[Paddlewise] Offshore winds and currents.

Clyde Sisler wrote:

"The term 'swept out to sea' stirs up  some pretty scary images
but how bad can it really be?  Given that a person can stay in
the boat, how far out can they be swept?  A mile, two miles? 
Even at full ebb, the tidal (not ocean) current has to dissipate
somewhere.  Granted one might well spend some uncomfortable hours
and then have to  paddle back, but still......"

In our recent trip to the Jumentos Cays (Ragged Island Cays) in
the southern Bahamas we appreciated the nearly unrelenting
Atlantic trade winds that blew from the East, SE or occasionally
NE.  They kept the bugs away.  We camped on the lee side of the
cays and enjoyed the relative calm.  But the situation was also
sobering.  We put small bread crumbs on the shore line to feed
little fish for our daughters amusement.  Occasionally a small
crumb would be blown away to the west, and then drift and drift
until out of sight.  We noticed that a quarter to half a mile
from
shore the wind stiffened.  A boat that capsized or lost
directional control would drift in the wind like those bread
crumbs for literally hundreds of miles.  As the last likely VHF
contact would be Ragged Island, and other boat traffic in that
remote area was virtually nil, there would be little chance of
attracting attention electronically.  Next stop the Gulf current,
then, I guess, Africa.  Not a trivial notion.  

We are accustomed to paddling in the Pacific North West where
winds are commonly on shore and or up and down fjords and
channels.  Even on the open ocean side the Pacific blows east
into north America.  Not so everywhere.  The Bahamas situation
was thought provoking, suggesting attention to the long as well
as shore term consequences of a mishap or equipment failure. 
Getting back to shore may be a very challenging undertaking in
some settings.  

Rich Mitchell
 

-- 
Richard G. Mitchell, Jr.
Department of Sociology
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331
U.S.A.
(541) 752-1323 phone/fax
mitchelr_at_ucs.orst.edu
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