If you have a paddle that's a little out there let us know and we will put it up.

Latest Paddle - 12th April 10

Paddlers - Angus Sprott, Matt Watton, Steve Price

Adventure Bay, Bruny Island to South Arm - 40km - 40knt South Westerly - Large Southerly swell.

Sprotty has to cop the blame for this one as he instigated it and organised his dad Ian to ferry us (literally) to the Island and everywhere in between. Thanks Ian.

What eventually turned in to a fun paddle didn't start out well. The signs were always there we just failed to see them. To begin with the forecast on the radio was one long monologue of gale warnings, flash floods and road advisory messages. Then there was the trip across on the ferry, with substantial rollers making the journey a little more interesting than usual. But the one we really should have seen and taken notice of was the road sign at the top of the lookout that was blown over while we stood there. Needless to say, the conditions were somewhere between dirty and down right dangerous.

When we arrived at the neck we had to unload one boat at a time for fear they would be blown away, eventually after donning as much warm gear as we could get our hands on we were ready to set off. Navigation was a concern as originally we had planned to go around Betsy Island to Cremorne the only problem being that we couldn't see Cape Queen Elizabeth let alone Betsy Island. Paddling off the beach the fun and games started. Sprotty and I managed to make it through through the impact zone, clearing the last wave of the set, just. Matty wasn't so lucky and ended up getting nailed. 5 minutes later though he was back although a little lighter after losing his mobile and beanie in the wipeout.

Heading out towards the cape with the wind on the beam the going was a little slow and precarious as the swell combined with the wind to make the sea a big confused mess. Matt ended up in the drink after being cleaned up from the side by a breaking wave and once he had managed to get underway again I suffered the same fate except I took Sprotty out in the process meaning we were both floundering around. Sprotty donated a bit of his gear in the form of the much valued Fenn water bottle and the much valued bung that stops water getting into the hull!!! Understandably Sprotty was concerned, he had no water and no bung and we still had 40km to go. The only problem was Matt hadn't realised we had both had a tumble and thought we were in front of him and I didn't realise that Sprotty had lost his bung, so I told him to toughen up and keep going and we would give him some water.

We found Matt out off the cape in probably the biggest water we had seen (about the same size as the Pirates Bay paddle). So back together again we set off on a new course deciding that under the circumstances South Arm was a better option as we could follow Bruny's coast until we saw the Iron Pot, then head across the river. Around this time Matt had another swim and while he was remounting Sprotty noticed a foot long crack in his hull near the seat. Thinking the worst we headed to shore to check the damage, luckily the crack was in the gel coat only so after calling Sprotty's dad with the new course details we set off again. Up until now I had managed to avoid all the carnage, that was until after spearing out of control down a huge swell I took a tumble and used the leash to its full extent which managed to ripped the footplate mount from its fastening at the bottom of the cockpit, good one. It was a stupid place to attach the leash so I can only blame myself, luckily it only effected the steering a little and I was able to continue.

The last section to South Arm was lots of fun. You could catch the wind swell from the West then turn onto the big Southerly swell and hold that for as long as possible before trying to link another set of wind generated waves before you lost momentum. This was a full on paddle, but we were well prepared. Matt had an epirb, Sprotty had a flare, we all had leashes pfd's and warm clothing and have all done quite a bit of big conditions paddling, that said there were times when it was looking like we were going to get into trouble and you can never account for gear failure so a paddle like this should only ever be done if you are well prepared and have tried to eliminate as many risks as possible.

14 April - Matt emailed me to say that the Bureau showed 60knt gusts at Bruny while we were paddling, suffice to say that we probably wouldn't have liked any more wind than that.

Latest Paddle - 16th January 10

Paddlers - Disco Sargison, Ace Petrie, Steve Price

Pirates Bay to Safety Cove - 40km - 35knt North Easterly - Huge NE swell.

The original idea with this paddle was to get a good group together wait for the right forecast and try to get some big runs along one of Tassies most spectacular coast lines. The date was set and with the weather playing the game transport was organised and phone calls made. It must be said that this paddle isn't for everyone, at 40km long and with no where to pull out if the going gets too tough many of the normal suspects declined which in hindsight probably wasn't such a bad thing.

Todd Sargison, Ace Petrie and myself set out from the Pirates Bay boat ramp, sheltered from the North Easterly wind and swell. Rounding the point to start heading down the coast we were exposed to the full force of the wind and waves which caused us to start giggling nervously and wonder whether we should be turning back or not. No one wanted to be the one to voice their concern though so we continued on rather sheepishly constantly redefining our perceptions of what big swells were. After a while we became a little more comfortable and started paddling for runs. This was made more difficult than usual though as the swell was heading diagonally across our course meaning that we had to surf right then hook left to stop from smashing against the 300m high sea cliffs. The other difficulty was the waves rebounding off the cliffs. You would work to catch a run, take off with your heart in your mouth, launching down the face at frightening speed before being cleaned up by a rebound and dumped in the drink. It basically continued like this all the way to Tasman Island where the waves and wind actually increased as they battled to squeeze through the tight gap between Tasman Island and the mainland, with the waves growing further still as they were influenced by a strong current flowing back towards us.

After negotiating the channel we headed North up towards Safety Cove but had to contend with 40knt side winds up the final 15km stretch just to keep us on our toes. Thankfully Jo was waiting on the beach for us at the pre-arranged pick up point as we were all completely stuffed. Awesome paddle that definately pushed us and the boats to their limits. We all swam a couple of times but scored some primo runs that made all the pain and nervous energy worth while.

Latest Paddle - 29th Nov 09

Paddlers - Steve Price, Cooka, Disco, Steve Percival and John Hitchens

Cremorne to 7 Mile Beach - 25knt South Easterly - 1 1/2 m Southerly Swell

Great fun - paddled out from Cremorne with a pod of dolphins then turned and ran downwind to Seven Mile for 11km's. Top speed was 21km/h with and average of 14.5km/h. Check out the video

Latest Paddle - 7th March 09

Paddlers - Steve Price, Ian Cooksey

South Arm to Lauderdale - 28km - 20knt Westerly - Large SW swell.

This was a really fun paddle. We put in at the South Arm boat ramp and headed down the river to the Iron Pot. We decided to shoot the gap in the rocks closest to shore instead of going around the light house. The width of the gap was less than the length of the skis so there wasn't much room for error. We nearly came unstuck as just when we were heading through a set came in and I was forced to punch through the first one and just made it over the second whilst Cooka wasn't bothered by the first but had to punch through the second. This really got the adrenaline flowing. In all the excitement I was unaware that my juice bottle was syphoning into my footwell and out the venturies into the ocean - not a good start with a couple of hours paddling ahead! Once we left the South Arm headland behind the wind started to create some nice runs and our speed picked up to around 12km/h. We actually caught and passed a couple of yachties in Storm Bay, I think they were a bit shocked to see us out there and then have us go past, pretty funny really.

When we passed Betsy Island the large swell was more behind us and we started to work the runs, building the average speed. We managed to get some really nice waves but never really hit the speeds we were after, the waves just didn't open up enough to go really fast. Once we rounded Clifton and headed into Frederick Henry Bay that was it. We were sheltered from the swell and wind by the cliffs and faced a flat 10km home. The average was 11.4km/h so still a reasonable paddle and good fun.

Latest Paddle - 1st March 09

Paddlers - Steve Price, Ian Cooksey

Lauderdale to Seven Mile via Slopen Island - 32km - 25knt SSW

Ian and I paddled from Lauderdale around Slopen Island then across to Seven Mile Beach The wind really came in from the south when we were half way to the island and made the going quite tough.

Running back to Seven Mile was awesome, when we managed to link some wind waves on to some ocean swell the speed just climbed and climbed at one stage the Elite was actually humming. The top speed on the Garmin was 25.8km/h which is certainly the fastest I have managed to go so far.

Latest Paddle - 22nd December 08

Paddlers - Steve Price

Coles Bay - Schouten Is - 21km - 20knt Northerly

The mission was to take the ski down to Schouten Island for our annual camping trip over Christmas, stash it in the bush and get a lift back on a mates cray boat. I left around 6 so that I could meet up with the boat at 8 otherwise I would be left behind. The wind was well and truely up when I left and started providing nice runs straight away. By the time I reached Hazard Island I was having an absolute ball and was maintaining a really good speed with the GPS regularly hitting 20km/h. The wind was funneling through from Wine Glass Bay making the waves a little more on the rear quater but this didn't really slow me down much and I continued to pick up some solid runs all the way down to Weather Head.

From Weather Head on my progress slowed considerably as I was sheltered from the wind and I started to hit quite a bit of current that was rapidly flowing through Shouten Passage. There was a big swell coming through the passage as well, it would have been great to do a few runs through there as the favourable wind and swell coupled with the strong current would have made for some really good speed. Good paddle, would have been more fun paddling with someone else but the scenery was pretty awesome.

Latest Paddle - 10 May 08

Paddlers - Steve Price

Margate to Lauderdale via Betsy Island - 40km - 15knt SW

I'm not really sure why I did this paddle, I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time. The Margate to the Iron Pot leg was ok as it was relatively sheltered from the wind and chop. From there to Betsy though it was a nightmare. The unrelenting side chop constantly threatened to capsize me and made me a little unsure of my ability handle the conditiions. I decided to push on and have a short break on the sheltered side of the island, get some gels into me and hopefully summon enough energy to get to Lauderdale. The only problem was when I got there it wasn't sheltered at all. The wind had swung and was now more from the South leaving me know where to hide.

I managed to catch some of the larger swell rolling into Frederick Henry but I was pretty tired and lacked both the desire and the energy to have a real go. By the time I passed Cremorne I was over it and crept home, probably the hardest paddle I have done so far.