A week on the Mid North Coast

Just spent a week at the beach. Weather was mostly miserable, but had the decency to clear on Thursday for the local fireworks before closing in again late Friday. Indeed, there was so much rain up till Thursday that when I was on the water on Friday, the water wasn't saline enough for my sharkshield to operate! It was also enough to open the little lagoon and let out the putrid water.

Fishing was simply not worth writing about. Had three sessions with the first two producing only red rock cod and the final giving me a couple of serves of sashimi slimy mackerel with sergeant bakers and pike thrown in for annoyance value. Slimys came on trolled and cast 4" power minnows for those interested in collecting bait or a simple feed.

From a kayaking perspective, I finally got a chance to put the evolution through its paces in the surf. The local beach was very shallow for a long distance, then dropped off. This produced a nasty shore dump at low tide that we (my son tried as well) simply could not conquer and had the bow of the evo plant into the sand on a few occasions.

The only way to get out through this was to drag out the ski by the bow, wait for the set to finish, then leap on and punch through the next set. Neither of us got hammered doing this though the ski took on a bit of water in the pounding. The evo punched through the waves nicely and without the back-breaking jarring that comes from going over the wave then dropping.

Coming in the evo was well behaved. Just have to accept that the bow does plough into the water as the wave drives you forward. However, it never perled before the shore dump. Paddling ahead of the wave always kept it straight.

Indeed, the evo behaved so well that I'm now wondering for how long will I keep the tunny (which I took up but didn't see salt as my son declined to join me, even in the afternoon).