It was quite a chore to drive the next days back and forth to our Albany base camp, but necessary that Greg was able to work on the van and I could keep on making some distance.

So we arrived at Shelley Beach again at 7.15am, and I was ready to launch at 7.30. Late, but hopefully early enough to get to Two People’s Bay that calm day, 65 km.

The quite fat dumper was still there, but I thought with a good push and a good timing nothing would be too much of a problem!

I chose a spot on top of a little sand ridge to have a steeper launching ramp, and pushed the boat towards a reasonable distance towards the water. I jumped in, and Greg held the boat on the stern toggle, clever enough he has taken his shoes off already…

Yes, I should have better warned him you may get wet, as things are not always going like they were looking they were going to be…he still had his precious camera around his neck, and his mobile phone in the pocket.

A bigger wave came, piled up to a clapotis thing, and reached me on my starting point just enough from the side to wash me away sideways. Greg was barely able to hold the boat on the stern toggle, and he had to let go.

This was the start of a stupid struggle and fight with the fat next dumpers…I reckon I should have just jumped out as soon as possible and put the boat back into a stable starting position, instead of hoping Greg would be pushing me back to the point…I was sliding down to the water’s edge in perfect reach of the next dumper, leant into it, got fully wet, the next dumper, even bigger than the previous, capsized me and washed me up the beach, face down, and I had to hand-ground-roll myself up, caring about not losing my paddle or eat too many sand 🙂

I just saw Greg running uphill away from the force of the water washing me up the beach, helpless in taking care of the boat with me inside in this case without getting hit and badly hurt by the whole thing. He came back next on a brief lull to pick my helmet out of the water which I, stupid enough, thought I didn’t need to put on on this “easy” launch…but his whole lower body got wet, including his mobile phone…it luckily survived, as we learnt later.

Eventually I was able to jump out of the boat, drag it back into position, shake some sand off and spit out some more, put on my helmet, and was ready for try number two…this time successful, with just one fat thing splashing into my face. But no problem…I was just wet allover and lots of sand was still under my hood, spray deck, neck opening and sleeves.

Oh well, beginner’s mistake or just bad luck? Or was I just distracted by Greg’s presence and took things too easy?

The paddle was easy, on calm water, quite sunny and I was happily passing Albany’s King George Sound, heading for Cape Vancouver.

The paddle around that headland, different to the previous day, counts to one of the most stunning beautiful and impressive paddles I had on my trip! My map and GPS showed a clean gap between Mount Gardiner and Coffin Island, but from the distance I saw white breakers only…but the gap opened up as soon as I came closer. Seals were sunning themselves on the island, and the water before the gap was still a bit choppy, but it got calmer as I passed the gap.

It was a long paddle fully around that headland, but worth every paddle stoke. This is how I’d like to paddle in future – close to cliffs and the shore instead of all those long open water crossing!

I was passing little beach, a place where I would have stopped for camping being by myself, but aimed rather for a rendezvous with Greg at the main launching site of Two People’s Bay. Last phone call I told him my estimated arrival time would be around sixish, but paddling into the calm shallow beach with a toilet building showed no sign of a van and my partner…on another phone call he told me he was still stuck in a hardware store for shopping last items for the van. Ok…I walked up the road a bit to keep myself entertained as I was so stupid again not to carry any dry clothes with me…no big deal this time, as Greg showed up 20 min later. I could even use the freezing cold shower at the toilet building then and jump into my dry clothes from the van.

We loaded the kayak, and drove back to Albany, aiming for a take away pizza for a quick feed quite late at night. Well, at least late for me, who was used to fall asleep in the tent around 8pm after such a long paddling day…I may have really fallen asleep around 10.30pm, too late for me being physically quite exhausted…  

Text message from Freya:

34.58 118.10, Two People’s Bay.  65 km, 7:30 am to 6:30 pm. A stupid launch through a dumper, easy water again, nice weather, low swell, very impressive headland with stunning scenery around Cape Vancouver into Two People’s Bay!