Friday, 22.07.2016
Day 20
59,1 km
5.30 h to 18.50 h minus 1,5 hrs shopping
N 54.24592 W 09.87997
Broadhaven

I got up half an hour later than intended, paddled easy around the corner of Clare Island and found a dozen hyper modern floating circular fish breeding places. The net attached to the maybe 12 m in diameter floating circle must go deep under the water not to let the fish escape, and high above into the sky to prevent cormorants to feast on them. In each of the circles hundreds of fish were happily and quite lively jumping above the water! I think they have an automatic feeding circle turning around into the top center. I think raising chicken in ugly tight cages must be worse than the short life of these fish! I noticed the water in Clew Bay was some degrees warmer, probably a good place to breed fish as I saw a few more “factories” in the distance. But nothing compared to Chile where in some bays close to Puerto Montt there were more fish than water…and they all shit…

I noticed a stronger westerly wind than forecasted when I was crossing over to Achillberg Island. I recalculated the tides and decided to go the inside way protected, calm and actually perfect high tide time at 9.30 am! Also, I saw yesterday on Google earth a very convenient supermarket close to the bridge at Archill Sound. In perfect timing, I paddled through the first narrow gap at the entrance, and got easily flushed through without paddling at 15 km/h speed! It feels a bit spooky when you see all those whirlpools, thinking the next one sucks you under, being kind of out of control where to go, but as long as you don’t hit the channel marker in the middle all is easy flat water.

The paddle up to the bridge went conveniently fast, I had my oat breakfast while floating along with 5 km/h, but one could also paddle against the tide if using the eddies. At the bridge, the “Super Value” market is almost a “Drive in” – better a “Paddle in”, I could look into the friendly inviting open door when approaching to some easy rocky bank before the bridge to pull up. Just some stairs, crossing the street, and you are in food’s resupply paradise! Without worrying too much to let your kayak alone, no one sees it down there! Well, I still had in between shopping a quick look, as the tide was still raising until 9.30 am. It took me 1 ½ hrs to select, pack and refill my water bags in the bathroom at the clothing shop next door. Then I was all set for the second half of the trip! Ok, I had food left for 5 or 6 days, but this shopping option was too convenient to miss out, and my “brought from home” food started already to get quite boring. But I could not push my kayak back into the water! Was it so heavy eventually, though it should slide on the rocks perfectly down? Or did a sharp rock cut the bottom open and hooked it tight? Well, one better should unhook the bow line from the tree…

The current under the narrow bridge was light at 10.15 h, and I happily paddled on with the outgoing tide, right into the infamous “Bulls Mouth”, the outgoing narrow flushing me through with this time 16,1 km/h – without paddling! But not a single wave was there today, just the same calm flat water and scary looking but harmless whirlpools.

Wind was still westerly, so why going outside Blacksod Bay? As one was supposed to be able to paddle through the small disused channel around high tide with a kayak? ”Disused” seem to mean at the southern end “no channel markers any more”, and at half tide, it was actually quite shallow in parts. But my chart showed the flats quite all right, still I was not sure if I did not arrive too early to go through, or if they eventually closed the channel somehow? A lot of construction work going on right before the channel entrance made me almost sure just today they build a new closing wall of the old tiny waterway?
Well, no big deal, 3 hrs before high tide I could easily paddle with some 4 km/h current though a really small channel, but it had well enough water for me! It was neither really looking pretty in there, nor outside at the northern exit, as the muddy banks with all the sea weed, rubbish and ship wrecks were half dry, but at least I could paddle and did not have to unload my freshly full loaded kayak for a portage!

For a long while, mud banks were still dominating the sides of the inlet, but the paddle against the tide at the other side was no problem at all. I was aiming for the first sandy beach corner I could find on the map to call it a day, but on the sandy corner I liked to camp on there was a new fish trawler with four young guys ran aground, and they were trying heavily and noisily to get it free again. Who knows how long that will take…and I crossed over to the other side to the last sandy dunes before being back to the open sea tomorrow!