: In whitewater you want to be floating on your back with your feet
: near the surface of the water and pointing downstream, so you can
: use your feet to push off and away from rocks and obstacles.

: Sea kayaking is more dangerous than whitewater.

: Whitewater paddlers go out looking for trouble every time they paddle.

: There is a long learning and crash and burn curve. You start on
: mild whitewater and if you survive and have fun, progress to tougher
: rapids. You must wear cold water gear, a PFD and a helmet.
: You must learn get your face forward on the deck when you go over
: so your helmet protects your head from rocks.
: You must learn to hold on to your paddle and boat so you don't loose
: them. And you must learn to roll if you ever plan to paddle rough
: rapids.

: All these things become honed, time after time until they are reflexes.

: And as bad as it can get in a bad WW swim, the shore is not far away.

: So, yes, whitewater seems more dangerous on the face of it, and it
: certainly would be for a novice to jump into a class four river alone,
: but whitewater paddlers doing those class four and + rivers honed the skills
: over years.

: Sea kayakers can go out paddling for years and do not develop the skills a WW
: paddler must learn the first season, to survive.

: The power and quickness of a storm and 300 yards of water to swim, will
: squash the unprepared sea kayaker in an instant.

: It is the common lack of repeated worst conditions practice and the
: relentless
: power of open water weather that makes sea kayaking more dangerous.

: How many times a year do you practice rolls, self rescues, wet-exits, group
: rescues? How often do you paddle 20+ miles? How often do you paddle for
: hours into the wind?

: If you don't practice these kinds of paddling skills, then you need to
: honestly evaluate the skills you do have and rely more heavily on JUDGEMENT
: to assess the worst case scenario to guide your paddling choices.

: Of course there is the problem of experienced paddlers becoming too
: arrogant about their abilities and getting into trouble too.

: We all seem to need to get seriously trashed, to have a real
: perspective of our paddling skills and judgement. Again, this is one
: big advantage WW paddlers have over sea kayakers. WW paddlers get trashed
: all the time.

: A good point made in the most recent Sea Kayaker magazine in the article
: about "Cold Shock" was about the psychology of survival.
: "People tend to
: reduce their awareness of personal threat to a level that they feel
: comfortable with". The article also spoke of "self-denial" in
: flaws of
: judgement we clearly see in many of these accident reports. "If your
: life
: is routinely comfortable and uneventful, your perception of a threat may
: be minimized by a feeling of having the odds on your favor- "It will
: never
: happen to me." The response to an imminent threat is generally, and
: surprisingly, one of inactivity and a failure to take any positive
: action."

: Like the article in the same Sea Kayaker about " Crossing Lake
: Michigan".

: When I told my wife (from Chicago) about the guy trying to paddle
: from east to west, the first thing she said was, "Why would he paddle
: against the prevailing winds?"

: Duh! Why didn't he think of that?

: Please learn, practice and paddle safe!

: All the best,
: Rob

I think everyone living anywhere near Lake Michigan that read that story was thinking the same thing, the only one that didn't figure it out was the guy making the paddle.

Bill H.