Getting Ready To Go 'Round Again 'Tis the season, and soon the moorings will be hauled out and replaced with poles to keep the chains at the surface. Boats will disappear from the mooring basin and the slips at South Shore. The place will take on the look of a deserted city...except for the presence of the local sea kayakers. We, among boaters, are the only ones to use the lake all year 'round (along with one commercial fishing vessel that is out there as long as ice permits...but I digress).

After the ICE on Sunday, we were standing ashore and stripping off the dry suits that had kept us safe while doing rescues in waters as cold as 45 degrees. Then one...then another guy came along and unloaded kayaks. At least one was certainly a recreation boat. Not to worry. Both wore shorts and short sleeves as they launched into the cold waters. I presume they were the best paddlers in the world and never tipped over. Still, I did get the attention of one of them and was able to explain how short a time his survival would be when he fell out of a boat he had just told me he could not reenter at sea. But not to worry, he was planning on staying next to shore and, besides, it was 72 degrees out. Off he went.

I will bring this up this morning at the Milwaukee Harbor Safety Commission Meeting and arrange to post some info for those likely to read and heed it. In a few weeks I will have the opportunity to do a presentation on dressing for winter paddling. The folks who attend such events are not the ones about whom I worry. It's the short sleevers that put a knot in my gut. I wonder how many of them will try out the caves in the Apostles next summer.

Paddle safe...

DS