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Coast Guard, BFD, BPD bail out kayakers in Dorchester Bay

Kayakers being rescued in Dorchester Bay

Rescue boats in Dorchester Bay. Photo by Mike.

The Coast Guard teamed up with Boston fire and police marine units to rescue five kayakers who found themselves in some sort of trouble in Dorchester Bay off Castle Island shortly after 3 p.m. today; initial reports said one might have wound up in the water. John Duffill reports the marine units got all five out OK.

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Comments

between the P.O. and World Shaving HQ. Never seen them there before.

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It was pretty windy further out in the harbor today. They could have gotten blown off course.

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glad everyone is safe but that seems like a lot of boats for five kayakers. Is this like when BFD sends out a full crew on a truck for any ambulance call as a matter of policy?

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I was at Castle Island and had walked away from the water, so didn't realize this is what they were responding too. But on the land side there were 2 or 3 (!!) fire trucks, an ambulance, a few police vehicles and some DCR vehicles. They sped by Sullivan's along the left of the building toward the water.
Glad to know that's what it was and everyone was fine.

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Can we please send these morons a bill for their rescue. Kayakers shouldn't be going out during a small craft warming.

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An insurance adjuster once told me that sea kayaking was the most dangerous recreation he commonly encountered in his work -- worse than skiing, or mountain climbing, or motorcycle racing.

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Just look at all the tax money at work in that photo!

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Aren't you glad you live in a place where people in trouble get rescued? I know I am.

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Cars kill a lot more people than Kayaks.

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n/t

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Except for maybe the fuel used, it's probably mostly a sunk cost (boat pun intended!). We already bought the boats and paid for these people to be on duty--if they didn't go out there, they would just be puttering around somewhere else, protecting us from pirates and sea werewolves.

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We kayak in the harbor often...with the right equipment. Spray skirts for big waves and high winds, bailing pump, PFD's ALWAYS!. I didn't see any mention if this group had any of those.

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Most boating is almost entirely unregulated, and most images that non-boaters have of boating make it seem very easy and perfectly safe to just drop any boat-like object in any body of water and head out into the blue. A lot of people here are being very smug about the stupidity of these boaters, but I'd guess this is largely armchair quarterbacking, and that few of these people know much about boating safety themselves. For that matter, I certainly wouldn't restrict skirt use to "big waves and high seas": you can't exactly predict when you'll encounter something that'll swamp your boat. Bailing pump is good, PFD is essential, but the ability to do self-rescues and assisted rescues is something that you should be proficient at (as in, you can reliably execute it every time) if you ever go beyond an easy swim to shore.

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>I'd guess this is largely armchair quarterbacking

On the internet? Perish the thought.

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at Carson Beach yesterday, but we saw a notice on the website at www.boatinginboston.com as we were about to head over there that they had temporarily closed the location due to high winds.

Adding to the irony, yesterday was the last day of the season for kayak rentals at Carson Beach.

Go figure.

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Can you advice of a website to check small craft warnings? What was the source of it on their site? That is a great tip!

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always has a map on their homepage that shows current advisories, watches and warnings, for both land and marine interests: http://www.weather.gov/box/

There is a Small Craft Advisory in effect right now.

The boatinginboston.com site just had a blurb at the top of their Carson Beach page when we checked yesterday. It saved us a trip!

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