Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Deep Trouble


Many of us are familiar with the book 'Deep Trouble'. Reading this book many years ago was my first reality check and rude awakening to the very real dangers of sea kayaking. The book describes true and harrowing stories of paddling trips gone wrong, and the lessons learned from them. These stores are a compilation of articles collected by Sea Kayaker Magazine, which continues to regularly publish additional stories in their magazine.

This past week, there has been a lot of buzz on paddling.net and other popular forums about the recent rescue off Plum Island, MA. Like many others, I had been following this closely and have been patiently awaiting the promised report by the paddlers themselves.

Their report has just been published on the North Shore Paddlers Network Forum. Both paddlers are very skilled, were gear prepared and wearing appropriate paddling attire for the conditions. They have offered us an excellent report on their unfortunate mis-adventure, and provide some great information and lessons learned. In addition, they solicited comments from Ken Fink, another well known and experienced kayaker and oceanographer who regularly presents on wind and waves. It's well worth the read, and presents a unique opportunity to hear first hand about their experiences. Unfortunately this was not always possible for some in the stories of 'Deep Trouble'.

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