Kayaking Coffin Bay

The weather was windy again. We headed south but had to detour along way out to get past the points. I felt that the southerly wind had blown a lot of the water out of Coffin Bay and lowered the water level. We were going to get to another campsite, but decided the wind was so bad, and we knew it would be worse the following day, that we would aim for Coffin Bay township. We battled the wind past the entrance to Yangie Bay. It was then trying to keep as close to the coast as possible without grounding our kayaks in the shallows on the sand.

We stopped for lunch on the western part of Coffin Bay township. We eventually made it to the boat ramp at Coffin Bay, where it was much more sheltered. We loaded up Karen’s car and headed for the Coffin Bay Caravan Park, where we had one of the few vacant sites.

It was still windy in the morning. We knew that the next days forecast was for a strong southerly so we had to make as much distance as we could. We had a long portage with the kayaks and gear even to get deep enough water to float them. Then we had to walk the kayaks further. All the water had been blown away from Longnose.

We paddled south in growing wind and waves. We got closer to one of the oyster farms but it was getting really rough with almost a metre high waves. We headed closer to the shore, but could not find anywhere to land, it was too rocky. We got around a point and found some shelter to stop for food. We saw yachts sailing the other side of the bay.

We dried ourselves out, and pushed south. The weather was better, and we made it around Eely point. We decided to make for the southern part of the bay south of Eely point opposite big Yangie campsite. Things were going well until the fickle Coffin Bay weather started again. The wind picked up from the south and we struggled against the wind until we made it to shore and our campsite on the beach. At the campsite there was no-one around, just emu footprints on the beach.

We had a warm night with Bioluminescence in the water, that I didn’t photograph or think was that important, probably because I was half asleep. We headed north again stopping for a break past Black Springs.  We could see Oyster boats going backwards and forwards to the Oyster farms in the distance. Then back in the water we came across a pod of dolphins. We watched them for about 30 minutes while they swam around us. Then Coffin Bays fickle weather struck again and we struggled to paddle north against the wind. We got into the shallow water near Longnose, but its was still extremely windy. We landed on Longnose and had lunch and wondered what to do. I walked along and we found room for a tent in a campsite hidden in the scrub on the dunes out of the wind.

We got going heading north along the coast.  As we headed north we entered a large bay that ran between north of Yangie Bay to Eely point. Once we got to the southern part of the bay I had to pull in to see if I could fix my rudder. My rudder played up the whole trip, jamming and making it difficult to steer. I made the rudder a little bit better, and we headed straight north across the bay towards Eely point. This was our first experience with the fickle weather of Coffin Bay. Once we got about halfway across the bay, this northerly sprung up, and battered us with wind and steep, sharp waves. We paddled and paddled but I started watching landmarks on the shore, and realised we were not moving north at all. I said to Karen, lets paddle straight west to the shore and stop for lunch.

We stopped for lunch under the shade of a tree, because it was hot. After maybe an hour the wind completely stopped and we paddled north again in almost complete calm. We were aiming for Black Springs campsite where we had another booking, but there was no way we were going to make it. We stopped at a little bay north of Eely point, where we saw a dolphin cruising past. We made camp.

 

 

It took us two days to get to Coffin Bay. First day was from Karen’s place in Mannum to Port Augusta Caravan Park, the Discovery Park. Second day was from Port Augusta to Port Lincoln, because we couldn’t get a campsite at Coffin Bay Caravan Park. So by the time we got to Coffin Bay on Sunday morning it was late morning before we started to load the kayaks. We jammed the kayaks full of gear, and lots of water, because we couldn’t resupply with water anywhere but Coffin Bay. We set off in fairly reasonable conditions, and headed west to Yangie Bay. We had a campsite booked at Big Yangie but we had been told that the locals just camped where ever they liked in the national park, and that was sort of accepted. We got to a spot just north of the entrance to Yangie Bay and made camp. There was a great sunset that night. We didn’t see anyone around.