Paddle Float Self Rescue

   

One of my kayaking goals for this year is to get into the ocean with my kayak.  I realize that kayaking in the ocean is much more dangerous than the local rivers that I am used to.  A friend of mine who kayaks mostly in Boston Harbor has been trying to get me out there with him.  I promised myself that before I put my kayak in the ocean I will learn some self rescue techniques. 

For Father's Day I asked my wife and daughter to get my the rescue kit linked to the right.  It includes a bunch of gear that I have been wanting to pick up buy most importantly it has a bilge pump and paddle float.

For the past couple weeks I have been watching YouTube videos of people performing paddle float self rescues.  Some of them seem to have a easy time of it while others seemed to fail miserably.  I fully expected to fail miserably on my first couple attempts bit it turned out not so bad.

So this past Sunday I paddled out into a local lake to practice  my paddle float self rescue.  I was actually able to get back into my kayak pretty easily on my first try.  I was on a fairly smooth lake and the water was warm so the conditions were fairly favorable.  I am sure that it would not be so easy in the cold, windy ocean.  It look me about 2 minutes to get back in on my first try.  I was a bit faster on my second attempt.  Most of the time was spent inflating the float and getting it secured in the deck rigging.

Kayaking purists seem to frown on the paddle float rescue as not a useful skill for rough conditions.  They claim the Eskimo roll is the only fool proof rescue technique.  Until I learn to roll my paddle float will have to suffice.  Rolling will be one of my goals for next season. 

I posted a quick video below of my first attempt at a paddle float rescue.  I apologize for the shaky camera work.  My wife had our crappy video camera zoomed all the way in and and was trying to watch our daughter while filming.