Re: [Paddlewise] wet exit? why?

Quoting Julio MacWilliams:

> Hmm. Though it is often believed that wet exits were inevitably
> lethal for Inuit kayakers, F. Spencer Chapman, in Watkins' Last
> Expedition, tells about an East Greenlander who survived a wet
> exit by scrambling onto an ice floe.
> . . .
> There was some evidence that Gino Watkins, while hunting by
> himself, survived a wet exit by climbing onto an ice floe, but
> then perished when he left the floe to swim after his kayak. 

Hmm, indeed!  Long distance ice skating on the frozen surfaces of
kayaking waters is a major winter pastime in Sweden (and, I'd
strongly suspect, elsewhere in Scandinavia). The primary survival
skill that open-ice skaters need to master is getting back up on
the ice whenever they fall through. The cardinal rule, which is
supported by the circumstances of virtually all skating related
fatalities, is that it is *impossible* to scramble from water
onto ice without hardware assistance. In exact analogy to PFD's,
all skaters wear "ice spikes" high on their chests and use them
to bite into the ice when dragging themselves onto it. Although
not very difficult, the use of the things must be practiced and,
despite the degree of acquired skill, it's regarded as lunacy for
anyone to skate alone. 

Wet exiting from a kayak in sight of ice in the belief that
getting up onto it will be at all similar to getting onto land is
a very bad idea -- most likely deadly. On an entirely speculative
basis, I could easily imagine that Inuit kayakers might know how
to use such things as knifes and harpoons to pull themselves out
of the water. Extrapolating into present context, any resourceful
individual carrying two knives and having practiced the skill
could probably do an "ice edge rescue". 

I've never been on open water (liquid state, that is :-) during
the ice season and don't know if local kayakers carry ice spikes.
It wouldn't surprise me and I can easily enough find out. 

Does kayaking lore or the personal experience of anyone on this
list gainsay any of this?

Cary Karp <karp_at_pi.se>



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