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14 February 2007

Day 7 - 14/2/07

We were up at 5am in pitch darkness. Matt packed as quickly as the darkness and his headtorch would allow and had a couple of sandwiches for breakfast.

There was an outflowing current, with a breeze from the NE, as he started paddling at about 6.45am.

He was aiming for Granville Harbour, about 50kms away, bearing in mind that winds were not expected to be favourable.

When he rang at about 3.15pm he had made it as far as Conical Rocks (75kms). He was talking to me on the phone when he said, "There's a 4-wheel bike coming towards me - I'll ring you back".

When he did ring back about 20 minutes later he said, "You're never going to believe this". Apparently, the passenger on the bike was Bill Ritchie from Newfoundland, who is to be giving performances at Ten Days on the Island and was having a look around the West Coast before the event.

During the past few months he and I had swapped emails as he had seen my website and asked about maps and bushwalking. So when he asked Matt if he knew about the 3 women who had paddled around Tasmania (and Matt had virtually been their manager on a lot of their trip) Matt put one and one together and asked if Bill had emailed anybody about maps. He said he had and had emailed Tony Watton. Whereupon, Matt must have said, "Well, he's my dad". And we think Tasmania is a small place - the whole world is!!!