Don’t be shy, give advice to a novice Experienced kayakers can aid rookies

OK, all you snow freaks, send me a big thank-you card. It never fails. I write about a winter of no snow and that day the heavens open up and plunk down a half a foot or more of snow! I could do the same with rain. It could be a three-year drought and I’d plan an overnight camping trip and POOF! It’s a gully washer!

Don’t count on me, however, to help you with good weather, that’s not my specialty.

If you’re not a snow freak, you too can thank me for giving you a couple of weekend days wherein you had a chance to get caught up on all those little tasks on your “honey do” list – or to get a jump on checking out all your fair weather gear in anticipation of warmer days to come.

Or perhaps you had a chance to sit down and catch up on some reading. I got the April issue of “Sea Kayaker” the other day, and settled down for some recreational reading. I was cruising along, having a ball when I turned to an article by Melesa Hamer entitled “The Fifth Paddler – Kayaking Tragedy in Baja.” What a downer.

I should have known it was coming. Editor Christopher Cunningham’s Page 4 column was about learning when to offer constructive hints or criticism to other paddlers when you see something awry. In his personal example it was suggesting to a novice paddling couple that they turn their paddles over (they had been paddling with the blades upside down). Cunningham said there were other suggestions he could have offered, but they were close to shore and the end of their outing.

He recounted another example of an experienced paddler who crossed paths with an obvious novice (PFD tucked under deck bungees). Nothing but idle chat was exchanged. The next day searchers found the novice’s rented boat overturned a few miles from shore, the PFD still affixed to the deck bungees. His body was never found.

I’m sure the more experienced paddler who last saw the ill-equipped novice headed off into the sunset is haunted by the thought: If only I’d said something…

And the same thought pervades Hamer’s article. It’s about a couple of experienced paddlers who encounter five young men headed off across a 4-mile-wide bay at sunset on a moonless night. The couple casually asked where the group was headed and the reply was that the group needed to get back to town. Southwesterly winds picked up soon afterward and blew the group apart. Four of the five managed to struggle to shore by morning, the fifth died of hypothermia.

Hamer says: “I thought about everything we could have told the group, and how all the information in the world is useless if it isn’t shared. I felt so deeply and painfully sorry for the boy’s mother who would just now be hearing she would never see her son again. I thought about a cold, dark and lonely death.

“This incident raised a lot of questions for Dave (her paddling partner) and me: Should we have asked the group if everyone had a headlamp so they could keep track of each other in the dark? Should we have checked to see if they were wearing wetsuits? As the more experienced kayakers, did we have an obligation to do something?

“We had questioned what they were doing, but hadn’t asked them specific questions about their gear or level of skill. We chatted about superficial things in spite of our feeling that the circumstances they were setting out under were strange. Had we talked with the group about their preparedness instead of just the best place to camp in the cove, maybe we could have been more certain about their capabilities and things would have played out differently.”

That’s the dilemma. Do you risk upsetting someone who’s not open to suggestions, or do you plow right in, albeit diplomatically, and offer your expertise. My guess is to go with the latter. Ultimately it’s better to have saved someone’s life than to have embarrassed him. And shouldn’t we all be open to suggestions and learning anyway?

Which is what we hope to pass along at the Fourth Annual Paddle Smart from the Start Safety Symposium on Friday evening, May 21, at the Bangor YMCA. A group of experienced folks will try to impart the message of paddling safely, when to go and when to stay on shore, what equipment you should have to be safe, what skills you should develop and a host of other pertinent information.

If you are thinking about taking up this wonderful sport – and you really should give it a thought – mark your calendar and I’ll see you there.

And speaking of sights to behold, I heard from one of the wild women of Washington County earlier this week. Tess Ftorek, the woman behind the Washington County Community College Polar Bear Dip, wanted me to know that there’s a sub-group of winter dippers, four good friends who just can’t get enough of that frigid Atlantic tonic. They’ve started their own tradition of a “post dip” at the original site of the Polar Bear Dip – Gleason Cove in Perry.

Ftorek sent me an e-mail. I’ll give you the highlights of their outing: “… we call it the ‘The 2nd Annual Wild Women of Washington County Dip’ [no men allowed…] that we had yesterday [Feb. 20]. A group of us crazy and fun women went to Gleason’s Cove on that beautiful winter day we had Friday. We took our camp chairs and sat around a campfire eating moose meat chili and sipping on martinis and ‘cariboo’ (not sure of the spelling, but it is a spiced wine from Quebec City…mmmmm), and, of course finished our meal with s’mores! Four of us did the dip again – two actually double-dipped feeling the urge to say that they skinny dipped in the winter … It was a hoot!”

All right WWWC! May you live long and prosper! That’s the kind of adventure and spunk it takes to get through our long winters!

I’m a little jealous of what Ftorek told me happened next. (And maybe it’s a sign of getting old, since years ago I’d much rather have been part of the former incident.) She headed home and collected her husband, Steve, and their sea kayaks and went back to Gleason Cove and paddled the shoreline for an hour or so. Ducks and a couple of eagles added to the wintry scenery. The couple has made it a point to paddle at least once a month since last May. Yes, Tess, I wish I could have been there for that part. I’ve not been on the water for months. As a matter of fact, I haven’t had my kayak for months! Remind me to check on its well being, would you?

Jeff Strout can be reached at 990-8202 or by e-mail at jstrout@bangordailynews.net.