Well, it wasn't really as dramatic as all that.. My paddling buddy Falk and I were getting ready to launch from Cattle Point last Thursday evening for our weekly lap around Chatham/Discovery Islands when we noticed an unusual looking paddle craft a few hundred metres off shore. It appeared to be about a 17 foot Boston Whaler with four young people aboard two of whom armed with canoe type paddles were trying to propel the boat back to the boat ramp. Being out of gas the two motors hanging off the transom were of no use to them. There was an onshore breeze of 10 to 15 knots with about a one foot chop on the water. By the time we had launched our kayaks the whaler had lost it's battle against the wind and was grinding it's gel coat away on the rocks. The people on board were at a loss of what to do next and were discussing their options when we paddled up to see if we could help. We considered calling for assistance on our VHFs but in the end we decided that we would try to tow them the 200 metres back to the boat launch. We hooked up our tow lines and with all of us paddling we started to make headway against the wind. Much to the amusement of the people on shore and with many a thank you from the boaters we made our way back to the ramp. A small victory for kayaker boater relations. Steve Davis *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed May 07 2003 - 10:38:41 PDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:31:06 PDT