Queen Mary's Revenge

March 7, 2016

This fine morning I witnessed the best sunrise I have ever seen, the colour was just spectacular. I paddled ten kilometres across the harbour, from Petone to Oriental Bay. As you can see in the pics I started in absolute darkness beside the Petone wharf. It was pretty weird I was just off the end of it and I thought I could here dad shouting my name from on the wharf, but I knew he had driven off so I think it was the cadets doing their morning training stuff, and not my name.
When I woke up I looked at the shipping times for the morning because I knew I was going across. I saw that there were two ships I potentially had to worry 'ABOAT' (heh) the Interislander and one of the big cruise ships, the Queen Mary Two. I watched the Interislander pass as I was getting ready to go, but saw a bunch of lights moving in the dark in the channel to the straight and they looked kind of lopsided so I thought maybe the Mary had sunk. But it sailed up the channel, turned around the headland towards port and just started bearing down on me, and that freaked me. I just kinda sat there for about twenty minutes and waited for it to turn again to line up with the port, which it did soon after. But jeez having that huge thing coming at me jeepers.

P.S I had gotten out of my boat, Dad and I were loading the kayaks onto the roof of the car and I looked out and saw one of the tug boats that had been helping the Queen Mary Two, doing donuts. No kidding go YouTube it! They are bloody crazy boats.
C

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Paekākāriki to Paraparaumu return-ish

March 6, 2016

Been a few days.

Yesterday I did a three hour paddle it felt really good. It was really hard I was working into the current and the wind. I didn't have time to continue, I could've though. I went from Paekākāriki to Paraparaumu beach then back to Raumati South, when I got level with Kāpiti island and I looked at it and it seemed impossible even to consider going around it. However as I became nearer and nearer P'ram beach the island kind of just glided by, I am sure it would be different actually being near it, and it gave me hope.
It was sixteen kilometers, that's the longest one I have done and it felt very good.
C

Gps also clocks, time taken, average speed and stuff too.

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'Six Degrees is Your Outside Temperature.'

March 3, 2016

Very cold morning this morning, one of those ones where your toes don't want to touch the floor. It was very hard to get out of bed.

Went kayaking anyway! Another calm day and it was excellent once I was out on the water. I pushed really hard out to Matiu, and took the pics you can see.

As I was taking them my paddle slipped off my deck and five seconds later it was fifty metres behind me and getting further fast. I got that camera away quick! Then hand paddled for awhile trying to get back to it, or slow myself down enough where I was going slower than the current. Thankfully I got it! Otherwise I would have been stranded out on my own in the middle of the harbour without a paddle apart from my hands.
It was okay though, and I powered back to Petone in time for a shower, breakfast and school.
C

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Yay Another Fine Day! (and some other bits)

March 2, 2016

Finally had another good morning, calm and no wind! Just finished going through a bunch of related stuff, like sponsors, my document, and my scheduling for the next week. May paddle to Wellington on Friday, that should be fun. And I am going to do a three hour paddle on Saturday in Paekak this weekend. Also going to make some website changes, like getting the gallery tab sorted and some more info and stuff. looking around I think my bedroom is going to wallpapered in project work after this.
C

My phone had a hard time compensating for the really low light.

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Waikaremoana and Training Snag

February 29, 2016

Hey everyone, I am back.
We had a school camp tramping around Waikaremoana, that's why I was away. Here is a couple of pictures from on of the bluffs on the first day.
Regarding kayaking and training, I have hit a little bit of a snag in that sunrise now is all after seven in the morning, and I start at six, which makes training in the dark, which is much less fun. I have to buy a light so bigger boats can see me, that will take a few days and that is kind of annoying.
I have Polo tonight, I'm very excited about that. I missed last week, and they won one, drew one which is pretty good. Tonight we are going to smash them. :)

C

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Polo, Swell and Wind.

February 17, 2016

Sorry I have missed a few days, so lets recap!

Arrived back at dads Sunday night and went out Monday morning, but kept it relatively short as I had Canoe Polo that night. Which was awesome, two and half hours of solid insanity. It ends around ten a o clock, already an hour after my usual bed time, and we didn't get home until eleven... So I did not go out Tuesday morning but went for a long paddle that afternoon going from Petone just off Matiu then down to Makaro island then back up to Days Bay. This is the longest solo paddle I've done in the harbour, and it was great, the swell picked up and was going with me all the way to Makaro, and I was practicing surfing them in my big boat which was really fun and gives kind of little breaks as you travel their face.
This morning, when we got to Petone it was still dark, unkayakably so. We had to wait about twenty or so minutes before it was light enough to paddle (see last photo for lightness). I went around Matiu again and for the first time kayaked through the dawn. When I started it was still basically dark and by the time I got back it was light. As I was paddling out to the island I had a light breeze and when I rounded the Southern face of Matiu I was slapped in the face by a much more hearty breeze which was quite hard work to push into. I mused in my head about just turning out of it and going to Wellington, but pushed back to Petone all the same
C

Picture of Makaro with my new little camera.

Wednesday morning. Street lights make it look a little lighter than it is.

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Trip On The Coast

February 13, 2016

I'm getting some new lumps on my thumbs, first my left, then my right. And the paddle I did this morning was about half the distance of the crossing and it didn't feel too bad, which is great!

C

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My First Cirumnavigation Of Matiu Island

February 11, 2016

I circumnavigated Matiu/Somes Island today. As I was getting near to actually doing it I had to really push myself. About a quarter of the way around I started imagining what could actually happen if I had to emergency exit out of my boat, because I couldn't see Petone at this point and was a little exhausted. So my thoughts were if I had to swim to Matiu and a shark came up and ate me, there would be no body or anything - no one would know what happened at all. Then I was like, that would have to be a pretty huge shark so maybe just a foot or something. And then having to swim to the island. But even if you lost a foot you would probably bleed out and I didn't have anything to tie a tourniquet with. Anyway I pushed those thoughts out of my mind and continued around. By the time I was around the island the air had warmed enough that the wind had picked up substantially and it was hard work getting back into the lee of Peteone where it was a calmer, then it was just a matter of powering back to shore.
C

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Six In The Morning Pics

February 11, 2016

Had a hard time waking up this morning because my bloody alarm didn't go off. >:(

This is from this morning, the Hutt seems really different at this time in the morning - it's kind of surreal.

C

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Fixing My Rudder

February 11, 2016

So, as it turns out, parents actually bought two boats for me at Christmas and this is the one I am using on the harbour at the moment. These pics are from a few days ago when we did some work on it - the rudder pin fell out and that is what we're fixing.
C