Kayaking? Nada problema. Wife kayaking? Little bit a problem. Maybe it's the current combined with the boat traffic. Do you have current? Current traps wake. Dynamics different. Canoeing with the kids (well, over the last decade when they was smalla)? Problemo. Do you guys make out better canoeing with kids in congested areas given the congestion is more intense given your population given you speed demon obsessed countrymen? Well then, good on ya! 'Course, I'd argue our congestion runs rampant come summer. You guys have all year to spread "summer" boating traffic over. :-) As for me kayaking again, not sure which close encounters you refer to. I try not to post those too often - they are usually at night up against ferry hulls in restricted tidal passages, playing behind ferries under the docks at pullout ( 90,000 gross tons, 9,000 horsepower, lots of backwash, oh yeah!), toying with purse seiners, gill-netters, longliners, and trawlers in open seas, dogging submarines in Juan de Fuca, rush hour seaplanes in harbours, freighter traffic in foggy shipping channels (oh yeah, forgot, Duane's the expert - inside joke), cargo vessel piolatage crews madly responding out past my breakwater play spots, log booms galore, barges under tow, whale watching vessels buzzing like bees, coast guard and fisheries vessels ordering me off the water/out of the way, foreign cargo vessels under difficult tidal-water maneuvering, and sailing vessels with little discretionary room to move. Those are only the ones I come across - or they come across me, serendipitously. Then there's the ones I chase down, hunt for dynamic tidal effects, stern-wash rides, and hydrofoil wake-riding. Close encounters of the Doug Lloyd kind. Sounds bewildering to me too. Like, who misses rivers and whitewater venues for Vancouver Island when chaos is as chaos does? DL > Well Doug, this big city paddler reads all your kayak/boat close encounter > stories with a touch of bewilderment. I paddle out of one of the largest > pleasure boat harbors around and have nary one close call with a boater to > relate. I think it's much worse for lake paddlers where people sometimes > run > out of real estate, but my usual travels take me out of most pleasure > boater's paths and harbor speeds seem reasonably regulated. I guess you > gotta take the good with the bad: perhaps in big city life we tend to > smack > down those folk who get out of line as a general rule: or else we'd always > be in chaos! > > Mark *************************************************************************** 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 Fri May 16 2008 - 20:33:23 PDT
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