Holgat River to Port Nolloth

Up at 5am to be on the water by 6, a few minutes before sunrise. The sea had calmed down a lot. Not knowing exactly what the day’s wind forecast was, I tried to take a closer, conservative line to shore. Around 8am the wind suddenly switched to a hot but strong offshore, and I was outside one of the many reefs at the time, so I had to dig deep to get back inshore and avoid being blown out to sea. It stayed that way until about the last hour, when it faded to nothing.

Close to Port Nolloth I passed a few diamond boats. I came alongside one just to say hello. They asked the obvious question, “where did you come from?” After telling them, one chap just shook his head, said “jy’s f@$%ng mal”, turned around and carried on working. Got to love it.

Got the 38km covered in just over four hours. I tried a 1mm wetsuit top The Paddling Centre had given me to combat the cold water. What a difference it made. Can’t understand why we don’t wear them more in the Cape, especially on the late evening downwind paddles.

Yesterday we enjoyed the comfort of the Bedrock Lodge overlooking the harbour, courtesy of Freddie. As I write this the wind has switched to the north, and the next point south I can get out at is Kleinsee, still 56km away.