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Vic to Tas Bass straight adventure

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Saturday, 19 January 2008

Time to start getting serious about this

367 km as the crow flies. No wuckas!

Several years ago I started dreaming of kayaking all the way from Tidal River, Wilsons Prom to Launceston in Tasmania. At the time I wasn't really sure how I'd go about it, but it is an adventure I never stopped thinking about. Since then I've done a fair bit of reading on the experiences of others who have completed the journey (as well as those who have failed) and slowly but surely, I've been cobbling a bit of a game plan together. Now I've got a much better idea of how I'd go about.

hobie island adventure After having briefly played around with the Hobie Island Trimaran kayak at the Sunstate Hobie bass bash event I've fairly well concluded that this is the kayak I intend to do it with. That sail really is very effective and obviously, just such an appendage would help considerably. I'm looking at traversing over 360 km as the crow flies, after all. Considering how lumpy the water tends to get in bass straight, I'd say it'd be a fairly safe bet to double that, if not more.

I do have a hell of a lot of planning to do yet and over the course of the next 12 months or so I'll be ramping up both my research and training efforts. Right now I'm thinking March 2009 would probably be the best time to do it, but obviously that is just an approximate date for now and will very likely change. I'm guessing I'll probably have to set aside a couple of weeks to complete the journey. By no means do I expect to be on the water that entire time - I'll be island-hopping all the way. But I do have to expect weather to prevent me from crossing some of those legs on occasion, quite possibly by consecutive days.

By hook or by crook, I'll be attempting this journey some time next year. Now you know why I was so keen to install a compass into the Adventure I am currently using, which I'm hoping to convert to an Island with an upgrade kit sometime between now and my departure date. Obviously there is a fair bit for me to figure out yet and as I do so, I'll write about it here. I don't have any plans to abandon writing about kayak fishing whatsoever, but this Vic to Tas kayaking project will become a large focus of my contributions to the Yakabout website from this point forward. Much more on this later.

Ritchie Kayak compass will definitely come in handy - as will my GPS

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Comments (5)

19-01-2008 23:56

You're fookin crazy buddy! Good luck though!

Written by Fishfed

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20-01-2008 11:45

Ambitious, yes, but crazy, no. It's been done before and with lesser capable kayaks to. But yes... it's not a project I'm taking lightly. That's partly why I'm giving myself at least 12 months to prepare.

Written by josh

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20-01-2008 19:04

sounds like my sort of adventure (pun intended) look forward tom see how you go

Written by Astro

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24-01-2008 06:13

Are you going to take a fishing rod for this trip?

Written by Fishfed

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24-01-2008 16:09

But of course! Haven't decided which one yet, but I'm thinking it'll be the Nitro Viper.