The Saga of Seal Island

I must admit, I stole all this pictures from Sean (remember him, our super awesome tour guide over Christmas)? He was also the super awesome tour guide who took Anna, Markus, Sarah and me kayaking on day 7 of our 6 day tour.

After a little maneuvering, rope tying, and squeezing into a 2-door wedged underneath kayak paddles, we headed down to Rockingham with the intent of paddling out to Penguin Island and Seal Island. There are penguins on Penguin Island, and Sea Lions on Seal Island...go figure. Sarah has gone with Sean before, where they went swimming with them. The math went like this:

1 solo kayak + 1 tandem kayak + 5 people = a tactical plan-of-attack.

Plan A: Penguin Island is separated from the main beach by about 500 meters of sandbar. So you can walk across it (there's also a ferry, but what kind of adventure is that?!). Anna and Markus were going to walk across to Penguin Island and Sarah, Sean and I were going to paddle over, go to Seal Island, then back to Penguin Island where Anna and Markus would swap into the tandem kayak and paddle over to Seal Island. A perfect plan!

Unfortunately, as we were getting ready to shove off the beach, Anna and Markus were walking back towards us. The sandbar route had just been closed by the surf lifesavers because it was too windy and too dangerous (apparently someone drowned out there a few years ago). The notorious afternoon westerly was definitely kicking (as evidenced by the bunch of kite surfers cruising around).

Plan B: Anna made all attempts to rent, beg, borrow, steal a kayak or a ride over to Penguin Island on the surf lifesaver boat. Surprisingly, that didn't work. Now, Sean, Sarah and I would paddle over to Penguin Island where Sarah and I would look around, and Sean would tow the tandem kayak back to the beach where Anna and Markus would then paddle over to Penguin Island, and we would take turns going over to Seal Island. Now worries, Sean is super tour guide, kayak tour captain.

Skirts on, bungs plugged, and deck hatch covered with makeshift plastic bag cover, we jumped with our awesome life jackets and headed out towards Penguin Island. 100 meters (if that) directly into the headwind, we realized that even if we made it to Penguin Island, it would be crazy for Sean to tow the tandem kayak back. Abort mission! Well not completely.

Plan C: We decided we could still go across wind, check out Seal Island, then go back to Penguin Island, and back to the beach to swap with Anna and Markus. Because my family is awesome, we had two kayaks growing up, but it's mostly been flat water kayaking on ponds and lakes. Most recently the Howie family went on a fishing expedition that resulted in me in one kayak, my brother in another, both of us tied to my parents in the canoe, which was anchored. If you saw us, you'd think it was ridiculous. I'd call it pretty ingenious. I wasn't sure we'd even make it to Seal Island! Over the rolling waves (don't worry, they weren't that big), Seal Island seemed to be staying in the same spot. Were we even moving? We made it, just as the sea lions were all taking a nap on the beach. Not a single one in the water. As you may know, I'm not an animal person, so it was irrelevant to me if we saw them at all. I had no intentions of swimming with them! After a few attempts to get them up an moving, we decided to paddle back to Penguin Island, into the wind...

Yeah, we didn't make it 50 meters. We were still behind the protection of some rocks and moving nowhere. This was not going to work...

Plan D: Turn around and paddle back to the beach with a tailwind and run to Anna and Markus, who would then come meet the kayaks and have their turn going to Seal Island. We  basically drifted to shore, just fighting the wind that was grabbing the stern and trying to spin us around. Sean and I ran 9 minutes along the beach (he timed it, not me), dodging kite surfer's strings (an ready to hit the sand if they got too close), we met unsuspecting Anna and Markus, looking out into the water for the brave kayakers who had abandoned them.

1. Our basic proposed route.

2. Our actual route.

After that, everything went just as planned! Anna, Markus and Sean paddled out to Seal Island where the sea lions were now playing in the water, made it back, and we had a hodge-podge of leftovers from the tour while sitting comfortably out of the wind behind the protection of the restroom.

  

A sunset at South Beach, a couple throws of the football, a late night dinner in Freo, and we were on the train back to Perth. A great spontaneous Day 7 after all (thanks Sean!) We'll make it to Penguin Island next time...