A thanks to Russell Miller, a member of the U.S. Coast Guard for the following personal account of a bonehead in the making.... It starts off with two people, two hours before an expected storm is to hit the Gulf of Mexico, who buy a Kayak from the local Wal-Mart in Galveston Texas. Prepared with two Coast Guard Not-Approved life jackets, they immediately take their kayak to the Gulf of Mexico (of course). As if this isn't boneheaded enough, they manage to row themselves in front of a 75 foot steel hull shrimp boat. The boat hit their kayak sending it 30 feet under water into the shrimp nets. Upon hearing one of these men yelling for help the shrimp boat folk called the Coast Guard (here's where Miller comes in). It took 3 hours of searching in the dark, using a helicopter, an 82 foot patrol boat and a 41 foot patrol boat (and we all know who pays for this, not the boneheads) before these men were found and retrieved from the cold water. All this while a storm was blowing 45 MPH winds and creating 8 to 10 foot waves. These two guys almost made it to a Darwin award, but they survived. *************************************************************************** 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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