Always tease tease tease
Siempre – coqetiando y enganyando
Youre happy when Im on my knees
Me arrodilla y estas feliz
One day is fine, next is black
Un dias bien el otro negro
So if you want me off your back
Al rededar en tu espalda
Well come on and let me know
Me tienes que desir
Should I stay or should I go?
Me debo ir o que darme
- clash

Geoff Murray sent me this interesting bit of news from down under.  It seems a paddler from Canada got into a spot of trouble trying to circumnavigate Tasmania.  Derrick Crook (so many Derrick’s in kayaking ya know!) age 51 camped overnight near Conical Rocks on the west coast of Australia and launched out the next morning around 7am.  Apparently he got out about quite a way when he decided that conditions were bad and tried to head in.  In the process (according to the press) a large wave tore off his deck bags and the rear hatch cover of his kayak.   So floating with a half sunken kayak about 200m from shore Derrick decided it was time to fire off a flare and activate his distress beacon.  Police were notified around 10am and sent out a local rescue helicopter and police boat to search and rescue teams were called in  from Queenstown, and a Coastwarch flight was sent down from the Bass Strait.   While all this was going on some local folks described by the press as “shack owners”  took out a dinghy and rescued Mr. Crook.  He was then taken to a hospital where he was treated for hypothermia.  It’s worth noting that the water temperature was around 62F.

We have very little detail on this story so far so it’s pretty hard to make any assessments.  Geoff tells me that area around Conicle Rocks is quite treacherous.  You’d wonder why the paddler got out so far before deciding to turn back.  However there is a river flowing into the sea there as well so it’s hard to guess.  Maybe he got carried out before he knew what he was getting into.

I was reading a trip report by Tassie resident Steve Dineen who circumnavigated the island in 1998. In it  he writes;

“I had to be watchful of the large swells. Some would all of a sudden appear from nowhere and look like they were going to swallow you up. I would look straight down at the water below me and see if I could see the bottom. If it wasn’t that deep green colour I was out of there real fast because I was probably on a reef or a shallow bar. You are very low in the water in a kayak and you don’t always see a wave coming till it’s right on you and you can bet the one after is going to be bigger. I got to the Conical Rocks Point after about five hours paddling and was very weary with only a few hours sleep the night before. It was a great little hiding spot from the swell. I would like to have camped there but I wanted to do some more kilometres so I could make Strahan the next day. A fisherman sheltered inside the Conical Rocks said I wouldn’t be able to get into Granville Harbour because the swell was too big but I would be able to get just around the corner. I followed his craypot line around the reef where I knew I would be safe. Boy, was he wrong. When I got there the swell was too big and I couldn’t get onto the beach. These kayaks don’t handle surfing the waves too well. I did a bit of backtracking and found a great little camping spot just outside the Conicals but I had to scramble over some rocks to get there.” – steve dineen

Sounds like a tricky area for sure.  Large trips tend to weed out “weekenders”.  Normally you can assume that the folks taking on these big trips are pretty decent paddlers to have even have contemplated the journey. Once there, often the hardest decisions are when to go and when to call a “weather day”.  I mean, we really want to get moving and often we are under a time limit. We have faith in our talents, skills, and our kayaks.  It’s a judgment call.  We could always sit on shore and wait for the glassy days, it’s been done and in the end you can get there if you have the time and patience.  More realistically we take to the water as long as it’s within our abilities.  The problem lies in when we over-estimate our abilities or under-estimate the enviroment.  Then of course sometimes the enviroment just does a quick change on us after we get out there and we just have to cope.  Thankfully most of the time,  good judgment prevails. 

Read More:

Mercury News Report

* Anthony correctly poits out I should have said "Queenstown" and not "Queensland". That’s been corrected.

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