Expedition Kayaks: Trip Report - One Degree South

Expedition Kayaks: Trip Report - One Degree South: Our goal was a simple one, a single day paddle from Sydney's Cronulla Beach, 117km down to the northern outpost of Jervis Bay, the coastal …


Read the full trip report through the link above

Expedition Kayaks: GPS Trace of One Degree South

Expedition Kayaks: GPS Trace of One Degree South: We have a secret weapon in our support guru Andrew Eddy. He has compiled our average speed from the GPS each of us had running on the One De...

One Degree Done….

We arrived in to Currarong last night at 10.25pm, after 14hrs 55mins paddling with half an hour on the pebbles at Bushrangers Cove. Total distance was 117km, & we did the 'one degree' at 9.30pm, so fourteen hours for any prospective idiots out there considering putting themselves through the same wringer any time soon.
A terrific, challenging & most satisfying paddle. Trip report to come.

Chris, Mark & Rob.

We're Off!

Tomorrow is the day, follow our progress via SPOT Tracker HERE.
Thanks to Andrew Eddy who volunteered to be our land crew & transport back to Sydney as soon as heard we were going.
Mark, Rob & Chris.

Update, you can also follow Mark's Spot track here - http://www.findmespot.com/mylocation/?id=7IWu7/34.05605S/151.15503E

A window….!

We're all trying desperatley to rearrange ourt lives to catch this first proper window since December. Not tghe howling conditions we were hoping for, but the best outlook for quite some time, especially Wednesday/Thursday:

souce: Seabreeze.com.au
Fingers crossed, we all wish we were still in the same condition were in, in January….

Bloody hell, have the trade winds come south for the summer?

Sydney's unrelenting Southerlies & Sou' Easterlies continue, thwarting our attempt to pull of our One Degree South paddle. It's as though the tropical trade winds have migrated south for the summer, like a flock of lost swallows.
Why don't we go south/north you say? Well, the small matter of the EAC now flowing south at between 1.5-2kn, and the prospect of a 4kmh head current with a 20knot following sea for 15 hours has even downwind junkies like us thinking twice….!
Here's hoping for summer and the Nor 'Easterlies to arrive before the end of the month…..

WTF….?

This is one bizarre Sydney summer. We have been ready to go now for about the last 3 weeks, yet the weather is still stuck in a typical spring pattern, with cooler days, onshore winds, even unseasonal easterlies & sou ' easterlies, and no set summer conditions.

Typical Black Nor' Easter conditions off Sydney

By now we usually have a very settled weather pattern, with hot dry days, a sea breeze from the Nor 'east by early afternoon, and the very occasional ball-tearing southerly buster to blow away the grime.

Wacky predictions for the coming week off Sydney (thanks to Seabreeze.com.au)

The success of our One Degree South paddle is to a large extent dependent on a 'Black' nor 'easter, a wind which follows hot summer weather & blows hard for about three days, with the middle day usually a long strong day of winds around the 20-30kn mark.
Game fishing skippers in the Illawarra have also been keeping tabs on the EAC for us, and it continues to swirl & send back eddies of 1.5 - 2knots running back north along our B-Line. You don't have to be Einstein to imagine what a 2 knot current opposing a 20+knot wind would be like 12-15km offshore, probably amazing fun for a couple of hours, but a bit wearing after 15 hours!

Current set of the EAC off NSW (thanks to imos.aodn.org.au)

So, the strange twists of this El Nina pattern have us in a holding pattern awaiting the ideal sort of conditions we feel are necessary not only to go the distance in a day, but also do it in the rollicking style we are hoping for.
Stay tuned….!

Shorter, Harder, Faster

Heres a great short article in a recent Outside magazine about short, sharp training for endurance events.
http://www.outsideonline.com/fitness/endurance-training/Shorter--Harder--Smarter-.html

Summer Nor 'Easters

In my mind Monday represented the real start of summer in Sydney, with the arrival of our first Black Nor Easterly wind.
This is a sea breeze peculiar to the few hundred kilometers of coast either side of Sydney in summer time, and occurs when the normal summer sea breeze comes in early and keeps on blowing ostensibly because the heat dissipates from the land much slower than normal.

Driving back from the South Coast yesterday morning I felt the beginnings of the wind at about 9am, and topping the Kiama bends with a great view out to sea an hour or so later I could see the telltale signs of a really good honking wind bringing the surface of the sea to life. At 10pm Monday evening it was still blowing strong, where a normal sea breeze would rise mid afternoon and be gone typically by early evening.

We've got some good advice on the patterns of these winds over the coming weeks with a view to latching onto the big developed sea that they generate, usually steep, slower moving, rideable wind swell.
The idea of riding a big following, fully developed sea for hours on end is something we're all very excited about, as you can imagine.
Probably 2-3 weeks more training & preparation & we'll be right to go.
Mark.