know in person leaveing within reach that enjoy surfing the beach with the sea kayaks and like to get close to rocks.

Some surf at the beach

Going through some passages

We met last weekend to play around. They were the locals and I the visitor. They showed me a beach to surf, some rock gardens, a couple of narrow passages, some cave/canyon formation, another beach to surf and back to the river entrance and the cars to exchange vids and photos from the memory cards. Thank Josh for the GoPro view, Joel for the stills and Wade for posing for the camera :-)

View from inside the cave

View from ouside the cave



View from the side of the cave

We started from Minamurra boat ramp. Although we didn't get even 5km away from the launching point we finished paddling a bit over 15km. Going out and back in a surf beach several times adds distance in the end. The highlight for me were the rock gardens. In my area we have lots of cliffs but all the rocks at the bottom are too close to the walls and directly exposed the ocean swell. The coast down there is more rugged. When the swell comes from one direction you can play around this corner, when it comes from the other side you can hide behind that bend. There were also many rocky formations with deep water and a few meteres from the walls behind. Ideal to play with. In one of those passages I thought I would get stuck on top of the rocks. However the kayak sliped down on the wet stones.

Almost stuck

Paddling out after slipping down from on top of the rock on the right

 A very nice play day that I look forward to repeat...

Sea kayak surfing and some nice looking extras

Back in December, before I went on holidays, I went paddle surfing with Mark an afternoon. Not even 40 km south from where we were trying to catch some waves, a group of paddling friends were struggling with winds of 25 knots and confused seas. In our location we had no wind, the waves were small and we were pressed to find a good spot to play with the them.
We settled on a sand bar near the beach were the waves had a bit of action. Half way through the play session I landed to take some shots of Mark surfing his kayak from the beach. During that brief period the best waves of the afternoon went by. At least I had landed near a group a young ladies enjoying the sun as they came to this world. I swear I landed there by chance!!! ;-)
Anyway, I managed to get the following video... NO!!! No naked bodies just us enjoying the surf.

Paddling in the storm

Christmas Eve... well the afternoon of that eve could have been my last... actually, any moment could be my last but that belongs to another topic and I better live it to philosophers. While paddling  trying to reach the shore, within the storm with gusts of over 30 knots, in my head resonated Stuart’s words “The weather will be your undoing.”, and it almost was... at least the wind was on my back and the joy of riding the steep and big wind waves helped me forget the other peril I was facing...

I was on holidays with family and friends in an area I didn’t know very well. The day before I had paddled against the strong wind for a couple of hours to be back where I started in a fourth of that time. It was an exhilarating ride back with the wind hitting my back and fresh wind waves taking me home, but it finished too soon!!! The forecast was similar the next day, Christmas Eve’s day, strong winds from the NE after midday and chances of thunder storms during the evening, although the last part didn’t stay in my head beause I was planning to be back well before evening.
I wanted to launch from the north of the bay and ride wind and waves all the way south. However to reach a point 10 km in straigth line over the bay you need to drive like 40 km on land. Instead, my wife would drop me as far north as she could without the extra detour, I would paddle against the ‘not so strong yet’ wind for 1 or 2 hours and come back. Around 3 hours in total. However, as is usually the case with me I didn't stick to the plan and improvised along the way. It is all about the journey and not the destination, right?

Around 11 AM I was paddling and probably 40 minutes into the paddle the wind started to pick up. After another hour of battling it I decided to land to eat something (point B) before starting to come back. I called my wife to let her know where I was and she told me that some of our friends were close from where I had landed (point C). I jumped into my kayak and paddled the distance against the wind to meet them... However when I got there the beach was deserted. After talking with them on the phone I discovered they were close to my previous landing point but in the opposite direction I had paddled to meet them!!! That was the first change of plans...

From the empty beach a very nice view

From where I was the coast would shelter me from the worst of the NE wind so I decided to change again my original plan explore the north of the bay instead of heading straight back to my landing point (point X). I knew it would add several km to my paddle but I really wanted to explore that area.

While passing by a rocky beach I spotted a big sign and l landed there (point D). The sign read “Beecroft weapons range open for public access”. The area belongs to the navy and they use it for military practice. Some areas are closed to the public with signs of live amunition. 

Nobody shooting

Besides the big sign was a smaller one of a fox eating a lamb. It is a warning that fox bait has been laid in the area to control fox population. The funny thing is that both fox and lamb were introduced by European settlers but one is considered plague and the other an asset :-)

Bon appetite

I went for a small walk inland and I felt transported. Bright green bushes, sun shining through tree leafs and a nice breeze to cool you down. I wanted to stay there for a while but if I did, it would be too late to explore the rest of the bay. I went back to my boat and kept going. I wanted to see Pt Perpendicular, the high cliffs in the peninsula, where I would be rock climbing a few days later.

Transported to paradise

I had been out for 4 hours already and the water I had didn't last me. I stopped at a camp site to beg for some water to drink (point E). Another idyllic place that called me to stay there contemplating the scenery...

Another bay inviting to stay

Same beach where I got water, taken a few days later while climbing and camping 

It took me a while to turn the corner and be able to see the light house on top of the cliffs. That extra time and distance was another mistake. In my head the corner was still well north from where I wanted to land and the paddle back would be with a strong tail wind. However when I checked the GPS to head back home I realised that my course back would put me in a direction receiving the already strong wind from the side. As I paddled and I got away from the coast the wind waves started to hit my boat as well, a few already breaking with white tops that went over the boat to find its way into my ears and mouth.

On the left the image in my head, on the right the reality...

The water being blown sideways, behind me some withe cups and Pt Perpendicular

Over my head it was still sunny but in the distance, over the place I needed to land it was raining. It didn’t worry me, the wind came from behind and the clouds were in front, the wind would blow the rain away, right? Wrong!!! The wind up there was coming from the opposite side and bringing the storm closer to the middle of the bay and to me. Soon I could also see the first lighting piercing the sky. I had paddled some 30 minutes with the wind on the side and when I saw the electrical discharge I wanted to be out of the water soon. At this point I had been out for some 5 hours and paddled 25km, a good part against the wind, and was starting to feel the effort. When you are tired you don’t think very well and my first thought was to get back to the coast I had just left. I turned the kayak around to face the wind and after 10 minutes I realised that all I had gained was probably 10 meters... I turned the kayak again and decided that it would be faster to reach the land I paddled with the wind. The distance was a bit longer but it would be a lot faster.

Paddling against this wind, a zero sum equation

That was a wild ride!!! The waves sometimes were over my head and I could feel the difference in the force of the wind hitting my back when I emerged from a trough to the crest. If I looked up I could see the black clouds above me with flashes of light. If I looked forward I could see the bolts of light hitting the ground. Instead I chose to look at the wave just in front of me to keep my timing with the rides and my mind away from the storm. It had started to rain on top of me too, with big fat raindrops that click-click on my helmet. I checked my GPS and it was another 7km until I could reach the safety of the beach. After 45 minutes with an average speed of 11 km/h (my normal paddling speed is 7/8km/h) and peaks of 20km/h I landed at a beach far from where I was supposed to be but glad to be safe back on land protected from the electric storm by the forest. I had to call my wife who came and 'rescued' me and soon was enjoying a nice shower.  A very nice paddle but I would leave Zeus toys out of the equation next time.

Black clouds above, lighting ahead and nice waves to surf

Two days later with a much more quiet forecast, this time I read carefully if there was going to be any chance of thunderstorms, I paddled straight to Pt Perpendicular and played around that marvellous rocky formations. The crossing alone was almost 10km each way so it made a total paddle of over 25km which didn’t really left much time to explore and play in the area, but that is good, it makes a good incentive to go back there.

Some caves in the marvelous rocky coast 

Some rock gardens with the light house on top of Pt Perpendicular

The light house from the kayaker side

As I mentioned before, I went rock climbing for a couple of days before coming back home. It was good but by no means as exciting and frightening as the crossing of the bay under a thunderstorm.

Framing the waves

Coming out

Coiling the rope with Bowen Is in the background

Focusing before the climb or saying farewell?

The little GP

Last summer my kid was 4 years old. I sat him in the front hatch, gave him the spare paddle and we went paddling. After that I started a quest to get him a shorter, lighter paddle, with small blades so the paddling motions would be easier for him. After all he was not supposed to paddle but enjoy the ride. I could not find anything in a reasonable price so I decided to carve a Greenland paddle for him.

My crafting skills are not good but I gave it a go anyway. After a lot of cursing for getting into that kind of ‘enterprise’ I finished a nice mini storm paddle. I had decided that the paddle would be a nice tool to practice Greenland rolls, a half way between a normal paddle and the hands.

The small carved and my normal paddles besides my kid meter

The water has finally reached a temperature that I feel nice so a couple of weeks ago we went with my wife and kid to a nearby beach inside the bay. I took the kayak, the new mini GP (Greenland paddle) and the small PFD for my little one along with all the paraphernalia I normally take for paddling plus all the stuff my wife takes to go to the beach... the car was so packed that it looked we were changing residence!!! Once at the beach I practiced some rolling with the small GP. While resting from rolling my kid and I went for a spin or I hung out with both of them until it was time to do some more practice. I must say that the paddle was a success for my kid who wants to paint it with colors...

Enjoying the new paddle.

All the time using the carved paddle, I started with normal sweep roll specially to practice my offside. Then I did some balance brace, butterfly and forward finishing rolls. The short paddle with very small blades doesn’t give much support and forces you to use proper body movements. Some of the rolls I never fail with my normal paddle I failed miserably with the mini GP.

Nice decoration of the roof

As I didn’t spend more than 15 minutes in a row rolling before resting on the beach, by to the end of the afternoon I didn’t feel tired but my muscles were very relaxed and stretched. At that point I managed to do two things I hadn’t managed before: recover from the balance brace without the help of the paddle and then encouraged by that I tried the hand roll and I did it!!! Not very useful but a nice exercise and good show off J

Below are the videos that I got in order to correct technique, I have edited out all the non rolling parts and added some music to make them a bit less boring. If you watch them ( and don't fall asleep half way J) and feel that you can tell me something to improve my rolling technique please do. I know there are good rollers out there that can contribute with a little piece of advice.

 Standard Rolling: the times I fail it is either because I am not leaning back or I am lifting my body before the kayak.

Sculling Brace and Butterfly roll: the sculling on my left is horrible I can't manage to stay there comfortably but I don't know what I need to improve... Similarly with the butterfly for the same side

Storm and reverse sweep roll: I am not sure about this but I think the problem is that I am not facing "sideways" with my chest.

Chest sculling: Unknown territory for me, but a few days after this I borrowed a full length GP and I had no problem sculling...

Static brace and hand roll: I am happy with what I got and no idea how to improve it.