Hello, I was wondering if anyone on the list belonged to a search and rescue group and if they've used their kayaks during water searches. I am the unit commander for my search and rescue organization's water rescue and recovery team and I'm also a kayaker. So far the only suggestions for the use of my boat has been to try to rig it with the radio repeater so that our radio signal jumps across water. I don't relish spending the entire search just sitting in the middle of a lake but if it's needed I suppose I would... What I intend is to use the kayak for searching along river banks and lake shores that are not easily accessible by land and into which our inflatable or a police or fire boat cannot get into. I'm not talking about whitewater but slow moving rivers (to class II maybe) and lakes. In most cases I'd probably only be able to provide an alert rather than actually perform a rescue but I could have with me some first aid equipment and other items such as a blanket. What about equipment? Is there anything beyond the normal safety and rescue equipment that might be useful? I have a Pelican light fixed to my helmet that works well (although every bug on the lake makes a beeline for my head when it goes on) and I put another light under the bungee chord on the deck. I also want to contact canoe clubs in our response area to discuss being a resource if we needed extra people on the water--maybe have a team member paired with a canoe club member with his or her canoe. A British Columbia SAR group has some information but I think I've gotten all the info from their site that I can. Can anyone offer any ideas about this? I'd appreciate it. Thanks, Donna *************************************************************************** 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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