Doug talked about a recent sea kayaking death and talked about reminding newcomers to the sport about boating safety. Sometimes the experts need reminding too. I just got an e-mail today from some friends in Canada. When I lived in Michigan we had a great little whitewater run on the Goulais River just north of the Sault Saint Marie. One drop which we dubbed "Drakes Falls" after a friend of ours who was the first to run it, was virtually always a portage for me. I ran it once at a practically dry level, but at full flow this 8 foot falls had a nasty full depth stopper and a strainer just down stream. Not a difficult drop but serious consequences if you screw up! A hair boater from Alpena died there last weekend. He was very experienced and had successfully run an ungodly 30 foot falls on the same river. On this day however he shot ahead of the group, and ran Drakes falls without waiting for the other two experienced boaters to set up throw bags for safety at the bottom of the drop. Being with other experienced boaters only will improve your safetyonly if you work as a team and follow the basic group paddling safety rules. I hope this is not too far off topic since it is a whitewater incident. Maybe a throw rope would not have helped, maybe not, but at least he would have had a chance at rescue. After four hours of CPR a good friend of mine is left with a lot of guilt, a long list of what-if questions, and the dead body of one of his paddling friends. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
> From: wanewman_at_uswest.net > paddling safety rules. I hope this is not too far off topic > since it is a whitewater incident. Maybe a throw rope would > not have helped, maybe not, but at least he would have had a > chance at rescue. After four hours of CPR a good friend of > mine is left with a lot of guilt, a long list of what-if > questions, and the dead body of one of his paddling friends. Nope... not off topic. This is a "paddling" group and you are quite on-topic (though the emphasis is generally touring or sea kayaking). My sympathies regarding last weekend's accident to the paddler's family and friends. Jackie *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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