NK Beach to Beach Ocean Paddle
The 2023 Beach to Beach race from Moffat Beach to Mooloolaba Spit hosted by Mooloolaba Paddlers and sponsored by Nordic Kayaks.
A fantastically organised event with an unbelievable turn out (from just over 100 entrants last year to over 220 this year) as this formed part of the Paddle Queensland Ocean Racing series as well as the Shaw and Partners Australian Ocean Racing series. Not only was the field big, but it also drew in a very high calibre of paddlers with all bar a few of the big guns turning up. Well done to Mackenzie Hynard and Phoebe Woodhouse for winning the men’s and ladies titles respectively.
I personally had a decent race, I didn’t push too hard but didn’t slack off much either. It gives me hope for big improvements one day when I will be at full fitness leading up to and during a race 🤣🤣
Unfortunately for the video I missed a rather spectacular finish on film…i turned my camera off around the halfway mark once the field had split right up and there wasn’t much to see. I tuned it on again near the headland as I started to converge again with other paddlers, but I didn’t hear the beep and thought I hadn’t pushed the record button properly, so pushed it again accidentally turning it off after about 10 seconds.
So for those who can be bothered reading this, I very surprisingly was in front of a fellow Sunshine Coast Paddlesports Club member, Jason who I have never been in the lead against before right up to the headland where he caught up to and overtook me. He lead around the first marker buoy and somewhere after that I managed to get back in front and hold a marginal lead all the way in. Looking at a video taken from the beach Jason came in on the same wave as me so pretty much neck and neck. The marshals shouted to get off early which I did, not knowing I would find myself in waist deep water. Jason got out in ankle deep water and I couldn’t do anything but watch him sprint up the beach. In all fairness he probably would’ve out sprinted me anyway, I ambled up the beach and unfortunately got pipped right on the line by a guy paddling a double ski that we had worked really hard in the last km or two to catch and overtake, I just forgot he was there and didn’t realise until he was past me…starting to think Oscar Chalupsky is on to something when he says running shouldn’t be part of a paddling sport 🤣🤣
Oh well, inwards and upwards…
I enjoyed every minute of it and can’t wait for the next race.
I paddled my Fenn Elite S with my Gara Odin paddle, and was super comfy, cool and chafe free in my Sharkskin Rapid Dry shirt and paddling shorts.