Yakabout - The Bay Disaster of 2004

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The Bay Disaster of 2004

Monday, 04 June 2007

High winds + inflatable kayak = disaster

There's a fair chance I'll refer to this incident more than once throughout my coastal kayak fishing journals, so rather than try to explain it each time, I thought I'd recount the incident in full. It was the Bay Disaster of 2004 that inspired me to look towards pedal-powered kayaking, eventually leading me to the Hobie Mirage Drive kayaks.

It was early 2004 in the heat of February that I decided to paddle out to Fawlkner Beacon, which rests about 5km west of the Sandringham breakwall in the northern end of Port Phillip Bay. My target species was of course, the late season Snapper. In particular I was chasing the larger variety and was thus armed with no shortage of minced fish frame berley and fresh Squid for bait, which I'd had success here with in the past. I'd paddled out to the mark at about 6PM, about an hour before high tide.

The kayak I was paddling was not what most of us would call an ideal fishing yak. Despite this, I'd een out on numerous trips to this location before in the same yak, and even worse. This particular model was a Sevylor inflatable Sit-on-top, which is significantly stronger than you might expect an inflatable to be. It's greatest downfall as a fishing platform was the fact hat it was a bit of a pig to move through the water and it was adversely affected by high winds. Restricted to a motorbike for transport, this was the best thing I had available to me at the time.

There was no obvious reason why I should have been especially cautious on this day. With a mild south westerly blowing, conditions were perfect for the target species and paddling to the mark was a relatively leisurely affair (with a respectable Snook being accounted on the troll). Upon reaching my intended destination I lowered a barbel improvised as an anchor, baited up a simple pea-size running sinker rig with a Squid tentacle and waited for the action to begin. It was slow in coming, but the bite I was looking for came about an hour afterwards. The obligatory thumps and hard run of the fish confirmed what I'd been hoping for - there was a big Snapper on the end of my line and was peeling it off pretty quickly. Once I was sure the hook was set, I placed the rod between my legs (there was no rod holder on this yak), hauled up the anchor and then started to fight the fish. It was a fight that I allowed the fish to win for a while, by allowing it to tow me some distance while I slowly gained line. It towed me towards the western side of the bay.

I was having so much fun that I didn't notice a few significant changes in the weather until it was precariously late. The wind had shifted direction to a south easterly and had picked up in strength significantly. The waves had also chopped up quite a bit, rising to somewhere near a meter and a half. Meanwhile, the Snapper continued to tow me towards the opposite side of the bay. I'm not really sure how far I'd been towed by the time the fish found some reef to bust me off on, but the fight had only lasted about 5 minutes. In any case, it dragged me even further from my launching destination and by now the wind was helping to push me further away. At a guess, I'd say I was about 6 km from shore when I decided to turn back.

For the most part, I actually enjoyed the paddle back. It wasn't terribly cold and I was working so hard that it wouldn't have mattered if it was. The waves crashing over the deck and into my face became pretty enjoyable as well. Forward progress was slow but constant, so even though it was hard going I knew that I was moving forward. Eventually the shoreline drew nearer, although by now my strength was sapping pretty quickly and my shoulders felt like they were going to explode. Encouraged by the proximity of land I pushed on regardless, congratulating myself along the way for being able to do so. I remember thinking to myself 'this is the best workout my shoulders have ever had' and that’s precisely what I told my partner when I returned from the trip.

I had trouble eating that night. Although I was hungry enough to eat a horse, I had a problem with lifting a fork - my shoulders and arms were that scuppered. But when I woke the next morning, I had a much better understanding of the damage I'd really done. Both shoulders were aching terribly and it was near impossible to move them in an upward direction. I can't even remember what it was diagnosed as, but I do remember that it took over 12 months to heal. 12 long months... that's how long I was unable to go kayak fishing. That's also how fate led me to uncover the pedal-powered Hobie kayaks.

With the ability to pedal to my intended destinations (with relative ease), I can spare my shoulders to do all of the fishing work instead. I do still paddle my Hobie Outback - always on launch and landing, and often when I feel like an upper body workout) but never for extended periods and certainly never when fishing.

There were a couple of lessons to take from that experience. The first, most obvious one being that I should have paid more attention to what the weather was going to do. With such a fine start, I didn't feel a need to check the weather. Had I done so, I would have known a change in wind direction was likely. Had I known that, I wouldn't have paddled out 5km. The other obvious lesson here is that inflatable kayaks - no matter how good their construction just aren't well suited to travelling longer distances in open water. It's not so much their sluggish movement that is in question as much as it is the tendency for inflatable to be at the mercy of the wind much more than other yaks.