Today was the outer Cavalli islands, lots of caves and archways to explore. I had my GoPro running, so hopefully I can make a decent video of the trip. I'm planning to see the southern islands tomorrow.
I'm at Matauri Bay Campsite for the week, yesterday I made the 11.5 hour drive from the hutt Valley to here, and today we went "rock gardening", which is when you hug the coast and play amongst the rocks, paddling through narrow channels, and generally moseying around.
Tomorrow I aim to get over to the Cavalli islands, which is the main purpose of the trip.
Day three of operation "paddle every day of the long weekend" went well, with a circumnavigation of Kapiti island.
The combination of a big trip the day before, the early start to the day by my standards, and the heat had me feeling groggy and exhausted in the morning, but I felt better once we got a bit of a breeze later in the day, and the Panadol started working.
You can do it without the tides, it would just take longer. 4-4.5 kmh is typical pace in a loaded sea kayak. I've done bigger days, including a Strait crossing.
There is a mast, yes. It's rigged up with a line at the front of the mast, and two stays, so the mast can be raised and lowered from the paddling position, and there is a hinge at the base of the mast. There is also a trim line to change the angle of the sail.
The sail area is one square metre.
Mine is custom made by a sailmaker, but many paddlers use Flat Earth kayak sails.
My goal to paddle every day of the long weekend is coming along nicely, today I completed the Makara to Owhiro Bay paddle, and saw dolphins along the way.
This is a tricky one to plan, because the tidal flows along that coastline can exceed 10kmh at times, and you absolutely must time the trip to coincide with the tidal flow, you can't paddle against it.
We had tides, wind, and waves all behind us, so it was a very fast trip, especially as both of us have sails on our boats.
A combination of the sail and a following swell, with me paddling as well.