[Paddlewise] Safety First

As a former naval line officer, it was drilled into me again and again:
Safety rules are written in the blood of those who didn't heed or didn't
know.  As a former cop, we had a saying: everyone goes home at the end of
the shift. As a physician we comment that the more we know the more we
realize how little we know.

Being forehanded (constant vigilance), training and preparation keeps you
alive.  If I don't know how to do something, I ask, I learn, I practice as
much as I reasonably can, before I commit.  And then I keep doing this again
and again.  There is no pride in ignorance.

I won't be able to plan for everything that will go wrong, but a clear take
home lesson from Deep Trouble: if you don't plan, everything will go wrong.
If you do plan, the solution or a damn close one, will be at hand.

I go out fully intending to come back, unbloodied.  Every decision I make is
made against this measure.  I am out there to have fun, learn new skills,
gain new proficiencies, and challenge myself, but I'm not out there to die.
Mistakes and bad karma will happen, but a deep tool box of skills, and the
confidence to use them, usually combine to get us home.  No toolbox, no
confidence, no sense wasting my time.

Before I go out again this year, I will make sure I can safely wet exit
using a variety of methods, and that  I can safely get back in my kayak
using a variety of different methods.  I plan to find very skilled people to
make sure I know what this means.  And I will use those skills to develop
new ones.  I will limit my risk by staying within my skill level.  I have an
obligation to myself, my family, my co-workers, my friends, and to other
kayakers, not to screw this up through ignorance, pride/ego, stupidity or
any combination thereof.

That being said, I will make many mistakes, let us hope they are small ones,
and that they come separately!

I look at kayaking as a skilled sport, of which I have much to learn, much
to practice, one step at a time.  I hope to become proficient enough to
someday meet every challenge and come home alive.  That will take me the
rest of my life :-)  And man, do I love this sport!

Ken Schroeter

Laconia, NH, USA
43°32'25"N
71°28'59"W

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage"

                                        - Anais Nin



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