Boot Camp Thursday day 2

Not a great nights sleep last night .... Kouta decided that he would have a panic attack and that he would like to share it and his bad breath with me at some ungodly hour in the morning.  so here he was waundering up and down my side of the tent trying to find a spot so he could settle - it took him 30 mins to find the best spot which was right next to my head and there he settled for the rest of the morning which didn't last very long as he decided that he had the itchies which isn't really surprising as it is kooch grass here and that makes him itch so until day light every 30 secs he was up scratching ... at least he shared that with both of us.

The day was sunny to start and it was nice having brekky beside the waters edge.  I thought I would share a map of Lakes Entrance with you so you know where we are and where we will be kayaking ... the black dot is us on that green patch next to Rowe street ...

 so this morning we decided to kayak to the bridge, go under it and around to the right through a little estuary to as far as the Fishermans Co-op and back again ...

 As you can see from the photo below the clouds are beginning to build ...

 Kouta was a lot settled today and didn't seemed to worried when I pulled up alongside and even when I was a little in front ...

going under the bridge was fun 

 straight after the bridge you veer right as straight ahead is the narrows which is where all the boats go.  Just above Neils right side of the paddle is a boat that is on the narrows which then leads into the sea entrance ... I would imagine the flow might be a little fast there for us at the moment

 so down our little estuary the only people that can bit under the bridge ahead is us and swimmers!

 so we get to as far as we want to go which is where you can sort of see where everyone goes in and out to the entrance of the sea (difficult to see in this photo) so basically at the end of Bullock island.  We did get to see some boats being repaired at the Fishermans Co-op.

 To our left of our spot we can paddle down to the town frontage that is on the Cunninghame Arm

 We took 40mins to get there with a slight head wind and also 40mins to get back in time for a well earned cuppa.  Very happy with our 80mins stint at kayaking and the arms are getting stronger and don't feel sore at all, a little tired but that is okay.
So after lunch we rested and decided to go again at 3pm this time it was very cloudy and the wind had really picked up.  We decide to head up the north arm further ...

 We we are camped is exposed to the west south westerly that is coming up the north arm at the moment, despite the wind coming across and behind us it is very hard as it is whipping up the sea water and it is a bit like the waves we had while leaving NZ when we went on the Claymore!!!  as you can see from below the water is a little choppy!

Sticking to the right hand side we went up one side and came back down the other which was a little sheltered from the wind until we had to cross over the water to the campground side and that was fully exposed and the wind was in front of us and made the going hard.  But we made it and didn't feel scared or unsafe at all in the rough conditions.  Happy that we had hard conditions as that only strengthens the arm muscles.
One thing about the rough conditions is that we all got wet, we also felt warm while paddling but once we stopped you really felt the coldness set in!
Tomorrow ... who knows how far we will go, but as each day goes by we can feel less and less soreness and feel more stronger than the day before.