The last Coorong Beach day! Everyday the surf got lower, and actually, this morning there was not much big surf at all any more. It was still a wide line of breakers, but they were tiny this morning, and temporary on a lull it was even showing up almost a smooth surface.

The forecast said the swell was going down day by day as well, being under 1,5 m now, and two days ago it was only 2 m. The wind was the same like the last days, low in the morning, stronger headwinds the afternoon. I got going again in first light at 5 am Good to be an early morning person. And thank goodness I was such a lucky girl with that dreaded section of long, unprotected beach! Not any sheltered spot to land on, and the weather was good to me. I didn’t want to think about how it might look in 4 m swell or such…

I was aiming to cut across Lacepede Bay on the shortest path towards Cape Jaffa, leaving The Granites and Kingston about 15 km abeam. Greg took a sidestep on driving to the Granites, and told me they are actually about relatively small boulders of maybe maximum 5 m, but they are the only rocks on that wide, long beach. Nothing really too exciting for me to miss out.

I was paddling again on a compass bearing without compass, and had to use my GPS for keeping the right direction. It is tough not to aim for what you can already see, and to trust the little arrow on the GPS pointing at where you actually like to end up. Cape Jaffa with the small fishing port of Kings Camp showed up that day about 15 km before. I left Kings Camp’s jetty with some moored cray boats to the left, and paddled around the headland on dead calm water towards a hidden camp spot where Greg was waiting with the van.

Coorong done, yahoo!

We decided to drive back to Kingston, and were hoping to dine nicely in the Big Lobster restaurant to celebrate the successful tackling of the Coorong, but unfortunately it was closed. So it had to be fish and chips out of the take away…not to bad as well. The huge 12 m lobster was really an impressive piece of sculpture! I already like the picture in his book of Paul’s support van parking besides it 27 years ago, now we were parked there with our van!

Text message from Freya:

36.56 139.40, Cape Jaffa. 65 km, 5:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Launching was easy through low, but wide surf. Crossed straight over the Bay to Cape Jaffa, where Greg was waiting in the dunes. Landing dead calm. Coorong done!