|I do all I can to stay out of channels. The best protection (and often the |most interesting cruising) is to stay in water suited only to a kayak or |canoe. They can't hit you if they've run aground! I hug the shore in high traffic areas. I figure that if they hit me they are then going to hit a strip of very rough land and then the forrest. But this DOES NOT ALWAYS work. Last year I was almost run over not once but twice at almost the same spot! I was really hugging the shoreline, about 15 feet out when a powerboat came in and decided he wanted to beach his boat. He saw me. I made and KEPT eye contact with the moron. I kept on my course and speed so the GreatPowerBoatCaptain turned across my bow to get into shore. I had to do a back paddle and lean turn to keep from having a collision. He then had the nerve of saying something to me. He apologised after I was finished talking to him. I dont often loose my temper but I did with him. I'm glad there were no children around. If he was drunk I could understand. If he was trying to scare the little paddle boat, I can deal with that attitude. This guy was just plain dumb. He was a yankee so what do you expect! 8-) I thought about going and getting the park ranger but I would have been outnumbered 4 to 1 in what happened. I should have done it anyway since he had a NY registration and I would be willing to bet that he had moved down here and had not registered his boat. The ranger would not have seen the reckless boat operation but he would see the registration..... Should have done it. Had a very similar situation a few weeks later within 100 yards of the first. So, keep close to shore in high traffic areas but don't discount the idiots with a key. Later... Dan *************************************************************************** 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 Wed Jun 02 1999 - 10:06:34 PDT
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