Canoeist ready for Bight

Press, 9 October 1982, Page 12

Canoeist ready for Bight

NZPA Adelaide The New Zealand canoeist. Paul Caffyn, left Albany in Western Australia on Wednesday morning heading for the hardest leg of his lone circumnavigation of Australia - the Great Australian Bight. Caffyn is now about threequarters of the way towards becoming the first person to achieve a solo circumnavigation of Australia. Ms Lesley Hadley, a member of his support group, said from Albany that Caffyn. aged 35. would travel to Cheyne Beach before heading to Esperance and the start of his bight crossing. His biggest problem would be the lack of beach shelter because of the bight's immense cliffs. To combat this he will travel two stretches, of 160 km and 180 km. paddling for about 35 hours at a time. Ms Hadley said that Caffyn was suffering from swollen wrists and pain from the extractioin of two wisdom teeth. "A dentist friend had a look at them and wanted to make sure they would not explode while he was at sea." she said. Caffyn's biggest worry was winds. After being ahead of schedule he had slipped back.

waiting for south-westerly winds. After encounters with crocodiles. sharks, and sea snakes m Australia s northern waters, he had met whales off the south-west coast. Ms Hadley expected that Caffyn would arrive at Adelaide in about 1 month. He hoped to complete the voyage at Melbourne in late December, a year after he began. Caffyn. of Greymouth, has already circumnavigated New Zealand and Britain in a kayak.