I’d rather be seen and also not make matters even worse by confusing others. However,
Colregs (Rule 25 (d) ii) says that boats under oars may display the lights of a sailboat. So under the rules it would not be considered confusing.
I heartily agree with you Mike. Only reason I wrote that is that this season I had a convo with Police (dive rescue) here in Ontario and I was told that as a paddler I should only have a front facing white light to be illuminated when other approaching craft are near as per Transport Canada regulations. It is very open to interpretation what ‘near’ means.
Much as I see their point, I’d still rather be seen and hope that whoever is driving that boat or Seadoo can see me in plenty time.
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I never paddle if there is lightning in the area.
The problem with headlights, if you are paddling with others, is that if you turn to look at the person you are talking to you end up blinding them.
In addition, the vast number of headlights are not waterproof, although some are available.
When I paddled the Yukon River races, the YRQ from Whitehorse YT to Dawson City, and the Y1K continuing all the way to the Dalton Highway Bridge in AK, one of the required legal pieces of equipment was a bright white light. The main purpose was to be seen by the large tour boat, the Yukon Queen, if it should go by. I found a small bright 360 -degree light that also had a strobe setting. At the time of the year of the races (near the summer solstice), the faster and farther north you go during the race, the exponentially more rapidly you get into daylight increasingly lasting all “night”.
We made quick advancement toward the Arctic Circle and even at first as the sun briefly dipped behind nearby mountains and the horizon, we were never under anything like a dark sky. We did encounter the Yukon Queen boat twice, once during full daylight, and again under bright dusk. Having our white light made no difference in either case. The passengers had heard about the race and we were being photographed from the YQ with camera flashes going off as if we were movie stars in our 7-paddler 34’ voyageur carbon canoe. The worst hazard was, even at a half mile way on the other side of the river from us, the YQ at slow idle created some of the largest wake waves I have ever seen.
We love paddling at night. Usually calm and peaceful! We use LuminAid solar lights on our kayaks. Differerent color settings and white can be bright or dull. Velcro straps attach to anything and they are made to get wet. Highly recommend. Luminaid.com