Re: [Paddlewise] Canoe Rescue off Point Defiance in Fast Current

Oh, it gets interesting around here some days. Strong onshore winds with 
wall to wall cruiseship docking mayhem. How's a guy supposed to navigate 
safely when a floating hotels the size of 50 Wal-Mart's are spinning 180's 
on abow pivot?

Even out on the open seas off North Vancouver Island while crossing to 
remote islands in the fog I have to skirt around these dang things coming 
like clockwork from John Carpenter's The Fog  - only on caviar and steroids.

Mostly, all in all, collision avoidance is just a matter of avoiding 
collisions. Choas does as chaos is is my game.

I'm better behaved these days - not so much the bad boy anymore. Habits die 
hard though. Reputations remain. When I show up at kayak symposia, I still 
get a wide berth from the cognoscenti. And I'm not even in my kayak.

Doug L




> No Doug, I didn't mean you really. But the folk who paddle lakes and 
> rivers,
> even in some remote areas, seem to have some nasty visits with rude or
> inebriated water fowl that us city folk don't seem to run across!
>
> I think of my waters as as easy or as complicated as you probably want to
> find, so you can easily avoid situations that are above your skill level. 
> In
> truth, I'd say you have to go out of your way to find situation to tax 
> your
> skills to move on to a level of paddling beyond what your used to. We do
> have a few folk to help take you there, but they're few and far between 
> and
> I think a northern migration is in order for real growth.
>
> We SoCal folk can eliminate ferries right off the bat and you're right 
> that
> our all year climate to a degree eliminates the seasonal riff raff. Of
> course everything is relative you know, so us southern folk hunker down 
> when
> the climate dips to around 50!!!
>
> My point is I think we have it pretty easy down here, which brings me to 
> my
> amazement and confusion when I read many of the close calls listed here on
> Paddlewise. Hopefully, I store them somewhere in my memory for the 
> untimely
> time they might come in useful. We have a rather large barge dredging our
> back bay and as improbable as it may be, I sometimes imagine having it
> bearing down on me on some rare night paddle and imagine myself in the 
> same
> predicament as one of the northern boys or some NY Hudson river paddler.
> Probably ain't gonna happen, but that's the genius of Paddlewise!
>
> As I said, we're a pleasure boat harbor and so are spared from the reality
> of folk who make the sea their living and have no time for dabblers on the
> salty sea. There's got to be a different mind set between someone heading
> out every day to put food on the table and someone using the sea for
> recreation. I imagine a few of the former lack a bit of patience for the
> latter, which can  lead to conflict.
>
> Any way, I hope you don't deny us all your close calls. Remember many of 
> us
> on this list live vicariously!!!
>
> Mark Sanders
> www.sandmarks.net
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