Today we were the early group, not quite the 3am Ted is so keen on, but at least an hour before the calendar getaway time. We also changed the route to make the most of the steady SE which was forecast to weaken in the afternoon.
Heading off from Cabbage Tree Point it was straight into into a 10Kn gym workout down the channel on a falling tide. A large National Parks Sign on Kangaroo Island beckoned us over. At 5Km into the paddle we found a clearing where you could happily set up tent on a Friday night. Sure there were a few friendlies around and it would be a place for tropical strength DEET, but it would be a handy start to a weekend away.
Even though it was pretty much right on a 0.8m low, there was enough water to skirt around Green Bank past the fishing huts to play dodgem with the big boys. Fortunately we had a number of sandbanks in our favour which gave cover from the chop and restricted their game plan. A leisurely morning tea was shared on the bank in dappled shade overlooking some befallen casuarinas. Then it was onto capture some wind to inspect the lagoon that was filling at the Pin. Lined by hopeful fishermen, the entrance to
and the main body of the lagoon were surprisingly deep only an hour into the flooding tide. Securing the boats to a corkscrew dog anchor in the sand we headed across to take a look at the
entrance to the Pin. It was blowing such that there was spin drift off the small breakers, the chop was grabbing at the mangrove banks at the entrance to Duck Creek, even the pelican had given up on his fishermen and decided to bunker down on the
sand. The area was appealing, and on the right (and incoming) tide there could be places to ride some small waves.
Punching back into the wind we hugged the shoreline weaving amongst boats and a matching number of rods. The size of the fish on the end of the line appeared to have no relation to the size of the boat, but the numbers were steadily increasing in favour
of the boats. One chap leapt off the front of his plunging into thigh deep water then waded ashore to throw the anchor. On turning around something obviously twigged, he grabbed at his
pocket, muttered something not too happy and pulled out his mobile. Mmm, even a splash resistant phone would had difficulty coping with that effort. We chose to have an early lunch at the northern end of The Bedroom as stopping places were about to become scare. Couldn't say that about the SE as it continued to play into the sails. We made good time to Jacobs Well seeing some small sharks along the way. Amongst the mangrove channel to Cabbage Tree the boat traffic thinned out, probably in part
relating to a 6Kn speed restriction for all boats over 8m around Jacobs Well. The wind thinned out too. Only for the last 200m were we hurled to shore by the wind on its way towards Rocky Point. The SE hadn't read the forecast.
The 1.5W UHF radios transmitted clearly. The signal was not wind
affected, something which impressed us, as the 0.5W model under those conditions would have had some signal loss. As for changing times and routes, that decision was made on the fly on Saturday evening after checking the forecast. Don't know about you, but Breakfast at Tipplers with a 0800 launch seemed optimistic - was it too optimistic for anyone else ?
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