One day in 1999 we actually paddled with the kayak club group, I think they were from Wynnum Redlands Canoe Club. 

  I have no reasonable excuse why I did not join a Canoe club in those days.  Every time I wanted to go paddling I was happy to do it by myself and either went locally or with Richard.  I was reasonably busy doing two Science degrees at the time and my paddling was keeping me as occupied as I wanted it to be.  (This was also in the age of film cameras, so therefore not many photos of these events were taken; there is a limited supply of photos of my kayak adventures.)  On this trip, from Cleveland (Wellington Point) around Peel Island and back, about two or three nautical miles all-up, with the kayak club group, we met a seal; the sea animal kind.  This is far too north to meet a seal (very unlikely in these warm waters), in the sub-tropical area of Brisbane.  The seal was very friendly and stayed on the surface with us for some time – I think it wanted some company.  Carrying on, and the seal no longer following us, we came to a reef and I and another kayaker trolled a fishing line with a lure attached: we caught nothing (I have never caught anything on a lure despite several attempts).  

This is a LURE

The Kayak at anchor while I did some snorkeling.

Near the far point of our excursion the blade on my paddle broke.  I was right beside the manager of the canoe-shop  I bought the paddle from when it happened, which was lucky.  I asked if they had a warrantee and the manager said he would replace it.  This was from Rosco Kayaks (a very well known and respected store in Brisbane City) and it was a generous gesture because I don’t think retailers usually do returns on paddles :  they can be abused too easily.  Anyhow, I had to paddle canoe-style using only one end of the paddle (I had no spare).  One of the other kayakers had a spare but I was not about to belittle myself and take a paddle off a more organised and elder paddler (I was a young 33 years old and the paddler was grey haired).  I paddled with all my might to keep with the front runners of the group because I was determined no-one was going to wait for me.  There was another paddler with us with a wooden kayak, other than Richard and I, that he designed and built himself; using its nineteen-foot length this kayak kept with us in the front.  He was going to paddle this nineteen-foot boat around Australia.  I never kept up with the story and do not know if he even started the journey.  In those days the internet was not what it was now and these people usually wrote a book and had it published when they did something adventurous like that (‘Keep Australia on the Left’ was a book the kayakers were reading at the time about a around Australia kayak attempt).  I was one of the first kayakers (or canoe-ist as I was) to make it back to the ramp at Cleveland (Wellington Point), Brisbane.  The wooden kayaks were picked up and carried by their owners by themselves; one of the fibreglass kayakers said ‘do you need a hand’ and the other wooden kayaker said ‘no, these are real boats’.  Fibreglass sea kayaks, in those days, were heavy craft and needed two people to carry them and lift them on a car-roof.  As a final note, on this trip it was commented that my kayak bobbed like a cork on the swells, the other fibreglass kayaks did not seem to be as buoyant as mine; I do not know if this is a good thing but I do not use a spray-skirt on my boat as I find the water rarely comes over the deck, even when loaded.  End Blog 7.