Moturoa-Rabbit Island paddle

In typical fashion, the weather and sea conditions forecast for this Saturday have left the planned paddle to Moturoa-Rabbit Island in the balance and will probably continue to do so until we depart from the marina on Saturday morning.

A little info on the forecasts, which are mostly in agreement. We are due a NE wind ranging from 5-10kts throughout the morning. On an outgoing tide that’s going to produce a bit of side-on chop both to and from our destination. There’s also the likelihood of some rain, though it doesn’t look as if it will be heavy.

At the moment it’s a green light for us to go, probably with skirts. The weather doesn’t look like it will deteriorate enough for us to have to cancel the trip altogether, so our backup plan will be to make Tahunanui Beach our half way point to swap paddlers, with a tour of the Boulder Bank – inside and out – to make up the paddling. Fingers crossed that we get to go with the original plan, but unless there is a drastic change in the predicted weather we WILL be going.

So….. we want to leave the marina at 08.00. With skirts potentially needing to be fitted and crews to be organised can we arrive at 07.30. This is the make-up of the waka (not set in stone and I am happy to make changes if we need to).

Nga Iti Tangata	Mangopare	Tuhirangi	Mangoripi
Greg Buck (S)	Jeff Neilson (S)	Henry Broughton	Eva Virtue (S)
Fi Lankshear	Raewyn Jenkins	Tom Marchant	Linda Heath (S) /Karen Clark (S)
Lida Aston /Jacinda Beyer-Rieger	Katie Thurston	Iain Fryer	Marlene Fawcett
Trish Sloan	Simone Newsham	Dave Langrish	Tracey Marvin
Cath Slotemaker	Jenni Bancroft /Bets Stallard	Rima Kaiao	Kate Stanitski
Jacqueline Dejong	Carol Hunter	Jason Daughtrey	Suzy Garlick
OC2
Jody Hughes
Tony Davies (S)

I have tried to make the waka as even as possible – with the obvious exception of Tuhirangi which has our guests from Wellington – and we will endeavour to stay together. Jody Hughes and Tony Davies are in an OC2 unless we have a no-show, in which case Jody will step in and Tony will grab a single.

Where there are two names, these are the paddlers who wanted to do just one leg. On arrival can the six of you get together and arrange who is going to do which leg and also arrange transport. It might be in one large vehicle, or probably in two, and the paddlers on the first leg will need to stash some dry clothes and also make sure there is a designated driver in each direction.

If it’s not pouring with rain we will have some sausages on the BBQ when we get back. If it is pouring, we will descend on River Kitchen for a coffee (once we have found some dry tables).

Any comments or suggestions, feel free to either email Tony on [email protected] or put something on the FB page.