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the sharks, though sometimes a fin and tail would circle the kayak after a hit, as if it was sizing me up. After one big hit I was quickly checking out my rudder for any damage, with my paddle and hand dragging in the water as I drifted on. Just as I reached forward with my paddle a splash signalled the sharp-toothed grin of a shark poking out of the water where my hand had been. Trying not to think of the consequences of a shark grabbing my hand, I carried on paddling, but with my hands rarely dropping below shoulder height.
    The reason the sharks were after the rudder was because the movement of the water with the big tides had stirred up the fine sand, making the sea the colour of milk. Though I wouldn’t recommend it, you could put your hand just under the surface and you couldn’t see it. This zero visibility meant the sharks were hunting purely on the vibrations they could detect in the water, which in this case was my rudder.
    The fish were also swimming blind, and wary of big things in the water. They would launch themselves airborne in an effort to escape the kayak. I took jumping fish in the head and body and then a big one got me in the throat. I’m not sure who was more surprised, the fish or me, as I swept them off the spray deck back into the sea.
    The shark hits at night were quite spectacular as they stirred up the phosphorescence. Most were 3–4 foot reef sharks that lit up the waters behind me as they hit the rudder. However, some displays were on a grander scale as bigger tiger sharks had their turn. I would feel the kayak shudder then my whole world lit up for a few seconds as if a car was shining high beams at the hull.
    Just before I landed at the Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park I took a big shark hit. A few recently arrived holiday-makers were happily swimming in the low surf. As I stood next to the kayak, chatting to the interested bystanders, I noticed half my rudder was missing. I took a closer look and pointed out to the swimmers that a shark had bitten off a chunk just as I was landing. They didn’t say anything about it but shot a few nervous glances at each other before taking a couple of steps further up the beach.
    From the kayak Eighty Mile Beach was hardly a dramatic feature, Australia was barely a smudge of colour. There were no hills struggling up from the plains. It was rare to see a tree poke up inland, so when I saw one I would stare at it for hours as I drifted past on my paddle south.
    The retreating tides had left nothing on the beach to interrupt the flow of sand from one horizon to the other. The gently sloping beach ran between the harsh grass struggling up the low dunes on one side and the restless ocean rolling in and out on the other. Among the fine sands lay delicate, bleached shells scattered like stars, but the beach was empty of anything else, even shade.
    The caravan park at Eighty Mile Beach had been described to me as a lush oasis with plenty of shady trees. However, I was a little late for that as the park had taken a direct hit from a category-5 hurricane a few months earlier. Almost all the trees were gone apart from a few that had been pruned to stumps. The owner told me he spent a terrifying few days locked in a shipping container as the storm passed by. He had stories of shells being found embedded in trees a hundred metres inland and showed me photos of the devastation—I was in awe of the power of the storm. Luckily for me the guys who were rebuilding the place found time to reshape my rudder and fashion a spare from a fence paling.
    After a day of rest I was set to tackle the second half of Eighty Mile Beach, which would bring me to the sandbanks of the De Grey River estuary before paddling to Port Hedland, a section of 250 kilometres. So, with several days of paddling looming, I was up at 4 am and packing the kayak in the pitch black. I was astounded to find one of the guys staying at the park had gotten up to wish me well and offer me a hand getting my