Bass Strait - Day 2: Hogan to Deal

I slept like a log.

After the last two nights of barely any sleep (plus the 11 hours of paddling), I was exhausted. We slept on the floor of the hut but it might as well have been the Hilton. I was so glad to have slept and for the stress level to be significantly reduced. 

We woke to a glorious sunrise on this vibrant and beautiful island.

Today was a shorter day - just 40ish kilometres - but it wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns.

I don’t even know how many hours of training I did for this trip - and out of all those hours I NEVER got any chafe under my arm - but now, in the middle of Bass Strait, I had it BAD.

I don't know what the difference was (because I’d previously trained in the same shirt I wore without any issues), but for some reason this time my underarms decided to chafe until raw; the layers of my epidermis visible and bleeding, causing excruciating pain as each paddle stroke sheared the wounds deeper and deeper. But it didn’t matter - as there was NO other feasible way off this island other than to paddle.

It was going to be an “uncomfortable” day, to say the least.

We had breakfast, packed up our gear, made some calls home, and checked the weather (which looked good). There was only one more item to address before leaving - the second morning poop. It’s one thing to have to piss in the bottle but pooping would mean getting out of the kayak and into the water. Doing an aqua-turd was not something I was interested in, so I made multiple attempts on land because there was nowhere to “pull over” between our current island and Deal Island. I felt a strong sense of relief once I was able to have ALL items addressed prior to departure.

Aside from the chafe, and sore wrists, I felt pretty good as we headed off from Hogan Island bound for Deal Island.

We anticipated it would take about 5 hours to reach Deal Island, which was a relief after our 11 hour paddle the previous day, but it’s still 5 hours of paddling. Each individual paddle stroke is not that hard but they add up quickly, and 5 hours of even this light load will inevitably tire the muscles. We had charts, maps, bearings and the GPS but it was much nicer being able to see our next target as opposed to heading off with nothing but sky and ocean in front.

Now it was just a matter of paddle stroke after paddle stroke after paddle stroke, and we would get there.

Halfway between Hogan and Deal Island is about the halfway point between South Point (Victoria) and Flinders Island (Tasmania) i.e. halfway across Bass Strait.

It was a great milestone to reach in the midst of the monotony of paddling. 

The views were breath taking as we rounded the western end of Dover Island and made our way into the channel between Deal, Erith and Dover Island. The rock formations, the vegetation and the water colour were all postcard-like in their appearance. My tired arms complained on the last little stretch to our landing point on Deal Island, but the complaining soon stopped as the beach came into view.

Deal Island - looking across to Erith and Dover Island (The Kent Group)

Any attempt to describe the beauty of this place - in combination with its location and the effort it took to get here - would never come close. Needless to say, I was happy.

The plan for the afternoon was….snack, rest, swim, dinner and then bed.

Tomorrow was going to be another BIG day and also our final leg of crossing the Strait.