I spent a Christmas lodging with my father and step-mother in Brisbane some years ago around the time of my move to Rockhampton (exact dates lost to memory but around summer 2003).  One particular day it was very windy, at least 20 knots, and I decided to go for a paddle around Peel Island, about 7kilometers off Cleveland (Wellington Point).  The trip out was windy but uneventful the wind mostly side-on to the direction of travel.  I decided to land on the beach of Peel Island.  Waves were breaking and I easily landed.  After 20 minutes or so I decided to leave.  I was unable to launch into the frequent waves breaking on the beach.  I know the platitude methods of launching on a beach :– get into the kayak on the beach where the water from the waves is breaking and walk the kayak out on your hands into a floating situation then paddle like hec  -- unfortunately this only works when the waves are not too frequently pounding the beach.  I tried everything to launch and eventually, after about 45 minutes, got off the beach and started paddling home.  The sea on the way home was, by now, tremendous: about two metre lines of swell-waves with a ten metre frequency and white capped.  Luckily the waves were coming about fifty degrees off my bow and were easily rideable by the kayak.  I held on to the paddle and forward-stoked the way back to Cleveland although I pointed the kayak about 20 degrees from my direction-of-travel into the wind to compensate for drift.  I was now about two hours past the time I said to my father I would be back.  When I eventually made it to the boat ramp I noticed my father had made the journey to Cleveland and saw me.  He reckoned he got a sickening felling when he saw my car at the boat-ramp and no sign of me.  He looked out in the distance with binoculars and could just make-out someone paddling when I was on the crest of the waves.  Dad said he nearly phoned the Coast Guard to start a rescue of me, he was that worried; it is one of the rare occasions he criticized me by jokingly calling me a crazy bastard.  I was very tired phyically from the days paddle Dad and Step Mother said, 'you must be very tired' to which I answered, 'no, it was just another paddle'.  That night Dad and I sat up watching TV; it took all self control I could muster not to fall asleep to prove to Dad that the days event was not a physical challenge.  Another story to put in my mis-adventures.