[Paddlewise] Lake Erie Sea Kayaking Death

This is a response to Jack Martins post about the sea 
kayaking death on Lake Erie last December.
Back in the early nineties I heard of a sea kayaker 
dying on Lake Michigan and he was found in the water 
with his drysuit unzipped. In that case the ambient air 
temperature was comfortable but the water temperature 
was cold enough to cause hypothermia. Back then we 
wondered if the paddler could have performed a self 
rescue with water in his suit. After reading Jacks 
original post about the Lake Erie death a few months ago 
I went to our clubs pool session and capsized with an 
unzipped drysuit. I performed the self rescue fine until 
I had to pull my feet and legs into the cockpit. I would 
later find out that I had three gallons of water in each 
leg. I performed the self rescue but I wondered how far 
I could paddle with all of that water in my suit. I 
looked at my PFD knife in a new way. I could have used 
it to cut my latex socks so the water could drain out.

Sorry for the loss of a fellow sea kayaker and veteran,
Don Dimond  
***************************************************************************
PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List
Submissions:     paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net
Subscriptions:   paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net
Website:         http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/
***************************************************************************