Hi Paul, Thanks for your candour and the heads up you offered us all. I think many paddlers become complacent after a time, and start doing things even though they "know better". Then nature gives them a metaphorical boot to the head that either smartens them up or kills them. (My own such wake-up call came in a gale on Lake Ontario many years back.) I don't think the deceased folks we so piously Monday-morning quarterback when we read about them in "Deep Trouble" or the Sea Kayaker magazine column were necessarily any dumber than the rest of us, just unluckier not to have a chance to learn from their mistakes. In some of the accident investigations conducted by the Transportation Safety Board here in Canada, the writer notes an interesting paradox around unsafe seamanship. He's writing about fishers, professional mariners, but it applies to us. He notes that the more times you engage in unsafe behaviour and "get away with it" the more the behaviour is "rewarded". You start to perceive it as safe, and to do it more often. In fact, of course, you are becoming increasing less safe. The more often you roll the dice, the higher the odds your losing number will eventually come up. (Before the statistically-minded correct me on the "Gambler's Fallacy", I know that dice have no memory, and that the odds on every individual roll are exactly the same. I'm referring here to a "run" of rolls, where your wrong number has to come up just once to wipe you out.) As for paddling alone, Colin Fletcher was writing about backpacking, but I believe every word applies to solo sea-kayaking: “Many… contend that one of the greatest dangers… is… walking alone. … But once you have discovered solitude - the gigantic, enveloping, including renewing solitude of wild and silent places-…you are likely to accept… such small additional dangers… Naturally, you are careful.… someone always knows where you are and when you will be ‘out’. You leave broad margins of safety in everything you do… But if you judge safety to be the paramount consideration in life you should never… go on long hikes alone. …And avoid at all costs… falling in love, or inhaling air that is almost certainly riddled with germs.…And never, of course, explore the guts of an idea that seems as if it might threaten one of your more cherished beliefs. In your wisdom you will probably live to a ripe old age. But you may discover, just before you die, that you have been dead for a long, long time.” Colin Fletcher The Complete Walker Thanks again and safe paddling, Philip Torrens **************************************** Mountain Equipment Co-op 1655 West 3rd Avenue, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6J 1K1 Tel: 640-732-1989 Fax: 604-731-6483 email: pid_at_mec.ca Visit our website at: http://www.mec.ca ***************************************** *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
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