Yesterday while canoeing on a local lake (~300 acres) my wife and I noticed a man (maybe late 20's) and a kid (maybe six years old) out in a canoe and the kid wasn't wearing a PFD. Neither was the man. He was struggling to keep the (inexpensive, short tandem) canoe going straight because he was in the far stern seat and the kid was sitting on the center thwart/yoke so the canoe was practically half out of the water. He would swing the paddle straight up over his head from side to side to avoid splashing water on the kid so he obviously wasn't familiar with correction strokes.
I wanted to stop and suggest having the kid move to the bow seat to trim the canoe up better and show him at least how to do a stern pry correction so he wouldn't have to switch so often. But more importantly, should we have let him know that the kid should be wearing (by law) a "life jacket". I couldn't tell if there were flotation devices in the boat or not. Part of me hesitated to say anything because the kid didn't seem really comfortable in the canoe and if there wasn't a PFD for them to wear it might make them more anxious than they already were. They were more or less staying relatively close to shore and there wasn't any wind action, water temps were probably in the mid 70F's. We were headed back to the take out and while they were not alone, there weren't many paddlers still out because it was late afternoon. Help wouldn't be right there if they tipped.
What would you have done?
I wanted to stop and suggest having the kid move to the bow seat to trim the canoe up better and show him at least how to do a stern pry correction so he wouldn't have to switch so often. But more importantly, should we have let him know that the kid should be wearing (by law) a "life jacket". I couldn't tell if there were flotation devices in the boat or not. Part of me hesitated to say anything because the kid didn't seem really comfortable in the canoe and if there wasn't a PFD for them to wear it might make them more anxious than they already were. They were more or less staying relatively close to shore and there wasn't any wind action, water temps were probably in the mid 70F's. We were headed back to the take out and while they were not alone, there weren't many paddlers still out because it was late afternoon. Help wouldn't be right there if they tipped.
What would you have done?