Submitted by Maureen B, SKABC Safety Officer:
In a recent conversation with a friend who used to serve on a Search and Rescue team, she highlighted the following:
It is a fairly common occurrence for a kayak to be spotted adrift in the Salish Sea. This initiates a search which is particularly stressful because of the of the likelihood that it is a recovery situation. If the call comes late in the day it results in a sleepless night with a scramble at dawn. In reality, quite often a call is made late morning to say the paddler overslept and is fine, with just their boat carried away by a high tide.
The first thing S&R try to do is discover who is the owner of the boat.
To lessen the stress and minimize the unnecessary waste time and resources, it would help if all kayakers marked their kayak with
And make a habit of always informing their emergency contact of their trip plan.
It is club policy to create a float plan for every trip. Email this to your emergency contact and it should be an easy matter to contact someone in the group.
Paddle responsibly so we can all enjoy ourselves without causing undue stress to others.
Emergency contact numbers should also be on the welcome screen of your cell phone.
