I have a mailing list of around 100 regular paddlers in and around Cape Town that I use to organise group paddles - something essential in these parts, as I consider it dangerous to paddle alone.

I recently posted the following, and was subsequently requested by Alain Jaques to post it on this blog for a wider audience. I do so humbly and hope I can get some form of reaction to it.

In South Africa we recently had 2 successive long weekends - which of course meant paddling, paddling, and more paddling.

For our foreign fellow paddlers' info: Google False Bay to see the areas I am referring to in the essay below.

A Tale of Two F%*# - ups

Over the long weekend I went for a doubles paddle with Fouche Whitehead. The sea was flat and sort of boring and so we decided to paddle from Strand Club House to Gordon's Bay with a few other paddlers and then decide whether to paddle to Steenbras Point or straight back to Strand. When we got to Gordon's Bay, the sea had picked up and the wind had started to blow heavily. On the way back,  just as we were about to pass the Poort (a rocky outcrop), a huge blinder picked up on our left, leaving us no time to readjust the boat or to escape a massive blow. I immediately told Fouche (aka Chuck Norris due to a remarkable resemblance as well as his knowledge of the martial arts) to bail out - thinking that I'd rather have a long swim than to first get injured and then have a long swim anyway. I dived as deep as possible to escape the massive rush of water (knowing that we risked ending up on the jagged reef outside the Poort where we would get chewed long before reaching the sandy part of the beach).

As we popped up we saw that our boat had been dragged out of reach and that it would be futile to swim after it. So I decided to (more or less) stay close to Fouche and wait until I could read the direction of the swell.

We didn't have any flares, life jackets, phones - zip zero - except our blades. I must have spent about 40-45 minutes floating and in that time I learnt an important lesson: I put my heel in the fold of the one blade, folded my other leg over the shaft so as to lock my feet together, kept the shaft as close to my body as possible (which meant that my body stayed straight as an arrow), and rested my head in the fold of the other side of the blade. I relaxed totally while floating on my back and waited for the sea to push me towards the beach. In the meantime Nico Redelinghuys had noticed our peaks floating around and assumed that we had picked up a problem. When he found us (at this stage we had been seperated by a 100 meters or so), he took his own ski to the beach, collected my double and returned to fetch Fouche who was further out to sea than I was. (A funny moment was when Nico shouted to Fouche "Hei Fouche, hoe gaan dit met met jou?" and Fouche answered "Cool, Nico, hoe gaan dit met jou?" (translated literally as "how goes it with you?).

In the end I made it to the beach OK, and as we picked up the boat to carry it the last kilometer or so to the club house, the Vodacom helicopter came hovering above our heads. They landed at the club house to make sure we were in fact OK. Someone living in the blocks of flats overlooking the sea had phoned in to report our unmanned boat floating around. We had quite a crowd waiting on the beach. I lifted my blade in salute to whoever the person/s was who had reported our mishap.

A few days later we did a Downwind Dash from Gordon's Bay to Strand in flattish but bouncy and choppy waters. This time we were all on singles. The plan was for all of us to stay together until we got to the club house, from where some would continue to Monwabisi Beach. Just off Silkies in Strand I heard a faint voice call my name. I turned - with extreme difficulty - to see whether I was imagining it or not. There I saw Johan van Rooyen clinging to his brand new Red 7 and struggling to remount. I helped him get going again, and seeing that he was still struggling with an unfamiliar ski, I decided to stay with him. About 2 minutes later I heard him call again - this time a bit more frantically. He had lost his boat in the pumping (EAST !!! - totally strange) wind and the ski was being rolled at quite a speed. I raced after his ski, caught it, tied my footstraps (yes - this time I had all the safety goodies) around both our ski's and lay myself flat on top. I figured that it would be hours before we would be resqued, as I was being blown offshore and obviously it was impossible for Johan to catch up. I shouted at him to relax and save energy as far as possible.

Luckily I saw Jurie Wessels just ahead of my position and shouted as loud as I could to get his attention. After the 4th or 5th attempt he heard me and turned around. He fetched Johan and "towed" him in my direction. I could do nothing to slow my drift except use my blade as a type of braking system. Eventually Jurie managed to get him to me where he remounted, rested a while and then  setoff again. By this time we had drifted past the Strand in the wrong direction, so Jurie left us to collect the club's rubber duck. I eventually told Johan to stay with his ski whatever happens and I set off to some nearby fishing boats to call for help. One of them went and escorted Johan back to the beach. By possible divine intervention the wind dropped suddenly and completely - just long enough to allow him to make it to the beach. By this time I was exhausted, suffering from cramps and generally glad to be back on Terra Firma.

Lesson: your blades can be either your best tool for survival (in the absence of all other safety goodies), and your last form of defence when a johnny comes to have a taste - OR - your greatest problem if you have to swim after a ski or when being towed.

In future I will always have at least a flare or cellphone (in a condom) when out at sea.

Cheers - and all the best

Louis Carstens @ tsdml@mweb.co.za