“Coastal canoe Hiking” (Küsten-Kanu-Wandern, greetings to Udo Beier…)

That’s no water in the background, just sand and mud flats…the water was not visible any more. Simply GONE.

As I had bad luck the tide was low in the morning and at night, and high around noon, I either had the option to launch or land at night and paddling two tides like I did that other day, or to launch and land wheeling out to each half tide around high tide in daylight.

As I felt quite a bit daunted about the thought of paddling at night after that heavy shark biting encounter and the other frequent bumps into my kayak, I chickened away from night paddling in this muddy milky water way offshore at low tide and made use of my great working solid trolley. Thank godness I was forced to replace the inner tubes already in Broome…

I loaded my kayak on the trolley, getting mentally ready to wheel out at about half tide, assuming the tidal flat would be still hard and sandy enough to use the trolley about 2-3 hrs before and after high tide.

But then I guessed why “waiting” that long until about 10.30am to wheel out to the water, when I can wheel as well a bit along the hard sandy beach, making already some miles before wheeling into the direction the water has diappeared??

And off I was, all gear loaded in the boat, just the load of the bow compartment I stuffed in a bag sitting in the cockpit for better weight balance. I had a wide belt attached to the toggle made for that purpose around my hips, and stuck a stick (actually my pump…) through the toggle for a better two-handed grip behing my back. Thanks to the good German “wheeling training” on our wide tidal flats back home! 

I made 6 km on wheels that morning, until I had enough and some sore feet, butt and thights muscles 🙂 I was walking barefoot, as the rubbing of the sand on the sandals was not good on the long run. I checked my moving speed on teh GPS, actually 4km/hr! I’m not making much more when I have to paddle against 2,5km of tide and strong headwinds…but as I made frequent breaks to relax my muscles after each 300-400m, my real speed was not as fast. But better than sitting on the beach and waiting for the water to come!!! 

I eventually decided to give it a try wheeling out on the first sandy sea bottom ripples, which became more and more muddy over the distance. I guessed I can make it out to the water fully, but had to admit defeat after about 70% of the remaining distance.

Sitting in my kayak on the tidal mud flat, waiting for the muddy water in the distance to come…

I simply took my boat off the wheels, loaded everything in it’s place and sat comfortably in the cockpit for about 20 min only, waiting for the water to flood in. And it came…yes, this is “water” in the distance! Liquid mud, actually…

It came with some lines of low surf waves, and about 1000ds of fish of about 20cm size tried to escape a death left stranded eventually in too shallow water. They simply jumped towards the open sea again, over, under my paddle and onto my boat. No serious bumps, but still scary in the liquid mud water! No wonder it is a shark feeding paradise…how can they live comfortably in that liquid mud??

Each shallow breaker was kind of fun to take from the side, but the splash in the face rather felt like a mud package than sea water…isn’t mud said to be good for facial skin?? Even in the eyes it felt rather sandy than like salt water…

I rather felt like I wanted to stay in the wide shallow braeker zone with some kind of fun paddling amongst the tidal waves than seeking the non visible end of the shallows towards the open sea. And I thought there won’t be water depth enough for a BIG size shark :-)) and just in case of a bite again, the dry land wouldn’t be as far away…

Two hours after high tide I called it a day for paddling and wheeled easily towards dryer land again, but kept on pulling the kayak on wheels along the hard sandy shore for another 6 km until almost darkness. I was down to about 70 km until the Wallal Downs campsite!

There I found this old flat wide bony piece – a whale vertebra? Or the remainig of a dinosaur?

Text message from Freya via satellite phone:

19.26 121.14 80mile Beach. 4.5 hours, 22.5 km around high tide paddling, wheeling another 12km with 4km per hr. About 20 fish bumps in the muddy water!