The Before Work paddles are a 5 week series of paddles where we meet on the same day each week for a 1 hour paddle. The first session is mostly instruction and after that we aim to paddle to a different location each week. We start out with relatively short paddles and increase the distance slightly each week. The group is limited to 8 people
The next series will start:
* Tuesday, April 3rd (1 places available)
Daylight Savings finishes on April 1st. Before then sunrise will be as late as 7:10am which means we can't do our 6:30 starts again till April.- NSW Maritime restrictions mean we can't run before sunrise.
In spring 2012 we will start these again on:
* Tuesday, August 21st (8 places available)
* Thursday, August 23rd (8 places available)
Here's a gallery of photos from a recent series.
We either paddles routes heading east or west from Lavender Bay. The routes heading west are generally easier so groups that are mostly new paddlers will do those routes. If those signed up have been before then we might do the paddles heading east from Lavender Bay. Sometimes we do a mixture of the two if weather conditions mean it's better to change the route.
When we paddle west from Lavender Bay the plan is:
| 1) Nearly all instruction with a short paddle
| (1.5 km)
|
| 2) Berrys Bay
| (5.5 km)
|
| 3) Balls Head Bay
| (6.5 km)
|
| 4) Gore Cove
| (7.0 km)
|
| 5) Mort Bay, Balmain and Snails Bay, Birchgrove
| (7.6 km)
| |
When we do the paddles east from Lavender Bay the plan is:
| 1) Nearly all instruction with a short paddle
| (1.5 km)
|
| 2) Careening Cove
| (5.7 km)
|
| 3) Neutral Bay
| (5.8 km)
|
| 4) Shell Cove
| (6.6 km)
|
| 5) Mosman Bay
| (7.8 km)
| |
We more or less stick follow this plan so distances gradually increase. Sometimes we might leave a little earlier for the longer paddles so it's an easier pace. Sometimes we might take it a bit easier if that's what suits the group on the day.
After the first session which is mostly instruction we try to meet 6:20 so we are on the water at 6:30 am. We aim to finish our paddles at 7:30am that can be a little later sometimes but it shouldn't be later than 7:45am.
If you've already done the instruction on a previous series then you can skip the first instructional session and the first of your five paddles will start from the following week.
I usually take pictures on each paddle and email these to everyone within a day.
