Wild conditions

It’s been a while since I last posted. I think I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go with this blog – originally I felt like I needed something momentous to talk about (and to try and provide a variety of interesting tales), but now I realise there are little great things that occur each day!

So I’m back.

My focus over the past few months has been on training for the OC1 Nationals, up in Coffs Harbour on Dec 10-11. The long course is a 27km downwind requiring plenty of endurance.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been trying to increase my session length, but have run into a couple of problems. Last week on Thursday morning, we were having a great club session from Kirribilli, surfing (yes sufing!) in the harbour on the wind chop generated by the blustery 15-20kt SE. It was awesome! Lots of little troughs to chase. I had hoped to get in 2hrs before heading into the office.

Unfortunately, after about an hour, my front iaku drifted away from the hull of the canoe! In slow motion, I watched in amazement, then increasing realisation that my canoe was falling apart. Poised, braced with the wind, I gave in and tumbled into the harbour to join my disintegrating canoe bits.

Stretched out like spider clinging to its web in gale force wind, a I scrambled to grab my seat in one hand, the front iaku (with my GPS on it) with my other hand, hooked my leg around the ama and hoped that my legrope on the other leg would keep the canoe in check. Luckily, Stu and Churn were keeping an eye on me, acting like a gutter, helping gather all the debris that had started to float away.

There was no elegance to my method of reassembling the canoe in the water, which always seems so clever on land. But in one piece again, it was back to the shed earlier than anticipated.

Hence, it was with even more determination for a long session that I jumped into the car on Saturday morning, with the intention of a 2.5hr downwind from Mona Vale to Balmoral.

I had doubts about my plan though – as intense rain blasted my windscreen as I went up the driveway. Earlier in the morning I had been speaking with Mandy, and we had checkout the Coastwatch cameras (you can only call a paddling friend at 5am in the morning!) Mona Vale was a mess, Narrabeen was a mess, North Steyne was a mess. It wasn’t looking good! Lots of chop and white water. The BOM radar looked like this:

BOM radar image - 7:12 am, Nov 26 2011

Regardless, we met up with Lydia and Stu in the Balmoral carpark, and the 4 of us huddled amongst the amas and iakus in Mandy’s car. Time for a United Nations Roundtable discussion. Nestled in the warmth of Mandy’s lambskin seat covers, and with the condensation building up on the inside of the windows, we contemplated the madness in going outside (at all, let alone to paddle). Yes it was mad, and yes we would do it – but an abbreviated plan, sticking to the harbour and running between Balmoral and Manly.

Without further hesitation we were kitted out and grinding into the north easterly towards Manly. Grind, grind, grind. Soaked through, rain pelting. Grind, grind, grind. I looked at my GPS. 3.5km/hr. It was going to be a looong morning! 35min later we had completed the ~2km to the yellow pins at Manly. Time to turn and wheeeee…whizz back to Balmoral. This was more like it! A short 10min later we were back at the start. Re-invigorated after the fun of gliding with the wind.

Let’s do it again! And again!

2hrs down. Bam! 13.5km. Not the furthest I’ve done in 2hrs, but a solid session, and awesome to be out there with Mandy, Lydia and Stu. A memorable day. Looking back at the BOM weather stats the winds reached gusts of 30kts (NE). Good work team.

Let’s hope for some “better” conditions this week.