Ugly weed covering on landing…

The previous night I was thinking together with Simon over the computer weather websites if it would be really worth a launch this morning…headwinds, 15-25 kn were forecasted…

But I decided a bit of progress would be better than no progress, see how far I’d be getting this day. The lurking weather window on Saturday with easy northerlies and moderate swell was inviting to make it down from Cape Naturaliste to Cape Leeuwin…so I’d have to be there by then! Snail’s pace hugging the coast, maybe…

Simon helped me launching upfront the clubhouse through quite some surflines. He was standing freezing on the beach with his swimshorts on only, just in case I needed some wet help then, but I made it out with good timing without getting trashed. Just some water in my face woke me up…thanks, Simon, for getting me out that early Monday morning!

Cutting across Geographe Bay from Bunbury would be just natural for my way of paddling in reasonable weather. 60km only, and hugging the coast was 80km, a 20km detour which I don’t really enjoy to do…

But the weather was not reasonable at all that day, it was blowing into my face with not much fun, and I stayed close to shore until I was sick of the whole plugging into the bloody strong headwind with averaging stupid 3,5 km/h only, and landed after ridiculous 15km in five hours. A man on the beach walking his dog was faster than I was that day…really emberrassing and annoying… 

I landed behind some reefs close to a huge pile of seaweed without having trouble with the very low breakers on the reef. The shelter of the whole bay is really noticable, the swell was very low. Where there was a huge pile of seaweed on the beach, there must be some weed in the water close to the shore as well…and I caught a low breaker full of dark ugly stinky weed on my boat right before hitting the shore…yuck!

Plenty of stranded bluebottles in the seaweed!

Walking up the beach later I once got scared about a loud popping noise on one step – what was that? I had a closer look, and noticed the seaweed on the beach was full of stranded bluebottle yellyfish – ahhhhh, now the revenge of the frequent wraps with nasty stinging was there! Bluebottle popping – my new sport! It was just like my son enjoys walking over fat bubble wrap and loved the popping noise…and I gave it an enjoyable go! :-)) This bay was the prefect bluebottle breeding area – but trap for them as well, getting swept to the beach eventually. I was just happy to paddle in these chilly days fully covered with my cag and hood on, so only my hands got an occasional stinging on paddling.

I had a lovely sheltered campspot behind the narrow dunes, overlooking a small lake and green meadow with cattles and a farmhouse! Unusual but very pleasant view after the wide, wide dune belts…

I reckon unloaded and with the kick of a good support crew I may have gone out again after a bit of rest for another 10km or so plugging into the nasty headwind…but I really enjoyed that afternoon for myself in that idyllic spot!

Text message from Freya:

33.27 115.33,  Stirling Beach.  7:00 am to 12:00 noon, 15 km. This was not worth the effort of wearing myself out in battling against 20-knot headwinds and some seas with average speed of 3.5 km per hour. Seas got easier in the shelter of the bay, but wind stayed strong, so I got sick of it and made camp in a sheltered bay. Would have loved to cut across Geographe Bay to the Cape, 60 normal kms only, but there is no reasonable weather window for the next several days…so snail’s pace on hugging the coast… :-((