I just watched a 2005 program called "I Shouldn't Be Alive" that was about two kayakers who got into trouble during a November paddle in the San Juan Islands. I remember several Paddlewisers responding to this episode and have been watching to see if I could catch it on tv. Well I just did and guess what? I know one of them. Well, maybe not "know" in the old fashioned sense... but the leader of this paddle is one of my "friends" on Facebook. And he is still a super-Alpha personality and leading kayak trips, bicycle trips, hiking and snowshoe trips out of the Seattle area. In fact he had a Doe Bay trip last summer (Doe Bay was supposedly the destination for the episode). The trip itself is a good illustration of how one mistake leads to another mistake and on and on. In this case it was compounded by two people who are seriously competitive and who apparently could not manage to admit to the other that one was well beyond his depth. One had never been in a kayak before making a November trip across Rosario Strait. Neither wore a spray deck. One had a drysuit but the other only had a farmer john. One was so late to the put-in that they missed their daylight window (it gets dark about 4:40pm in November) and, probably, the tide. The put-in is also well sheltered from the nastiest winds outside so it's difficult to know whether you are paddling into danger; especially in diminished daylight. And on, and on, and on... The program was overly dramatic, of course, and the mistakes were so basic that it's likely people who already consider themselves to be immortal would be saying to themselves, "I'd never do anything *that* stupid!". Really, these guys made so many mistakes that virtually any of them would have led to disaster. LOL. Imagine my surprise when I recognized the "leader's" name. I used to have a motto that went: "One third of the world is a bozo... but we all get a turn being in that one third." Of course, some of us have to hog it. Craig Jungers Moses Lake, WA www.nwkayaking.net *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
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