Re: [Paddlewise] Australian state (even more) severely restricts kayaking

   I spent the weekend surfing off Tybee Island, GA USA. I like to  
start and end my day on Tybee with a bike ride to the back river.  
Friday morning I met a woman in her 50's  who was a bit thick but  
looked reasonably capable in an athletic sense. She was staring out  
across the back river towards Little Tybee. She asked me if I was  
local. I said sorta. She asked me about the currents. I shared what I  
knew. The area she wanted to visit is calm at low tide but typically  
has breakers at mid/high tide. I asked her if she was comfortable in  
small surf. She mustered up a yes. I asked her if she had ever paddled  
in the ocean before. She nodded but I didn't believe her. She opened  
her mini van to get her boat. It was a department store SOT. To her  
credit she did wear her PFD and did follow my suggestion to paddle  
into the wind and tide so her return journey would be easier. Also to  
her credit she only went halfway across the river before  deciding to  
return.

Most of us are pretty smart and know what to avoid. We stay off the  
radar.

   That evening I went to the same location. I watched a very drunk  
woman arguing with her very drunk man while seated in a small, unkempt  
daysailer which was fifteen yards out. She stood up and decided to get  
off the boat. She stepped into 20 feet of water and sank like a rock.  
Somehow she sputtered to the surface and weaved her way to shore, up  
the beach, past me and into the night. Her man began paddling the  
daysailer to the beach with a single kayak paddle. He was so drunk  
that when I asked him if I could help his answer was unintelligible.  
He beached, threw out an anchor and stumbled off into the night. I  
looked into the hull and saw a mostly empty bottle of rum, two glasses  
full of what looked like Coke and a scrap piece of lumber jammed into  
the transom drain plug. There was no rig, centerboard, flotation, or  
PFD's. Their craft was ready for a bonfire and nothing else.

Some of us aren't smart and don't know what to avoid. This is the type  
that makes the paper and sways public opinion.


I'm gunna go pat some gators on the head. Hold my beer, k?

Jim et al
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