A Daring Adventure, in an Afternoon...

'Because life is a daring adventure, or nothing at all'.

Inspiring words from a great friend, but not meant to be a call for an epic Shackleton-esque adventure, just a reminder about having an adventurous attitude.

Living in Sydney we can be swept away by the traffic congestion, over stimulation of constant crowds in one of the world's busiest cities, but adventure is right there on the fringes, especially for us paddlers, where the sea interacts with the coast.

On Tuesday I made it along to the annual Tuesday night Xmas paddle, usually a short paddle followed by a long celebratory picnic. This year the crew that assembled at Vaucluse Bay was strong & keen, and the sea breeze was building from the Nor East, so Rob decided were heading out past North Head to give ourselves a long & fast run home to our picnic venue on Ronaldo Island.

We ground our way past the nude dudes on Lady Jane Beach to South Head where Kenny nearly had his afternoon curtailed in spectacular fashion. As we traversed to North Head the winds picked up, accelerating over the cliffs and slowing us down appreciably. 

Regrouping in the shadow of the buttress the guys then plotted a line into the wind as far north as Bluefish Point.

These guys are well organised and capable, arranging a staggered start for the long downwind section so as to have everyone paddling within eyeshot despite the wild water making it hard too stick too close. The paddle back was fast, bouncy, fast, bouncy & fast. Yee haaa....

Detouring across the harbour to another little beach full of perplexed nude dudes, we then climbed the cliffs to say G'day to our mate Chris, at a secret spot that is close to his and his family's heart.

With an imposing pair of thunderstorms converging from north and south we paddled hard across the harbour to Ronaldo Cove, where we set up a modest picnic ground & sat down to enjoy a lot of cheese, some prawns and a couple of cold libations. I'm glad I quite like cheese.

On the way across the 'Voyager of the Sea' steamed past, juxtaposing the nine of us having a wonderful adventure on the sea, with the 9000 (or is 90,000) on board the Voyager about to head out for another kind of adventure on the sea...! Oh man if only they knew....

As the sun set the city lights sparked up, the Xmas party boats started their scenic loops of the harbour and we soaked it all up from our humble vantage.

To top off an afternoon of howling winds, steep breaking seas which sent us rollicking along at tremendous speed, a thunderstorm light show out to sea which went for hours, an eerie calm descending in time for us to have clear skies for our picnic, we then paddled in the dark back to Vaucluse Bay with a bioluminescent light show in the water that lit up each paddle stroke like a sparkler. 

All up 20km of as varied a set of water, wave, wind & atmospheric conditions as you could hope to encounter in a month, let alone a couple of hours within a 15 square kilometre patch of the earth.

What a great finish to a brilliant year of paddling, thanks to Nick, Kenny, Andrew, Tim, Davlin, Kevin & Rob for letting me tag along.

Merry Xmas...!