Inching to Spring

The demonstrations of kayak rescues went well yesterday. I was approached by a few people, all women, who seemed like they may be interested in learning more. I tend to get more follow-up than the guys do. It may be that a white haired broad helping a person twice her size back into a boat and doing a roll is more surprising. But it really doesn't matter why - we've succeeded if only one or two people are encouraged to learn to be safer on the water.

The attendance was not as robust as in some earlier years, with cold nights still making summer seem far away. The water in the pool is drawn from a reservoir that is still quite chilly regardless of how warm the season has been. I've done this demonstration wearing a drysuit with two fleece layers underneath while the crowd of observers around the pool are in shorts. Yesterday was cool and rainy and people were in long pants and jackets still, so the difference was not so extreme.

It was still worse in the pool though. One of the guys who was standing in the water while little kids had a chance to noodle around in whitewater boats started getting hypothermic, even wearing a dry suit. He made a run for an infusion of very hot coffee the moment he got out of the water.

Unfortunately at least one of the observers got to be more a part of the demonstration than he had planned. One of our club members was taking photographs at poolside, and when we were pumping out the boats after one of the rescues I apparently got him dead in the face! He didn't come back and give me hell, so I assume both he and the camera were OK.