"This is no longer a Rescue Operation, we are focusing on Recovery...."
I have never really learned to swim. I know the basic premis, but I have two problems. One, I am claustrophobic. Water over my face is not good. However, I can control it to an extent, I have stuck my head in the water and blown bubbles. Didn’t particularly enjoy it but I can do it. But I do not float. I have tried everything, do this people say, and try that, but to no avail. I sink every time. Low body fat? High bone density? A combination? I do not know. But I sink, every time. Paddle and kick? I can maintain, but upon cessation of movement, down I go, blub, blub, blub.
This is why I wear a life jacket virtually every time we go out in the boat. There are a couple lakes whose depth I know, characteristics I am comfy with, etc. Holter? 90’ of water? Life jacket. Lake Francis with unpredictable winds, and fairly deep water? Life Jacket. Francis has a relatively high accident/mortality rate for lakes in this area, although many of them are drunken morons driving on the ice.
Tiber you never know what the winds will do, often you cannot see storms coming in, and there is so much water, I would not get on a boat with out my life jacket.
The river? Are you insane. At least on lakes if you go under you don’t have a lot of current to deal with. Rivers have current, and rocks and backwaters and logs and eddies and swirls and stuff. A life jacket will help, but has less chance of saving your ass if you are in the water long. Jump off a bridge? Possibly terminally insane. Do you know how deep the water is? So you can swim. Can you swim after you bounce your head off a rock you didn’t know was three feet under the surface? Can you swim when you hit 55 degree water from thirty feet up and knock the air out of your body, the current catches you, and that first gasp of air is irrigation runoff from every farm between here and Gibson Dam?
Every year people die in our rivers and lakes, and I feel deep sorrow for them and their families. It is even worse when common sense and a little prevention could make such a difference to so many lives. Alcohol is a common denominator in many instances, but lack of good judgment and being unprepared for an accident is virtually always the culprit. Know your water, wear a life jacket, don’t drink and dive. Stay safe.
This is why I wear a life jacket virtually every time we go out in the boat. There are a couple lakes whose depth I know, characteristics I am comfy with, etc. Holter? 90’ of water? Life jacket. Lake Francis with unpredictable winds, and fairly deep water? Life Jacket. Francis has a relatively high accident/mortality rate for lakes in this area, although many of them are drunken morons driving on the ice.
Tiber you never know what the winds will do, often you cannot see storms coming in, and there is so much water, I would not get on a boat with out my life jacket.
The river? Are you insane. At least on lakes if you go under you don’t have a lot of current to deal with. Rivers have current, and rocks and backwaters and logs and eddies and swirls and stuff. A life jacket will help, but has less chance of saving your ass if you are in the water long. Jump off a bridge? Possibly terminally insane. Do you know how deep the water is? So you can swim. Can you swim after you bounce your head off a rock you didn’t know was three feet under the surface? Can you swim when you hit 55 degree water from thirty feet up and knock the air out of your body, the current catches you, and that first gasp of air is irrigation runoff from every farm between here and Gibson Dam?
Every year people die in our rivers and lakes, and I feel deep sorrow for them and their families. It is even worse when common sense and a little prevention could make such a difference to so many lives. Alcohol is a common denominator in many instances, but lack of good judgment and being unprepared for an accident is virtually always the culprit. Know your water, wear a life jacket, don’t drink and dive. Stay safe.
posted by a-fire-fly at 9:56 AM
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