Tuesday, June 21, 2011

I Guessing The Members Of The King Co. Council Don't Know How To Swim

King Co. requires life vests for swimmers, floaters

Really, swimmers are to wear flotation devices?  Ever try to swim in a life jacket?  Try surfing in one, too.

As a former life guard, I have to note that it's not the water.  The water can always be dangerous.  It's the swimmer/floater/boater and their sense of surroundings and ability that keeps them safe or plunges them into danger.  Teaching people how really to swim, and requiring education to use a boat or JetSki, will do more to save lives than will writing new, and mostly unenforceable, laws.  In the ocean, the only people who ever got into difficutly were those who did not know how to swim or were only experienced with splashing around in calm inland lakes and ponds.

Which reminds me of something written some time ago:

When I read of "good swimmers" drowning in the ocean, I’m not all that surprised. Even people who know how to swim have usually learned in a swimming pool. Pools have no tides, no rips. Pools have no undertow, no current, and no swells. Pools don’t have waves.

The ocean makes everyone who doesn’t respect it into a novice. The ocean pulls, tugs, throws, rolls, and beats. Swimming in the ocean is as complete a physical activity as one may encounter. The ocean is alive with uncontrollable force, it is nature at its most raw; and it can make anyone who doesn’t respect it into another sad victim.

Some people should not be allowed anywhere near it.