Sea Trek Issue 70 - Victorian Sea Kayak Club

time. After getting into very welcome
dry clothes we packed the pub for lunch
before heading home.
The weather had fulfilled the weather
bureau’s predictions, the company had
been good, the paddling had not been too
hard, the scenery had been lovely… and
it has been an unexpected pleasure ….
the sort of thing that memories are made
of.
Whew! That went well!
Derek Wilson
Trying to get a non-paddling partner
along on a kayaking trip can be fraught
with danger at the best of times. What if
the weather turns foul and one’s better
half gets cold and wet and tired! You’d
never hear the end of it and you could
probably forget about ever getting a second
chance to show them that it was
actually great fun.
So it was with some trepidation that I
talked my wife, Judy, into coming along
on the Queen’s birthday weekend paddle
to Snake Island and the northern Prom. I
reassured her that there were huts to sleep
in and cook in and sit by the fire if the
weather turned foul but she was still
sceptical. Then in the week leading up to
the event, some of the worst weather we
had had all winter hit Melbourne. To
make matters worse, Judy’s work colleagues
did not exactly help by telling her
she was crazy even to be thinking about
such a venture in the middle of a Melbourne
winter!
But, I said, I knew better! (What a silly
thing for a husband to say!) I reassured
her that one of the things I had learnt
since taking up sea kayaking was how to
read synoptic charts. In the midst of a
terrible Melbourne storm, I declared that
I could see on the long term synoptic
charts that there was a lovely big “high”
moving over the Bight that would be
right over Snake Island by the weekend and promised her fine weather and light winds all
weekend. She relented – but I was nervous. What if I had got it wrong?
But thanks to my excellent club instructors, I did actually get it right. The weather was perfect
for a first timer. Yes, it was cold at night – but that made the camp fires better! And the
good natured banter and ribbing that livens up these camp fires had Judy in stitches of laughter
at times and I could see that she was actually having fun!
Definitely something I might talk her into again!
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