Ian, kiting past Winderabandi this morning on the final run up the Ningaloo Coast. Arriving in Exmouth tomorrow.
For anyone in the area interested in meeting Ian on his arrival in Exmouth on Thursday afternoon, here’s the expected location where he’ll land, near the Exmouth lighthouse:
-21.803785, 114.107067
(just paste these number directly into Google Maps to find the location)
Looks like he’s stopped at Turquoise Bay for the night. Couldn’t imagine a better place to be at the moment!
TUESDAY EVENING UPDATE: 2052hrs
No word from Ian or the crew this afternoon or evening but he switched off the GPS tracker at 615pm after making his way to the beach and to the last vestiges of “civilisation” about 55km north or Coral Bay and 53km south of Yardie Creek. I’m not sure what’s there but on Google Earth, it looks like perhaps a ranger depot or something similar. There’s absolutely nothing else man-made within 50km of his current location so hopefully the crew will be able to track him down in the support vehicle and get some dry clothes and a swag to him for the night. He’s well and truly out of any conceivable mobile coverage, if you believe the Telstra maps, which are always overly optimistic in their claims, to the point of absurdity. Even Telstra don’t claim coverage here.
TUESDAY ARVO UPDATE:
Ian left Coral Bay at 1435hrs today wi th a stretch goal of Yardie Creek.
As of 5pm he’s done 53km and Yardie Creek is still about 55km away.
The forecast for Exmouth suggests the wind will keep blowing, right past dark, so we might see the first “NightKite” session today unless he decides to stop a bit short and call it a day.
We don’t actually have an online weather monitoring station at Exmouth– only a forecast model — so no way of knowing what’s actually going on there, except that his most recent update on the GPS tracker has him travelling due N at 35.1km/hr at 1715hrs, having just rounded the cape at Cloates Hill.
Not many options for hooking up with anyone else in this part of the world so hope his crew will be able to connect with him this time.
Big thanks goes out to fellow kiter Col Walker in Coral Bay for looking after Ian last night when the crew weren’t able to join him and for loaning him his harness to complete the rest of the mission!
Will post again later if I hear from Ian or the crew by satphone this evening.
Ian’s “Macgyver’d” harness that he kited on into Coral Bay yesterday.
Just when you think you’ve done the hard bit and the easiest and most hassle-free part of the journey is now ahead of you, the dramas begin to unfold…
Ian left 3-Mile Camp/Tombstones yesterday afternoon with what seemed to be pretty steady and gentle winds ahead. Then about 20km north of Gnaraloo Bay the wind went a bit crazy, changing directions — even a near-180 degree shift at times to northerlies, with the gusts whipping the kite about madly. I didn’t ask, but I’m guessing that he was flying the 19m at the time. The gusts worsened, swung southerly again and he began getting yanked about as the wind ramped up and down.
At this stage he’ gone too far to head back to Gnaraloo, so with no choice but to continue, running pretty much straight downwind — ironically, one of the most difficult directions to deal with on a downwinder when it gets gusty, as you’re constantly getting yanked along, outrunning the kite and forever trying to keep the kite from falling out of the sky.
Late afternoon an extra-strong gust ploughs into the kite, blasting the harness apart, ripping the whole rig off, taking the kite, harness, bar line and the leash — and leaving Ian behind, floating with only the board.
He does his best to swim, towing the board, towards the kite and the rig, now in the water several hundred metres downwind. After a considerable swim, he’s still roughly 500-600m from the beach at this stage — he manages to catch up with the kite, harness, bar and lines, but because the harness has been ripped apart, he has no way to re-attach the harness. He’s left with no choice but to relaunch the kite (yes, you CAN relaunch a foil from the water!) and try and work his way across the wind back toward the beach, unhooked.
Remember, he’s flying a 19m foil.
After relaunching the kite, even fully depowered, it’s nearly impossible to hang onto it with the gusts and no harness, as the only way to fly is hanging onto the bar with one hand and holding the chicken loop with the other to keep it depowered as much as possible. (remember, his harness has been ripped apart)
The kite goes down a couple more times, Ian relaunches it, finally having to hold onto one side of the bar and kiteloop it over and over to make some downwind progress without losing hold of the kite. After all the up and down action, at some stage the spreader bar disengages from the harness and is lost.
After some time (remember, wind here is straight cross-shore so you’re getting pulled along the beach, not toward it) Ian manages to edge enough to kite along the beach another 24km (without a harness) where, just before dark, (640pm according to he GPS), coincidentally, he encounters a young bloke, Joey, who’s been taking photos of him — and turns out to be a kiter!
Joey’s camped nearby and Ian attempts to contact the crew, but to no avail. Joey offers Ian his extra swag and some red wine and before long the red is gone and they crash out.
Turns out that the crew vehicle has had TWO flats while trying to reach Ian, so they were unable to make it to the camp.
This morning, Ian has tied up the harness with some rope and (I’m assuming) has fashioned some form of a make-shift spreader bar that’s allowed him to continue kiting. He’s launched as the wind came in, kiting the remainder of the distance to Coral Bay to await the arrival of the support crew.
My most recent GPS coordinates (1505hrs) showed him stationary at a Coral Bay venue which appears to be the pub…
Ian and the crew are hanging in Gnaraloo today after another successful leg of the SoldierOn mission from Perth to NW Cape. Some extraordinarily generous donors have kicked in some big dollars to the campaign, which has now exceeded its campaign goal of $10,000 by a few thousand. But don’t let that slow down the donations. Any amount that you can afford to help out our Australian soldiers who’ve suffered as a result of service to their country is welcome.
https://soldieron.giveeasy.org/campaigns/kitesurfing-perth-to-the-north-west-cape/
Just spoke with him on the satellite phone about an hour ago. He made it from Carnarvon to Blowholes y’day. Wind at Blowholes had just swung south and started to pick up. Looks like he’s launched the kite and just left the beach at 1207. Forecast is calling 10-15 knots from South initially, turing SW then increasing to 15-20 later, so Ian’s on the 10m Flysurfer today. Today’s target is the Gnaraloo/Toombstones region if all goes to plan, which is about 75km in point-to-point distance. Next possible stopping point is Coral Bay, which is another 90 km beyond Gnaraloo, so suspect he’ll tackle that bit on on another day.
Ian made the news on GWN7 last night. Here’s the clip:
https://au.gwn7.yahoo.com/w1/video/-/watch/25520767/epic-kite-surfing-journey-almost-complete/
UDPATE: Had a quick catch-up with Ian this morning.
With the forecast showing strong winds for the majority of the day, the decision to ride the 6m foil was taken and the launch from about 10km SE of Steep Point went without incident at 0907hrs.
The crossings were a big challenge but he made it safely to Carnarvon with no major dramas, landing at Carnarvon at 1634hrs. If you followed him yesterday, you’d have noticed that he slowed down dramatically for about half an hour off the end of the point at Peron National Park.
If you’ve been out there on the end of the Point yourself, you’ll be aware that it’s a humbling and majestic part of the world, but it’s unlike anywhere else I’ve ever seen. A dramatic meeting of red sand, bright blue/green water, blue skies and jagged cliffs makes for a majestic sight, but the combination of the cliffs, the point, the deep channel just off the point and the sections of reef rising further out does crazy things to the wind and the currents. You can toss a 50gram sinker in the water off the point on the end of your fishing line and it’ll get dragged along like a cork. The wind swirls around all over the shop and often changes direction from moment to moment.
Despite there being consistent 20+ knot winds for most of the mission earlier-on, he actually got becalmed for about half an hour after making the decision to head across to Carnarvon. A few km off the point the kite fell out of the sky twice and started blowing towards him, but he managed to get it relaunched and got on his way again. So much for the claims that you can’t relaunch a foil from the water! I’m sure Ian will elaborate later but he said the crossing to Carnarvon was extremely rough water, causing him to ride much slower than he could have done on flat water.
No dramas to speak of getting across to the mainland coastline. Along the way to Carnarvon he had to dodge quite a few sticks poking out of the sea floor but other than that, no other impediments or obstacles. He was hoofing off to get a coffee earlier this morning when I spoke with him.
We’d organised for GWN7 to interview him shortly afterwards. All going to plan, there should be a story on the GWN7 news about the mission tonight, so keep an eye out!
They had offshore winds in Carnarvon this morning, but the forecast was indicating it might swing around by afternoon.
The plan is to make a call based on what the condition look like and if possible, make a run to Blowholes or Quobba Station, then wait it out until the conditions improve. As of midday, it was still blowing a gusty ESE so still watching and waiting.
Stay tuned for more… The mission has nearly reached it fundraising goal — if you haven’t donated yet, please consider putting some $$s towards this worthy cause to help our Australian soldiers who’ve given so much! https://soldieron.giveeasy.org/campaigns/kitesurfing-perth-to-the-north-west-cape/
Below: For scale, note the guys standing on the clifftop on the upper right 
Kalbarri Coastline
CARNARVON!
Just received GPS tracking info that he’s landed in Carnarvon. Incredible mission! Simply amazing. On the water non-stop from 0907hrs until 1630 hours without a rest. SEVEN hours of non-stop kiting — much of it in open waters. Total distance covered today: Roughly 170km.
Bet he’s stuck into a cold one about now!
More news as we hear about the trip — hopefully, later today!
This is going to get interesting really soon. From the GPS tracker info, looks like Ian and the boys drove to about 11km SE of Steep Point and he’s already pushed off and is headed for Denham. He’s cleared the point and now on a 25km run across open water before he reaches Denham. Holy Crap. Nail-biting stuff…
https://soldieron.giveeasy.org/campaigns/kitesurfing-perth-to-the-north-west-cape/
Wednesday night mission update:
Haven’t heard from the boys since about 1:30 this afternoon when the GPS tracker checked in just south of the Hamlin Pools turnoff on NW Coastal Highway.
Given the weather conditions (30+knot Sou’easters and 4m swell) the plan was to drive to Steep Point and assess whether it was feasible to safely restart the journey from there, so I suspect they’ll be camped there tonight and check in tomorrow morning.
A few of Kat’s photos from yesterday as Ian was pushing off from Drummond Cove:
