Cold Safety

Yesterday I held a safety course for 4 Chinese students on fall break from University of Michigan. Three young men and a young lady. They wanted to do a full safety course that would qualify them for renting sea kayaks to go to Pictured Rocks and camp for 1 or 2 nights. Carl, the owner of Northern Waters Adventures said that the group claimed to have backpacking sleeping bags and gear and were prepared with synthetic clothing as per Northern Waters orientation literature that had been sent out to Ying, their group leader.
I was up at 4 AM and left home at 5:15 for Munising with a stop at The Pines in Baraga for $2.80 per gallon gas, then a longer stop for breakfast with Tim Fillmore in Marquette. I arrived at 8:45 at Northern Waters quonset warehouse, loftily named "adventure headquarters". The ride over was in darkness with a bit of cold rain and even a little snow for a time. As light returned during the 140 mile trip, there was an occasional glint of sun out of breaks in the dark and fast moving clouds. I enjoyed the start of the day on the road with the color change in its variety. I wasn't looking forward to the cold northwest wind off of cold Lake water, but soon made up my mind to not get wet in Lake Superior water but go to Deer Lake for the on-water portion of the course. Much warmer and more sheltered.
The "leader" of the group, Ying had the greatest understanding of sea kayaking (he'd been on a day trip and had paddled a recreational kayak) as well as seemed best at the English language. Filling out the liability release forms was very "sketchy", as the group was obviously not reading the forms. The 4 neophyte paddlers were very inattentive. There were 2 other female members of the group making three couples. The 2 other girls were not involved in the course but were supposedly along for backpacking and were in town in a separate car. They were supposed to come to the quonset and kind of "be around". The group of 4 were talking on cell phones, among themselves, and there was a general lack of focus on what they were spending a lot of money to learn to do. They had obviously not read or perhaps comprehended the orientation literature, or what Carl had sent them on clothing and there were no backpacks in the car. Only Ying had one synthetic shirt and it took a few minutes to get them to understand why cotton was a bad thing for paddling and camping in around freezing conditions. After going through "weather, wind, waves and water", slowly with many starts and stops for cell phone calls and breaks, they began to realize that 6 to 8 foot waves with winds out of the northwest onto exposed Pictured Rocks meant that they would have to go elsewhere for their trip. Grand Island in sheltered Murray Bay was what I promoted as their destination. After the end of the "beach talk" and after waiting for the 2 girls to show up, we headed out to Deer Lake, caravaning with the trailer and van followed by the 2 small cars.
The lake had a raw wind at about 15 mph down the length of it but much warmer water and no crashing surf like on Superior.
After paddle strokes we headed out with Li, the girl in our group, being very unsure of her stability in the kayak. I worked with her for awhile and then we all started doing paddle stroke exercises and then rudder use. On both strokes and rudder, voice commands in English were inexactly followed: right might be left and reverse may be turn right. But they did get practice. Wet exits and T rescues again fraught by a language barrier, but Ying helped to facilitate by translating my English to Mandarin so they were able to get in their boats.
Li, the last to capsize was nearly hysterical upon surfacing but after getting into the boat ended up wanting later in the progression to also do the paddle float self- rescue. She commented that back in the kayak she was warm, and the water wasn't as cold as the air. The four of them all did the paddle float self rescues in spite of the wind pushing us rapidly to shore. Our group returned to shore jumping out of the kayaks, shivering in the cold wind, when Ying discovered that he didn't have his keys, they were with the 2 girls who had left in their car. So the 4 dripping wet and pre-hypothermic kayakers couldn't get their dry clothes in their locked car. I got the van running with heater blasting and they sat in the van and dripped for 40 minutes until the 2 non-participants got back with their car keys. When we finally got back to the shop Ying said that they had decided to not paddle out for camping but would pick up the boats the next day with just 3 of them doing day trips. One of their party was going to return with the 2 girls to Ann Arbor. So they at least saw that they were in over their heads for camping out in the conditions that fall offers, and that kayaking on Superior was not to be taken lightly.
When I could get free, at about 6 PM I headed out to Marquette and stayed the night at Fillmore's, played music with Tim and visited with Kyra and the kids. Saturday was a crystal clear day, the first in what seemed like days.