The original plan had been to head to Big Woody but the forecast was not changing. A 15 - 20Kn SE was predicted to move in on Saturday afternoon so we started to head south on Friday in order to be off the water before the wind ratcheted up the anti.
Mark was tuned into Channel 28 on the VHF. Skippers were reporting whales a plenty off Awinya and that they were sticky and friendly. Seemed a bit odd as we hadn't seen any tail slapping,
certainly no breeches which had been conspicuous by their absence this time around. About 5Km out a yellow whale watching boat had not moved. The reports continued to be favourable so we decided to put up the sails and head out.
Despite being laden the SE made 8Kph comfortable, yet it seemed to take an age to reach the whale watching catamaran "Spirit".
For a long time we were not sure if there were any whales there at all. As we got closer we could make out three whales best described as smooching around the boat. There were no breeches, no tail slaps and no spy hops. It was quite lumpy and these whales could best be described as disinteresting from our point of view. We decided to turn tail and continue south with what remaining
incoming tide we had. Problem was that the 15Kn SE was not letting up and we were laden. Stable but heavy. At least grinding into lumpy conditions is more interesting. Problem was that as the incoming tide slowed up, so did we.
Down to a sluggish 4Kph, the more of a grind it became the more urgent my call of nature was getting. This was quite uncomfortable as it was at least
2hours before any chance of relief. There is nothing quite like nature to power a paddle for shore and make a beach seem so distant. Having gritted our way directly into the unrelenting SE we had a reprieve of the remainder of the leg. You can sail a SE along Fraser so long as it is strong enough, just be on the alert for bullets. Neither Mark nor Chris needed to dip a paddle as we scooted along and into the mouth of Coongul Creek.
The area south of Coongul Creek has been subject to significant erosion. Large trees felled in front of fairly steep sand banks the banks made access for kayaks difficult. We went south and found a place amongst the casuarinas which was marked with a
green bottle on a stick as the place for our last campsite. Tent pegs, some level areas and a track into dense vegetation suggested people had been here before. Mark and I went for a walk along the beach as Chris had a snooze in his hammock. The rain
drop patterns on the main vehicular track from the barge landing
point suggested this track hadn't been driven on for several days
while the high tide access road was covered in conifer needles and branches - clearly unused for sometime. The bus park had small trees growing in the middle of it.
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