We were coming back to the launch site on the local lake this evening from our club Monday night paddle when we saw someone in the water by a red & white shorter kayak. My first thought was “I hope that is planned”. As we got closer I could see the the man in the water had paddle float on his paddle and was wearing a PFD. Turns out he had recently purchased a Hurricane Santee and had heard about or had seen information about doing a self rescue using a paddle float. Impressively he succeeded even with the high back deck. Technique needed work but hey, anytime you can get back in & seated is a success. We chatted a bit, talked about the club and some upcoming paddles & the Meetup connection. Made a couple of suggestions on making a bit easier to get back in the cockpit & seated. I think that it was Joe that suggested that I do a demonstration. I did tell him that I was cheating with the low back deck on the Delphin as it is almost too easy to get up on that for a scramble re-entry. After that, he headed out to play some more. I headed for the landing to load out as I had skipped dinner to paddle & I was getting hungry.
I’m hoping to see this gentleman out on some of our local paddles.