A couple of months ago I wandered into the Australian Broadcasting Commission building, armed with a handful of blurry photos, taken on my ‘Instamatic’ down off Tasman Peninsula, and suggested to them it would be the ideal place to do a canoeing spectacular for one of their sports shows.

“Great,” they said, “It’ll take some organising, so we’ll give you a ring.” Sounded like the old “heave ho”, but several weeks later we got a call saying May 3rd was the day. Cecily went in for further discussions and they decided on an early start at Fortescue bay, and would film a typical club trip.

Helmut, Hans, Isa, Cecily, Geoff, Justin, Rob, Lawrie and myself, camped there Saturday night. Vicki, Andrew, Ron and Phillip arrived next morning about 6.00am.

Shortly afterwards, the film and sound recording crew arrived by car, and their hired tuna boat also arrived from Port Arthur, the crew saying it was pretty rough off Tasman Island.

It was a lousy morning, overcast, with a fine misty rain, and after a bit of filming on the beach, we started ferrying gear out to the chase boat. We had brought two
TK3’s down so as to be able to take the film crew into some of the caves and other places where the larger vessel wouldn’t go. While this was going on we were treated to the spectacle of porpoises a mile out to sea, silhouetted against the lightening sky as they leapt several metres in the air. They were playfully leaping about in front of a fast runabout coming into the bay to pick up a fisherman, but they disappeared after about ten minutes.

We were finally ready to go and from that moment on everything went so well that it couldn’t have been better had we been able to control the environment. The porpoises reappeared again, just at the right moment; there was a nice break running through the Lanterns as we went out through them, then a short push into a dying westerly to get to the really big cave a mile south of Fortescue.

After a bit of filming in here, the chase boat left us to do a bit of fishing while we plugged on down to the protection of the cliffs before turning south for Tasman Island. The wind and seas died away, and the sun appeared as we paddled down the coast past a few tuna boats. At Tasman, the camera-man embarked again in one of the TK3’s for the landing on a thick bed of kelp.

After lunch we put him back on board the chase boat again and proceeded round Cape Pillar to a seal colony, which was unduly disturbed by the closeness of the kayaks, and dozens of them slithered down the rocks into the water - all on film, of course. This was the end of the filming, apart from a short interview, and then the chase boat disappeared in the distance, leaving us a couple of hours away from home. Our numbers were depleted somewhat from the initial group that set out in the morning. One had started to feel seasick before we got through the Lanterns, and was put aboard the chase boat - the kayak being tied alongside the flying bridge. Another four found the conditions rather unpleasant after we passed the Lanterns and returned to camp - leaving the two TK3’s (only two paddlers in each), and four K1’s. When the filming finished, another two K1’s departed the scene on the chase boat - Ron to be back on duty by 5.00pm, and Cec’s boat to leave her to paddle in one of the TK3's. Vicki was feeling better by now, so joined the other TK3 for the long haul back to Fortescue, with Geoff and myself in K1’s.

By the time this magazine gets out, the film will have been shown in Tasmania, but is being offered to other states later on - don’t miss it!