Crossing Banks Strait North to South.

 This is written after my training trip to Trousers Point in 2016, and I totally missed getting near Little Musselroe Bay paddling from Preservation Island. I had to paddle hard in the end to land on Swan Island. 

At home I pondered over why I had missed landing on Cape Portland again. Elli and I paddled across there in the dark and paddled straight into Little Musselroe Bay in 2002. 

“We headed magnetic south by our compasses and were taken just right by the tide to end up at Little Musselroe where we could see the inlet through the beach. Laurie had mentioned that as soon as we lost sight of the lighthouse on Swan Island we would be entering an ‘obscured sector’ and must be at Little Musselroe bay. Tide was at its prime pouring out and while Laurie went in fine I had trouble pulling against it and got out to pull my boat around into the bay, (my second dowsing) got back in and paddled a dozen strokes across to the boat ramp. It was 10:40pm.” 

And years before that I paddled from Preservation to Little Musselroe Bay with no trouble on a trip with Jeff and Grant and Mick – I’d gone back to Preservation to turn the gas off at the cylinder that Mick had left on. I paddled straight into Little Musselroe Bay that time as well. So why the failure with The Girl (2014), and again this time? 

I think this time one of the reasons was that I came across with a westerly wind (leaving 1 hour before HW at Swan Island) and in the 3 hours that wind took me further east than if there had been no wind. Without that I would have been further west and I would have made it easily I think – I was so close. 

The other reason that I have never taken into account before was the height of the low and high tides. I have normally told people to paddle across here by leaving Rebecca Bay on Clarke Island 2 hours before High Water and then you will go 2 hours west and then 2 hours back to the east and end up where you want to be. It wouldn’t matter if the current was 20 knots or 2 knots – you would get 2 hours in each direction. 

But starting from Preservation I am counting on being just to the west of Cape Portland as the tide starts to run to the east (ebbing) and paddling across that current to get to shore before being swept away. If the high water level was low, and the low water level high – then there would be a small difference between high and low water and therefore a much smaller current at full flow. But if say it was a very high high tide and a very low low tide then the current would be much much stronger. 

This time the tide when I got to Little Musselroe was as low as I’ve ever experienced it, and the same with the tide there when The Girl and I did it in 2014 (Liz had never seen it so low).
“(the tide was very low so we had to drag our kayaks into the bay)” 

But on the trip with Elli it was much higher,
“Tide was at its prime pouring out and while Laurie went in fine I had trouble pulling against it and got out to pull my boat around into the bay, (my second dowsing) got back in and paddled a dozen strokes across to the boat ramp. It was 10:40pm.” 

The other trip when I’d gone to Preservation Island to turn the gas off I also paddled straight into Little Musselroe Bay so it was not a low low tide. So I am now convinced that was the difference. When approaching Cape Portland when there is a small difference between low and high tide the current starting to build up is slow and it is easy to paddle across it to get to shore before being swept away towards Swan Island. But when the difference is much larger then the current is much stronger and you do get swept away. It would seem to me that in future if the difference is small then paddling from Preservation would be OK, but if it is large than I should go to Rebecca Bay on Clarke Island and leave there in time to be west of Cape Portland at high tide. It is about a 3 hour paddle across there at least so it means leaving Rebecca Bay at mid-tide – when the current is running at its fastest. This will mean paddling through overfalls off Rebecca Bay – in 2016 we did this on our Bass Strait crossing and it was like crossing a river, but only about 100 metres across. We were spot on at Cape Portland as our track shows. Our kayaks were pointing magnetic S the whole time.

These are the heights of the tides on those days when I have paddled from Preservation Island. Being swept to Swan Island (in red) and when I did make it to Little Musselroe without any problem (in green). 

2014 with The Girl, 3^rd March.
HW = 3.40
LW = 0.41
A difference of 3 metres. 

This year, 2016, Saturday 16^th January.
HW = 3.42
LW = 0.46
Again a difference of 3 metres. 

2002 with Elli, Saturday 23^rd February.
HW = 3.10
LW = 1.04
A difference of 2 metres. 

1995 (Mick), Saturday 11^th February.
HW = 3.0
LW = 0.5
A difference of 2.5 metres.

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