By Matthew Watton.

I made it.

I started paddling from Tinderbox at 1.30am on Thurs and headed down the channel navigating with compass, chart and the navigation lights.  There are so many lights on the fish farms that picking out the channel navigation lights on the points can be difficult.

It was a beautiful clear sky and I counted at least 20 meteor/asteroids streaking across the sky over 4 hours.  There was a light s/w wind that didn't slow me down.  I was hoping to average 7km/h and I wanted to be down near Partridge Is. by dawn.

I didn't quite make it there because I started 1 1/2 hrs late but I got there at 7.15am.  I continued on at a steady pace.  I had a good supply of coke and chocolate handy because I wasn't planning to stop anywhere.

There were big s/w swells and a lot of rebounding waves going in all directions as I paddled along the south coast and it was hard to keep the kayak flowing along.

Once I passed the Friars and started up the eastern side of South Bruny the water was calmer and a light n/e sea breeze started to pick up.  I was feeling pretty stuffed by this time (after 80km and no sleep the night before) so I stopped for a bit longer than normal to drink and eat more. One of the biggest problems was dozing off as I paddled.

The cliffs and sea caves along this section of coast (Fluted Cape State Reserve) up to Penguin Island are amazing.  It would be great to have more time to explore this section of bruny again.

From Penguin Island across Adventure Bay to Cape Queen ELisabeth. I was feeling better again and started to put more effort in.  Once I reached Cape QE the n/e sea breeze had just turned enough to be able to sail.  It was a bit tricky with both sails around Cape QE with all the rebounding waves and the wind affected by the 5km of cliffs there.

For the last 30 odd kilometres I was aiming to get back in under 18 hours (ended up 18.5 hrs) or at least before dark.  Just as I stopped back at Tinderbox there was a beautiful pink/orange sunset.  It took a few minutes to get out of the kayak because my legs weren't working.

The total km's ended up at 142km with the route that I paddled.