Bass Strait - Day 3: Deal to Roydon

Another big stretch (65km) means another early start.

I don’t mind getting up early but being on the water early means less time for my habitual bowel movements. Having to wee while sitting in the kayak is not fun, but having to poop while sitting in a kayak - on the open ocean - is NOT something that I wanted to experience. I’m pretty sure the only option is to do an “aqua turd”; fortunately I didn’t have to find out.

I made sure to poo twice each morning to reduce the chances of having to go in the water.

To this end I would eat and drink coffee as soon as I woke up and hope that stimulation would allow me to get the job done. I also made two trips to the shore with our gear to get a bit of walking in. The first one was easy but getting that second poop out caused me significant stress. This was the last day I would have to worry about this as this was our last big open water crossing.

It was our last day of spending all day in the sea kayak.

It’s amazing how ECSTATIC one can feel by the simple act of taking a dump. It was a relief to get that second poop out of the way. Now I could paddle the 65km with only the chafe and sore wrist to bother me.

It was another glorious morning on another beautiful Island.

The conditions were also looking good.

We made our way around the south side of Deal Island heading for Flinders Island (initially) and then aiming to land on Roydon Island (an Island just off the northwest coast of Flinders Island) for this evening.

The interaction of the wind and waves with the island made for rougher conditions. It was nothing we couldn’t handle but we were more attentive to the conditions for the first hour or so until we cleared the islands’ influence on the wind and the water.

Aside from paddling, the intermittent conversation, watching the bird life, and counting down our kilometres….there was nothing else to do.

So we paddled and paddled, enjoying the occasional albatross flying by and the occasional little penguin’s heads popping up through the waves; we continued to count down the kilometres and we continued to chat.

The pain in my wrist was excruciating but for some reason it didn’t hurt as badly when I was paddling. This RSI caused searing pain when undoing my kayaking skirt, opening protein bars and putting on sunscreen but fortunately was not nearly as intense when paddling. The chaffing, though, was slowly getting worse. With every paddle stroke I could feel open wounds shearing deeper and deeper.

I had put SO much time in training for this and these new ailments left me frustrated and disappointed - I was not prepared for this added torture. All our training had gone so well; NO chaffing and NO wrist issues.

There was nothing to do except to keep paddling.

No one was coming to save me out here - there was no viable option of bailing out. I just had to keep paddling.

Due to fires, the visibility was bad and we were not able to see Flinders Island until about 20km out. This is where the bearings came into play; we just had to follow our bearing, compensating for the current and wind. I kept turning around to see if Deal Island was still in view. It stayed in view all day. As we approached Flinders and Roydon Island they eventually came into view. I trusted Don and the GPS, but there is always some relief when the destination comes into view.

Our fast pace meant we were met with some very strong currents around the top of Flinders Island, as the tidal flow passed through a geographic bottle neck.

There is nothing like paddling 65km then having to do a max effort for 20mins to navigate the narrow passage between Flinders and Roydon. The excitement of the very rough conditions gave us a surge of adrenaline, which helped our energy levels.

We felt a profound sense of relief to have crossed the main open water sections. Most of our preparation had centred around ensuring the safe crossing of these 3 stretches of water.

I was thrilled (and proud) to have crossed Bass Strait, and I honestly thought this coastal paddle would be a dream compared to the long non-stop sections.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Standing on the beach at Roydon Island looking across to Flinders Island