Westport to Māpua by Sea Kayak
A crashing wave, a mad scramble for sunglasses and hat washed away, the victory of retrieving one item and mourning the loss of the other, the surprise of the second wave dumping on my now-exposed head and tipping the kayak, relief that nobody was present to judge my moment of incompetence. It was only day 2 of my trip and I was already learning crucial lessons; from then on all important things went inside the boat for surf launches and landings! The Tasman Sea is a great humbler and this early underestimation of the power of the waves on what I had judged from the beach to be a relatively innocuous break occupied my mind for the next 9hrs whilst the relentless sun seared my unprotected eyeballs. The West Coast demands respect and even with a favourable forecast I was determined not to misjudge its powers again.
A crashing wave, a mad scramble for sunglasses and hat washed away, the victory of retrieving one item and mourning the loss of the other, the surprise of the second wave dumping on my now-exposed head and tipping the kayak, relief that nobody was present to judge my moment of incompetence. It was only day 2 of my trip and I was already learning crucial lessons; from then on all important things went inside the boat for surf launches and landings! The Tasman Sea is a great humbler and this early underestimation of the power of the waves on what I had judged from the beach to be a relatively innocuous break occupied my mind for the next 9hrs whilst the relentless sun seared my unprotected eyeballs. The West Coast demands respect and even with a favourable forecast I was determined not to misjudge its powers again.
RSS Feed
