Bonnie Hancock

So a squawk of a bird gives you a big fright.

It's what every ski paddler trains their whole life for, those conditions.

It's amazing.

It's incredible.

You feel strong and powerful and just the absolute, the utmost sense of freedom as well.

I remember leaning back as I reached a top speed of 28k an hour without even paddling and

cruising for 500 meters without pulling my paddle in the water and just letting mother nature do the work and just feeling completely free and in a way that I hadn't since I was a child.

And, you know, the water is freezing out there.

Again, it's under 10 degrees.

The only thing that kept me warm was a thick steam wet suit, which had a hood.

It had booties.

It had gloves.

So I'm completely covered head to toe.

I've got fluoro gear on to keep me safe.

make sure my crew can see me but at night time that feeling of freedom becomes fear because you don't want the big wind in the swells when it's pitch black dark you know the way you're describing it it sounds pretty idyllic this part bonnie but what happened on day eight of your crossing of the great australian bight yeah absolutely um

something really scary happened.

So I basically was about halfway across the Bight and it was at nighttime.

There was actually no moon out that day.

So as we know, the moon cycle, every now and then you get no moon, incredibly dark.

I can't see other than maybe half a meter either side of my ski.