I spazzed out and hit the enter key before I finished the last post!

I was going to conclude by saying that once a paddler is separated from his/her boat, the gear stored in the PFD becomes their lifeline. Don't spend $3K on a kayak only to scoff at laying out several hundreds of dollars on survival/signal gear!

An old aviation adage goes something like this: Nothing is more useless than the runway behind you-the altitude above you, and the fuel you left on the ground.

Put more weight on your side of the survival scale ny getting quality gear and being mentally prepared for the unexpected!