Re: [Paddlewise] Safety and "Canoe & Kayak" Magazine

I never realized how dangerous paddling was until I started paddling sea
kayaks and reading Paddlewise.

You can tell how dangerous it is because people always (almost)  wear life
jackets, have boats festooned with paddle floats, sponsons, Back-Ups, rescue
lines, throw bags, whistles, paddle tethers, GPS's, fog horns, flares, and
knives to cut their way free from all that stuff if they capsize. That ain't
enough either. Kayakers practice rolls in cold and hot water until their
sinuses cry out in pain. A dangerous sport? You bet.

Makes you wonder how the Inuit survived as a race. They didn't have this
stuff ( many still don't use it)  and they had to go hunting in their boats
that weren't even made of Kevlar or Polyethylene and didn't have bulkheads
or flotation much less SAR. You would think the whole damned lot of "stupid"
"idiots" would have slowly drowned away to extinction leaving the women
ashore to make out as best they could with European whalers who also didn't
have these things but did have boats big enough to walk around on (when they
weren't sailing around the Pacific in open rowboats like Captain Bligh -
also a "stupid" "idiot".

Just suppose Moses hadn't had on his life jacket. Where would be without the
Ten Commandments to tell us what bad buggers we are. He wasn't wearing one?
Oh. Stupid, idiot mother.

Of course, we know better now.

A lot of people don't understand the danger of a sea kayak. They see people
swimming without life jackets and assume they don't need one if they are
paddling around in  large buoyant body. They don't realize that sea kayaks
are the problem. I have seen swimmers swimming along beside sea kayaks and
the dumb ass swimmers don't know how close to drowning they are. If the
kayaker decided to rescue them and got them on the kayak they would be up
the creek without a life jacket and prime candidates for drowning unless
they jumped off to go swimming again.

Surfers are a smarter bunch. They see a sea kayak in the surf and they chase
them  away. They know that, if by some chance they end up on or in one they
will be put in danger since the won't have life jacket.

I went to a kayak symposium in a large indoor swimming pool. They knew all
about the dangers of kayaks. They chased the life jacketless children out of
the pool and made the kayakers wear lifejackets. A little boy asked me,
"Don't they know how to swim?" I told him they did but it was the kayak that
was dangerous. If they were swimming they would not need the lifejackets. He
nodded but clearly did not understand the logic. You just can't tell kids
some things.

I saw this guy standing in his kayak once fly casting and he didn't have on
a life jacket. I told him to put on his life jacket and he laughed, stepped
off his boat and walked over to tell me where to shove my lifejacket and
walked back. OK, the water was only a foot or so deep but a rule is a rule.
I guess you just can't reason with some people when you tell them to "always
wear your life jacket".

The real puzzle to me is that anyone would participate in such a dangerous
sport. If you want to avoid drowning stay away from the water, dummy. People
drown in bathtubs, swimming pools, glasses of water, in their sorrows. OK,
maybe a life jacket won't keep you from drowning in your sorrows but you
might not get hurt so badly when you jump. "Let him jump, Danno. he has on
his lifejacket."

Wait! Could it be that everyone has a level of risk that they find comfy?
Maybe sea kayakers paddle sea kayaks because they enjoy a little risk.
Possible?  Is this why sea kayakers draped in safety gear aren't "stupid" or
"idiots" and are just daring adventurers?

Could it be that some people might even want more risk? Could it be that
just like we don't want a universal standard of instruction we don't really
want a universal standard of safety? Or maybe we do want a universal
standard of safety and we should get a person suffering severe aquaphobia to
create it.  NO? Maybe such a person would insist that you not paddle a kayak
at all because it was "dangerous" and people who do are "stupid" and
"idiots".

Hold that thought. Just writing about this has got me all scared and
rattled. I think I will put on my lifejacket, drive out to the desert, sit
in my kayak and get my head straight. Never know when a flash flood will pop
up.


All Smiles and Chuckles.

John Winters







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