All the Way Round (3 page)

While my method of packing worked for me overall, I must admit I took a good look at what I was carrying while I was recovering in Broome after my disastrous start. I saw my gear in a new light as my opinion on what should and should not be taken had changed. I threw out the fishing rod and reel, a small pair of binoculars, half my clothes, a pair of shoes, some of my repair kit and first aid kit, and a sheet I was using as a shadecloth. I even cut my soap bar in half. The aim was to lighten my load and create space for water. After day one, the importance I had given to drinking water had elevated to a status well above the need for a bit of fishing, bird spotting or clean clothes. Reducing the contents of my repair and first aid kits might seem extreme, but these items catered for problems that might not happen, while lack of drinking water was a very real danger.

The big question—Why?

I knew the most common question I would be asked before, during and after the trip was, ‘Why?’ Personally, I never feel the need to ask other adventurers ‘why’, but some people need a quick and easy answer to justify why you are doing something they wouldn’t.

To save me stumbling for words I had worked out a smart answer to fire back, which covered the ethical and moral grounds, touched on the selfishness and justified the sacrifices of myself and others involved. I was quite pleased with it until, a week before I left, my six-year-old daughter asked, ‘Daddy, why are you going away to paddle?’

She looked unwaveringly into my eyes, concentrating, ready to try and understand the answer. My rehearsed reply seemed an insincere, pathetic jumble of words that just weren’t worth the breath. All I could come up with was, ‘It’s just something Daddy wants to try.’

To my relief it was good enough and off she skipped, but it made me realise that I needed a better response to the big question so I could move the conversations on.

So I worked on it and now my answer is: ‘I just like testing myself while exploring the outdoors.’ Simple, but true.

Starting again

Eight days after I first set out from Broome, I started my journey again. This time I was a bit wiser. I’d learnt the lesson of how quickly the body could become dehydrated in these conditions, how an easy day’s paddle could soon turn into a battle of survival.

While I was recuperating in Broome, I went to see a local doctor. She listened with some restraint to my story of how I got to my state of continually having to go to the loo. When I finished she stood up and walked me to the door while telling me to pick up some sports drink from the supermarket which would fix me up. The whole visit took less than five minutes; thankfully, she didn’t charge me or need to put on rubber gloves. I used the sports drink for a couple of days and the doctor was right; it fixed me up. So I decided to carry it in powder form and mix it with my water during the hottest days in the north.

I left Port Smith on Sunday 18 April at midday at high tide. After about six hours’ paddling and 30 kilometres, I reached Cape Bossut just as dark was falling. At these latitudes twilight is fleeting as the sun dives quickly to the horizon. Soon after the sun hits the sea, the daylight fades fast, and it’s soon as black as it can get.

As I approached the shore looking for a place to land, I saw the beach, its light sand standing out with the promise of a convenient camp. A dark line fringed the beach, but I just assumed it was mud as it was now close to low tide. As I got nearer I could see the line was in fact a reef—a 500-metre maze of ridges and drowned holes fringed with sharp edges. In the darkness it was impossible to judge depth, making the 500-metre reef hop too dangerous to consider.

‘Portage’ means carrying the kayak across ground. Having to portage is a fact of sea kayaking, but something you get credit for if you can avoid. Carrying a 5-metre long, 20-kilogram tube, with no design features to make it easy for one person to handle, is hard. But carrying it across a rough reef in the dark is asking for trouble.

When you’re dealing with an 8-metre tidal range, getting yourself, your kayak and all your kit to and from the water can be impossible. You can land at high tide, take three steps and set up camp under the shade of a tree. Next day at low tide the water may have dropped 8 metres, presenting you with nature’s obstacle course of soft sand, mud, reefs and a rock shelf dropping 2 metres to the surf. This challenge would then have to be tackled multiple times as you balanced a kayak on your shoulder or carried bags while working against the clock. Working in these extreme tides was something I would learn a lot about.

Keen to ensure my first day’s paddling didn’t get any worse than my previous attempt, I made a bumpy landing on the reef and decided to wait. Well, it’s not like I had a hell of a lot of choice. I could have headed off to another beach, but it was well and truly dark by now and I couldn’t be sure I’d find a better place to stop. There was a light on a beach about 4 kilometres away, but the approach could have been just as dangerous. Another reason I decided not to head for the light was a story of a guy who was recently speared in the leg for trespassing on Aboriginal land—the same land I was covering. The matter was currently in the courts, so I decided not to push my so far rather limited luck, and waiting for the sea to wash me off a reef in the dark sounded better than a spear in the leg.

Making the best of where I was, I cooked my dinner sitting on the kayak and waited a couple of hours for the water to rise so I could drift to the beach in the moonlight. Not quite as romantic as it sounds. As the water rose there was a bit of a flow, catching the kayak and bouncing it with painful screeches from one rock to the next. Unsure if I’d get stung or bitten by something I might put my hand on in the dark, I used the paddle as a pole to propel me towards a soft sandy landing.

It was a steep beach, 8 or 9 metres high, but the high-tide mark was at the top, so I had to carry everything up to find a camp spot that would stay dry. Then I realised that if I was to avoid carrying the kayak back over the reef on my way back out to sea, I’d have to leave before the tide dropped too far. This allowed me only four hours on dry land.

So at 2 am, after two hours’ sleep, I was back on the water and heading towards Cape Jaubert.

Cape Jaubert is 130 kilometres from Broome, or four paddling days if you’re in a kayak. The light sandy beach and clear waters were picture-postcard stuff. On the low headland there was a basic shelter of four timber beams supporting a makeshift roof of chicken wire laden with dried brush in a vain attempt to provide some much-needed shade. Apart from this there was not a bush, tree or rock standing high enough to cast its own shadow.

There was a group of Aboriginals fishing in the surf and a couple around the shelter tending a fire. I was unsure about the sort of reception I would get. Would I be viewed as a trespasser or welcomed as a traveller?

As I landed the kayak I was approached by a fit-looking man with a stern face. I prepared myself for the worst and gave my friendliest smile. To my relief, the smile was returned. When I asked about camping I was told that only the elder, who was at the shelter, could give me permission. At the shelter I was made welcome and was soon eating fresh fish and damper, washing it down with sweet tea, and feeling silly about my previous concerns.

The elders were teaching the kids traditional spearfishing and some were using handlines. One youngster proudly produced his first turtle he had killed with a spear. I looked at my pile of kit then at the couple of handlines and spears they had used to catch dinner for eight people and felt a little overequipped. They offered me some spare drinking water, but I was so conscious about my excessive equipment that I declined. Besides, how could I be out here with all this gear and take something from someone with only a pair of shorts and a spear?

When the fishing lesson was over, I was left with the permission needed to camp the night and a welcome feeling. The group lived at the same settlement as the policemen that were called to the eco lodge where I’d washed up on that first day, so I gave them a message to pass on that I was doing well and making progress.

It was still very hot and humid. Trying to be energetic in these conditions was like moving about with bricks on your head. The shelter had been set up on a low hill to catch any breeze that happened by. But the wind was hot and it just seemed to dry out the human body. I was still drinking 10 litres of water a day and that wasn’t enough. I had three days of paddling to the next water at Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park. Given my current consumption, supplies would only just last. That may seem like no reason for concern, but with no margin for the unexpected and after suffering dehydration just a week before, to have ‘just enough’ was an uncomfortable place to be.

While I was in Broome I was looked after by Belinda Dwyer and Richard Young of the Broome Adventure Company. They told me that at this time of year everybody was anticipating the end of the Wet Season, a dramatic change in the weather which was sudden, unannounced and irreversible. The Wet Season brings the Kimberley its yearly quota of fresh water, but there is a terrible price to be paid with the humidity that builds with the rains. All that allows Broome to function during this time is the air conditioner.

Belinda and Richard told stories of guests turning up for dinner and, having been sealed in the air-conditioned rooms, were unaware that during dessert the Wet Season had ended. They took two steps outside before turning around to borrow a jumper for the journey home. The photos stuck to the fridge would curl their corners as the humidity was swept away and the rains stopped. From then on, there would be no more rain or humidity until the next Wet Season.

Coming from England I found it hard to believe seasons could change so quickly and dramatically, literally over dinner. It takes so long in England to move from summer to winter they put another season in between and call it autumn.

I set up my tent without a fly sheet under the shade of the shelter. Even though I was in the path of any stray breezes, I still found myself lying in a pool of sweat. The oncoming night-fall promised only light relief from the heat and humidity. But at 8 pm salvation came in the form of one of the most dramatic and welcome weather events I have ever witnessed.

I had a handheld weather recorder, which recorded the temperature, barometric pressure, wind strength and even told the time. Over the period of an hour the temperature dropped from 35°C to 25°C, and the humidity disappeared. The Wet had broken.

The sudden change in temperature caused condensation to form on the tent and this was now dripping onto a shivering, naked and bewildered kayaker. But it was great to feel the cold. There was no escape from the oppressive heat but I could bury myself in my sleeping bag to beat the chill. I settled back down for a good night’s sleep.

Next day I was reborn, energised. I was no longer making the slow measured moves born of exhaustion, I was jumping out of my skin.

The wildlife had changed from the day before. The sandflies and mosquitoes that had plagued me previously had disappeared, other insects had arrived and new sounds were bringing the bush alive. The wind was now blowing from the east, replacing the headwinds I’d struggled against, and the humidity was gone. Things were going my way.

I realised by now I’d have to plan the paddling around the 8-metre tides along this coast. High tide occurred every twelve hours and here it happened to fall at midday and midnight. I decided to try to launch and land as close as I could to high tide. My next destination, Eighty Mile Beach, would take me a few days to cross. It was gently sloping and, with such a big difference between the tides, if I tried to land when it was low there would be a couple of huge carries to reach a campsite above the high-tide mark.

I had planned to leave Cape Jaubert at high tide but I slept past midnight, so opted for a 2 am start. This would give me a bit more sleep while still allowing me to find the high tide close to my camp and so spend less time paddling in the dark. I didn’t much like paddling unknown waters in the dark, but as with much of the trip I had to work with a compromise between the potential dangers and making progress.

Phosphorescence is caused by the presence of blooming phytoplankton which lights up when disturbed, such as in surf or when hit by a kayak or paddle. On this night it was as bright as I’ve ever seen it. It was like a firework display as the fish darted off port and starboard in a flash of light as the bow disturbed them. Even without the fish my paddle left swirls of dying light behind me with every stroke and the bow carved out its path with two lines of lights trailing behind.

I settled into the rhythm, relaxing as the hypnotic lights of the ocean played on my drowsy mind when,
bang!
It only took a second to register what had happened, I went cold and the hair stood up on the back of my neck. Shark! In the moment it took for that to register, it was all over. The shark realised his mark was not what he expected and let go. In the dark it couldn’t see that it was my rudder making a ‘noise’ like something was struggling, promising an easy meal.

I’d just gotten over that and started to move again when,
whack!
Another hit. After a few hits I realised the shark had no intention of holding on and struggling with the rudder, so I relaxed a bit. Over the next two days, I would be hit about every two hours—if I had stressed each time, I would have been in a right state.

I rarely got to see the sharks, though sometimes a fin and tail would circle the kayak after a hit, as if it was sizing me up. After one big hit I was quickly checking out my rudder for any damage, with my paddle and hand dragging in the water as I drifted on. Just as I reached forward with my paddle a splash signalled the sharp-toothed grin of a shark poking out of the water where my hand had been. Trying not to think of the consequences of a shark grabbing my hand, I carried on paddling, but with my hands rarely dropping below shoulder height.

The reason the sharks were after the rudder was because the movement of the water with the big tides had stirred up the fine sand, making the sea the colour of milk. Though I wouldn’t recommend it, you could put your hand just under the surface and you couldn’t see it. This zero visibility meant the sharks were hunting purely on the vibrations they could detect in the water, which in this case was my rudder.