Just Another Day In Paradise ............

There are some days that are just .... Well, sublime!  

The Friday Paddle group headed off to Penguin Island this week, and although we were few in number, we had a great paddle.  With a moderate to fresh offshore breeze, the sea conditions were flat. The temperature reached 33 degrees C and the water must have been 20 degrees C.  

Summer is here already.

    Photo courtesy of Graeme Guerney: Geoff off Bird Island.

    Photo courtesy of Graeme Guerney:Magnificent rock formations.

    Photo courtesy of Graeme Guerney: Graham Place heading to the Garden Island bridge

    Photo courtesy of Graeme Guerney: John at Penguin Island.

We paddled along the coast to Point Peron and through the rock garden, which at low tide was quite benign, but very enjoyable.

A good push into the wind and sea to Penguin Island saw us stopping for a munchies break at the south end of the Island.  

The wind had eases somewhat and the paddle back to our starting point was very relaxed.

There are some of our group that roll at the end of each Friday paddle and on this occasion all four of us spent time practising.  Now, Graham Place is the only one of us who's roll could be described as bomb proof, but the rest of us are "reasonable" and keep practising.  One day it will get easier, won't it?

Thanks go to Graeme Gurney for his photographs, and of course he doesn't feature as he was taking the pictures. Also, for his weekly trip reports that he sends via email. They are always well written, entertaining and eagerly awaited by all on Friday evenings. Should he have ever had any doubt as to how much his work is appreciated, the report didn't appear last week (processing error) and everyone was phoning and emailing to find out why. I had to search through all my trash and folders thinking I'd misplaced the report.  Well done, you've got a job for life....... Shame there's no salary with it!

The New Towline and Modifications.

    The PeakUK Towline Out Of The Bag (Promotional Photo)

I decided that it was time for a proper towline, the one I had been using had been cobbled together using an old dive belt, a line from Bunnings, an old fishing float and a net bag to hold the line from Kathmandu. It worked but wasn't very user friendly and in a proper emergency it probably would snag and be clumsy to use.

So time to find a proper one!  I had a look on the internet and of course could have saved my time and gone straight to Expedition Kayaks, where there was a genuine choice of several leading brands. In the end I chose the PeakUK towline, a brand that EK have just started to stock and has a good reputation for quality. 

When I took delivery of the Valley Etain there were two complimentory Sea Kayaking DVD's included from Valley ( Thanks by the way!) by Gordon Brown. I will post a review later, but they are well worth watching. One item was about towlines and made a lot of sense. So I set about modifying the rig to make it even more user friendly.

The first thing was to untie the knots at the carabiner end of the line and move the float about a boats length down the line. This stops it snagging in the deck lines on the towed kayak and facilitates a free run when the carabiner is released.

Secondly, at the carabiner I sewed the line together with needle and whipping twine and then whipped it so that the end was smooth and again snag free.

Thirdly, I daisy chained the line from the bag end to close to the float and secured it with the spare carabiner (provided).

I can use the line daisy chained for short tows, particularly into the wind or sea, where the towed kayak will be reasonably close behind.

Should I be towing down wind or with the sea, then I will undo the daisy chain and use the full 15 metres of line, to ensure that the towed kayak doesn't run into the back of me.