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March 22, 2005
If all else fails, read the instructions...
The past couple of days has been spent wrestling with the foldable Klepper kayak. After 4 hours of cursing at German engineering I finally gave up and read the instructions. Amazing! 10 minutes later something vagualy resembling a kayak lay before me.
The rest of yesterday was then spent in Cairns, making the rounds of camping stores for a decent knife and waterproof matches, and the supermarket store for a week's supply of food: 5 pounds of rice, 4 pounds of porridge oats, 20 muesli bars, a bag of raisins and 10 sachets of soup. That's it (I tell a lie - my one extravagence being a jar of marmalade). Space is so limited in the Aerius 2000 that the remainder of the space will be dedicated to 25 litres of water (5 litres/day for 5 days).
This morning I took the kayak and all the supplies down to the barge on the wharf that stops off at Lizard Island tomorrow morning. I tried hitting the skipper up for a free ride but no go - something to do with insurance liability. So tomorrow midday I take the Mac Air flight and hopefully reconnect with my gear there. Weather remains good - SE-NE 10-15 knots, swell inside the reef less than 1 metre.
Posted on March 22, 2005 7:31 AM