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Sea Kayak Trips Bulletin Board
Re: TR: Flathead Lake "Safe but Sorry"
Posted By: Robert Woodard In Response To: TR: Flathead Lake "Safe but Sorry" (Shawn Baker)
Date: Monday, 20 September 1999, at 6:37 p.m.
> I obviously made a smart, prudent, and safe choice by not attempting the
> crossing, but, my trip begs the question: If I had my wet bottoms and
> flares, would the equipment have given me a boosted ["false"]
> sense of confidence, OR would I have just been in a safer position to do
> the crossing?I think it is pretty easy to second guess yourself. If you had gone on and not had any problems, would you have felt any better? Decisions that I made to push the envelope still sometimes bother me today, but I never have any worries when I decide to play it safe.
Yesterday a friend and I were about 3 miles out in a 6 1/2 mile open water crossing. We had paddled 2 1/2 miles before we even entered the Chesapeake Bay. My friend, having sat in her kayak for 5 1/2 miles without a break, was ready to return back to the nearest shore. She was also a bit nervous out in the shipping channel (we were 1/2 mile into a 3 mile wide channel). Rather than agonize over missing a chance to make this crossing (weather had turned me back on 2 previous attempts, and Saturday was absolutely perfect for crossing) I turned back.
There is some consolation in that if you play it safe, you'll probably have the opportunity to try again...
As for would the wetsuit bottoms have been enough, I don't know. I'm still trying to figure out the emersion formula. I own a wet suit, just ordered my dry suit, have worked my pawlata up to be 99.9% effective on the first try, and my screw roll up to be about 50%. All that and I don't know WHEN I should switch from shorts to the wetsuit to the dry suit. If someone would develope a water temperature chart my life would be so much less complicated 8^)
Woody
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