One stunt we used to do at Outdoor Equipment Shows and Seafests was to deliberately capsize our kayaks. The announcer on shore invites the audience to hold their breath along with you as you casually drum your fingers on either side of the inverted hull. The announcer counts off the seconds to two minutes ... three minutes ... five minutes. A really good announcer can build up a tension in the audience akin to that I imagine prevailed when Houdini did his "Chinese Water Torture" escape routine. Meanwhile, below water, you've pulled a flexible snorkel from your PFD pocket, thrust in through the sprayskirt tunnel, and are calmly breathing from the air in the hull. At least I needed a snorkel, due to a certain amount of natural insulation/reserve buoyancy built-in around my midriff (I greatly fear that in my dotage, even the sprayskirt will become redundant). My more flexible and lithe buddy could simply pop his skirt and stick his head into his cockpit to breathe. Anyway, after the agreed upon interval, you stow your breathing apparatus, take paddle in hand and casually roll back up to the applause of the blue-in-the-face audience. (You won't find this trick being exposed on that Fox TV special "The Secrets of Magic Revealed"). Cheers Philip T. **************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************Received on Fri Oct 16 1998 - 15:21:39 PDT
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