Are You Really Ready?

There was a moment of silence hidden in the chaos; a calm before the storm, the moment before true violence.

I had just watched my friends narrowly escape the hands of an ominous Tasmanian swell. One at a time, they carefully tip-toed and navigated their way through a minefield of white water, currents and foam. Bullet-proof walls of opal green formed a final adversary before the apparent safety of deep water.

For the entire night, we heard the swell steadily building, the thud of each crashing wave deepening into the early hours of the morning. And when we packed our tents under a judgemental, sullen sky, it was almost as if we were being blamed when the sun had forgotten to rise. There was a nervous energy on the beach; we all prepared to face the growing swell.

One by one, our frozen feet punched holes through the cold, crusty, white sand as it turned into an icy slurry that ebbed and flowed at our ankles. The hair on the back of our neck stood to attention. And as we entered the water’s edge, our skull-dragged kayaks grazed the shore leaving behind a temporary scar, which would be washed away and forever forgotten by the incoming tide. It was time. We were ready to confront the waves that had travelled so far to greet us. This wasn’t an ordinary swell. Not the kind that most of us were used to.

Born deep in the Southern Ocean, these muscular rolls of intimidating swells roamed free and untamed at 50 degrees of latitude. The outlaws of the ocean. They travelled thousands of kilometres, unchallenged by any mass of land, before threatening the South West Coast of Tasmania.

Chris and I were the last two on the beach. We’d anxiously watched the other five paddlers make their way through the breaking waves; now it was our turn. “Hurry up,” he said, while I carefully slid my camera into a waterproof bag. Chris was already in his boat at the water's edge. The span of his shoulders, atop his strapping six-foot three frame, dwarfed the tiny cockpit of his lightweight sea kayak.

A former Australian Adventurer of the Year and elite level kayaker, Chris was my senior by over thirty years and one of our team’s most experienced members. We’d met three years prior, when a few friends and I kayaked unsupported across Bass Strait, from the Australian mainland to Tasmania, where we made rock climbing first ascents on remote granite sea cliffs. He’d