That is a good site, especially for a novice paddler overview. There are options, alternatives and qualifiers presented, without a lot of absolutes in terms of “You must always. . . “
I don’t believe in absolutes, and leave it to experienced paddlers to know which rules of thumb can be bent to fit the circumstances.
Qualifiers such as (from the site):
“When water temperatures are below 70 degrees, you should be thinking about wearing some kind of thermal protection from the water temperature regardless of the air temperature.”
“You should be thinking about wearing”; much better than “you should wear” or “you must wear”.
OK, I will think about it. My local dam fed homeriver is almost never above 70 degrees. It is also generally 30-50 feet wide and 2 – 5 feet deep. Drunk tubers freeze their arse floating down it in summer; I thinked about it and can forgo the wet suit or dry suit.
Or, a lot of my favorite coastal bay trips in Maryland and NC. The water in those shallow bays is typically 2 or 3 feet deep. Sometimes, if you screw up the tides, a lot less.
Memorable story from a Chincoteague Bay trip on an overly warm March day. A couple of sea kayakers came into my site, one of them friend Chipster. Sweaty, on the verge of hyperthermia Chipster, wearing a full drysuit on a 70 degree day under zero shade in two feet of water.
He couldn’t get that thing off fast enough. Unfortunately after pouring the sweat out of his booties he found he was plum out of storage space, and had to bundle it up and strap it to the back deck.
I don’t mean to downplay the serious risks of hypothermia or other safety issues, but preparedness falls under managing those risks without going full Inspector Gadget in a moon suit on every trip.
