[Paddlewise] Trapped!!!

Last night I almost got myself into serious trouble within 100 feet of my
own dock. Here's the story.

After sitting on the sofa most of the evening watching television I decided
that I should stop wasting the long evenings we are blessed with here and go
outside and do something. I thought of a few things to do including moving
my butt up to our new "observation deck" where the view of the lake is much
improved and one is comfortably above any stray mosquitoes. I ended up
deciding to take a paddle around our end of the lake.

When I paddle I always wear footwear designed for paddling because I have...
well... big feet and the only kayaks I own that are made for people with big
feet are not easy to get to from the lake house. One (the Mariner Escape) is
stashed on Whidbey Island along with a PFD, a paddle and a spray deck just
in case I find myself over there without a boat to paddle up the creek in
and the other is on the top deck of the storage rack my wife finally built
for me this spring. Which, you'll admit, was sweet of her. But the Nimbus
Telkwa HV was on the top of it and it's heavy and... well, I actually never
even considered it.

What I did was put on tennis shoes. This was not a good idea.

Once into the Mariner Express I noticed that my feet were not in a good
position. In fact, one foot was not able to get onto the foot peg. I figured
that was no big deal as I was just going to paddle around for 30 minutes and
it was, after all, as calm as a... uh... lake out there. Not a ripple. No
powerboats. No wind. So I secured my spray deck, grabbed my paddle, and
started off.

I usually edge the Mariner boats aggressively to get them turning and so I
put the Express on a nice starboard edge to make a sharp turn to port in
order to head in the direction I wanted to paddle. I remember noticing that
my edging wasn't as good as it usually was due to the way my feet were
arranged somewhere under the foredeck of the Express and just about then I
caught a crab with my paddle and capsized.

My first reaction was shock. I literally cannot remember the last time I
capsized in a sea kayak without doing it intentionally. Then I noticed that
I had dropped my paddle so I dog paddled to the surface to get a breath of
air (still with the spray deck attached). Unfortunately, I got half a breath
of air and half a breath of water and the cough reflex was so strong that I
went back under and then decided to swim out.

I pulled the toggle on the spray deck and pushed out and .... stopped. One
or both of my feet were entangled in the foot pegs and didn't want to come
out at the angle I was pushing. I kicked and pulled and pushed and finally
one tennis shoe came off and I popped to the surface.

It took me a few minutes of coughing and hacking to get to where I could tow
the boat back to the dock where my wife had just started to launch a rescue
boat (the dogs had barked loudly enough to get her to come outside to see
what was up). I told my wife that I only had one tennis shoe on when I got
onto the swim ladder but we couldn't see any sign of a shoe floating out on
the lake. When we turned the Express over one tennis shoe came floating
slowly like a white ghost out of the cockpit.

This morning I am still coughing up stuff that tastes like lake water. And I
slept 11 hours. But it's a good lesson.

If anything feels uncomfortable or "not right" it's time to correct it. All
I had to do was change into paddling shoes and my 30 minute paddle on the
lake would have been just that. Putting those tennis shoes on could have
killed me. Little things like that make a big difference.


Craig Jungers
Moses Lake, WA
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