Dave Morehead (9367km):
5105 days ago 1 categories  Coles Bay, TAS, AU
Booked in to do a sea kayak session at Coles Bay for 3 hrs from 9AM with my partner Geri, so an early morning start to get there. Checked Seabreeze first thing and Kaleb and Ant had suggested a possible sail up near Swanick (right next to Coles Bay), so I put the trailer on and took the gear. The wind was looking pretty good and we arrived at the end of Dolphin Sands Road at around 2:15PM. Low and behold, Jack and Johho had just gotten there. Plan was to do a 1 hr sprint off the wind to Swansea. Wind was gusting over 30 knots where we were rigging, so I rigged Severne Reflex 6.2 and decided to take the iSonic 107 with 40cm fin in case the wind eased.
Pretty windy from the start, but it did ease as we headed down-wind unfortunately. Some awesome long runs in reasonably sized seas. The 6.2 coupled with large board allowed pretty broad off-the-wind runs down wind-swells. Would have made it to Swansea too earlier (within 40 minutes), so had to keep heading out and downwind. At around 48 minutes my harness bar/hook suddenly bent and then within seconds snapped in half - bummer. Just prior to this I'd gybed in slightly less wind than I'd had previously, so was about to try and do a 15 minute run out to sea to pick up a bit more wind (and end up somewhere way lower than planned/expected), and that's when the harness bar went. Managed to slowly make it back in to shore, which took about 20 minutes (lucky I had just gybed inshore). That effectively put an end to my 1 hr (at 48 minutes).
Kaleb had also sailed into the lighter winds and had headed off to see if he could find more wind offshore. I ended coming in downwind of where the cars were waiting (with Geri and Jodi) and had to walk to where they were. Kaleb had come in at Spikey Beach(near Spikey Bridge), so we collected him on the way back.
Ant had something/somwhere he was meant to be at by 5:30 (New Years Eve), and was running way late after sailing successsfully into Swansea, so he had taken one vehicle early to try to make it there in time.
Apparently Jack and Johno made it back in somewhere near the middle car park at 9 Mile Beach?
At least none of us actually got in too much trouble, even if we were all separated.
Overall - awesome spot and cannot wait to do it again!! Just need the wind to be a bit more northerly, rather than NE.
Good to get one last sail in for the year ....
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