Bass Strait...not long now!!

Well, it's been years since we first started talking about crossing Bass Strait, even before we met, we all had this desire to one day paddle the Bass and now it's less than a week away. The nerves haven't set in yet or at least not for me as I've been far too busy running around getting ready to worry about the trip. Today I had my car serviced before setting off on the 4000 kilometer journey, but only a few hours after picking it up, the clutch cable broke or at least that's what I'm hoping. Meanwhile the Victorian bush fires have lead to the closure of the road to Tidal River so it now looks like we'll be leaving from Port Welshpool on the Eastern side of Wilson's Promontory. As for the weather, the wind is finally blowing in the right direction but it's been tipping 50 knots, we're not too worried about the weather yet as it may have changed three times by the time we get down there.

In case you're wondering what Brian is doing sitting 'side saddle' on a kayak, he's testing our makeshift sea wings made up of two paddle floats. We were originally going to do the trip with a fourth member making any emergency towing scenario more manageable. The theory behind an "assisted tow", is that one paddler assists an injured or sick paddler while the other two tow them. Unfortunately, our good friend Paul Lang sustained a wrist injury after a bike accident and had to pull out of the trip so we had to come up with an alternative (sorry Paul, you've been replaced by two inflatable bags).

Now you have to realize that Brian is sitting in my Nordkapp and you can't normally sit in a Nordkapp like that without tipping over so this system clearly passed the test. With the positioning of the bags so far in the rear it actually makes it possible to paddle without too much difficulty.

That's it for now but keep an eye on this blog as it will be constantly updated during the trip.