As planned...or so I thought.
Unfortunately the Gadget was missing from the Finn online catalogue when i looked. Bemused I approached the company and learn that the mould/plug for the craft has not been delivering constant quality and requires tampering.
Moulds are fickle beasties as the whole male: female interface has to always work in congress as it were and it's easy for extruded matter to misshapen, take short cuts, or thin out.
So now I have to wait until the workshop in far off Western Australia gets into the re-engineering and starts production again.
Bugger.
So I do make ups of the boat's shape with rope on the grass to envisage it's size and beaminess. Next to that I park my 26 inch bike wheel hand trolley and imagine it being ported on top for the 2 kilometres I may need to pull the craft in order to launch it.
I could launch at 700 metres from the front gate so long as the tides embarking and disembarking are in my favor. Otherwise I'd need to drag or carry the boat across the exposed mud flats and sand banks to reach the shallow waters. So it is a toss up between seaside or river launch.
The river system is a rich mix of mangrove environments , tributaries and swamps. The coastal margin is shallow water fringing a large sheltered bay -- Deception Bay -- with patches of sea grass meadows.
I've found through my initial fishing expeditions that wading and casting with my hand line while moving parallel to the shore is a logistical challenge as the bottom lacks definition and drop offs, being very shallow both along the coast and for hundreds of metres out to sea. This means that targeting spots and establishing focus is very hard to do especially in the murky and muddy waters.
Hint: Always wear shoes when wading (I use old Dunlop Volleys) for fear of standing on stingrays,stonefish, sharp rocks or snags. And walk by shuffling rather than lifting the leg into a stomp. You never know what is below if you can't see the bottom. As for the self evident presence of , I assume, small bull sharks on my last fish up -- evidenced by the number of largish frightened mullet that kept jumping out of the water so close to me-- I only hope that my tootsies aren't shark bait although big three metre bull sharks are known to cruise the close by Caboolture River ... And a bull shark appreciates the shallows and any Tucker found there.
Nonetheless, at low tide you get to reconnoitre the lie of the land which will later be under water so you can walk the walk which later you will wade.
That said, by paddling I'm gonna be able to cover much more ground and get to many more spots in comfort with less need to over use my casting arm.
Boats are a wonderful invention, aren't they?
I also note that since Deception Bay is protected a tad on the south and south west by it's half moon shore line, it does lend itself to sailing so long as the sail craft has a very shallow draft. Since I've not seen any sail on the bay I find the locale to be custom made topography for canoe sailing. But shallow has to rule...and your often used sail craft don't lend themselves to this narrow depth. Thus the 'deception' in the bay's name.
Similarly, the standard Australian fishing icon -- the aluminum tinny with it's outboard motor -- has a draft requirement maybe up to one metre -- that makes the bay a tinny inconvenient place....as the few i've seen anchor for fishing either in the river or at some distance from the shore need to do so where the depth under the hull can accommodate the outboard. Often they'd be mud mixers every time the motor started.
And as with any boat, if the tide goes out and you bottom, you're stuck there until the tide comes in or some one drags you off the shoal.
So this Gadget business is looking everyday better and better.
Paddleski sync.
