I am writing this sniffling and hacking because I inhaled some water and caught a cold [I hope it's not pneumonia] this weekend at the Western Michigan Coastal Kayak Symposium. I had padded the seat in my skin-on-frame bidarka with about two inches of foam. I have a bony butt and the slats on the bottom of the kayak are painful after about an hour. My balance is good, so the padding didn't bother me at all. Until I practiced a roll. I couldn't come up. So I thought I should practice my wet exit rather than struggle with a roll that wasn't working. Nice humility-building experience. My Chota boots hooked their little heel plates on the hull slats that are in the cockpit to allow one's feet to slide past the ribs. I was locked in as if I had built the boots into the frame. I thrashed and flailed and never budged. Fortunately, I had one glimmer of good sense and had asked my friend to spot me just in case something went wrong. I grabbed his bow and came up, but only after trying to breathe water. [Note: it does not work for me]. I've rolled a hundred times in this boat, almost always with the Chotas. But this one time, everything went weird. Afterwards I tried to simulate a wet exit and get the heel plates to stick again and they didn't. I tried it with sandals and they locked up on the heels because the soles stick out so far. Look at how expert paddlers die in whitewater accidents. Almost always there was a confluence of a bunch of unlikely things. My point is, if there is any possibility that things can wrong, be cautious. There is enough that goes wrong with no apprent possibility. If it's sandal weather, then there should be no big problem with slipping them off just before entering the boat, should there? Jim Tibensky _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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