Cape Lambert Industrial Art – loading pier for huge ships for iron ore

I was wheeling out again early morning, hoping no one would be bothered by me camping down at the town beach.

The paddle around Cape Lambert showed quite some interesting “industrial art”, but I felt like I was inhaling the red dust from the iron ore piles until I made it around. Even the foam on the water was red…

I noticed some tidal stream against me paddling around the Cape, and the wind was breezing up a bit as well. But I never expcted the crossing of Nickol Bay towards the Searipple Passage would be that tough!!! My GPS told me exactly my speed, i was able to maintain just about 4km per hour the first hours, and was hoping the wind woul dgo down again as the tide would turn at lunchtime. I was also hoping the turn of the tide would give me a push, as I was not really sure about in which direction it was streaming when…it could have only been against me all morning!

But no way…it was getting even more tough that afternoon, wind breezed up to estimated 25 kn, and the tidal stream was not pushing at all. When I stopped paddling I got drifted backwards with 3-4 km/h…this made me paddling only with 2-3 km/h ‘forward’ all afternoon. Snail’s pace…and tough as hell. No rest allowed…as this would mean a drift backwards.

I was happy to arrive at the entrance of the Searipple Passage at just about the very last light, and I knew from Google Earth there would be some beaches at the entrance.

Thie first one showed up in haldf darkness on lowest tide as a steep yellow sandy beach, not too bad, but it had a belt of rocks exposed on the bottom.

I guessed maybe better have a look at the next one at Sloping Point, but as the name was telling me it was “flat” and I could make out exposed tidal flats all across the passage! No way to get through the passage on this tide…and not much fun to head to the beach behind the tidal flats even with my wheels.

I was thinking I’d rather paddle 500m back towards that steep beach with the exposed rocky belt. Luckily the rocks were not too big and round, so I could wheel my boat across with some effort and the up the steep beach to a stretch of sand which somehow sounded hollow to me on dropping gear…but nothing special happened.

I was putting up my tent in darkness and crashed quite exhausted from that tough crossing! I may launch late next morning, to have some water in the passage and to have some extra rest for my body and some typing time for my blog!

20.31 116.51, Sloping Point. 40km, 7:30 am to 6:30 pm. A fully unexpected  tough headwind crossing brought me to my physical and mental limit