Stupidity - in adults at least - is its own reward. I know this to be
true from too many personal experiences, so far, obviously, none fatal.

I used to keep my 25' sailboat at a mooring in front of our cottage. The
lake freezes hard for almost 5 months in Ontario winters, so I'd usually
haul the boat in mid-September, but a few years ago the autumn was so
beautiful that I left it in for an extra month. The haul-out was never
much of a problem, but I always hated the awkward and messy business of
having to scrub the bottom while it was on the trailer. This particular
year, a very dim light bulb clicked on in my mind and I decided to do
the scrub before the haul-out.

The water was cold when I first went in, but us northern folk are hardy
and used to it, so I swam out and did the job without having told anyone
what I intended. Slowly but surely, without feeling the loss of body
heat, I started to lose the capacity for rational thought, but
fortunately, another even dimmer bulb came on and I sensed I had to get
out immediately. However, it was close to being too late, for I had
hardly a clue as to where I was or what I was doing, and found that my
ability to swim the 50 yards to shore was sorely tested. I made it, of
course, and managed to haul myself onto the dock. As I lay there, I
started to shiver, and while I eventually managed to get to the cottage
and wrap myself in blankets, the shivering continued for several hours.
I soon realized how foolish I'd been and what a near miss I had had. The
frightening thing is that while I was in the water there was no
particular discomfort, just the sense at one point, for whatever reason,
that I was slowly but steadily slipping away and had to get out.

Since the ocean waters around the PNW average about 9-10 degrees C in
the winter and perhaps 12-13 in the summer, it doesn't take very long
for hypothermia to set in. We carry lots of life jackets and wear them
whenever it seems there is any possibility of problems, eg always when
using the dinghy, and a couple of survival suits as insurance against
disaster.

The trouble with rules, however, is that the people for whom they are
intended are the very ones who usually won't/don't follow them eg
drinking drivers, and their victims are usually the unsuspecting
innocents who are doing the right things.

Cheers, Garrett

Dear Garret
Years ago i read a Readers Digest book about Secret Stories of WWII where is
said that the nazis made experiments with jewish prisioners to try to found
a way to recover their pilots falling with their planes to the cold North
Sea after bombing England.
Even they made worse thinks like injecting benzin to them (prisioners), they
finally discovered the best way to recover from hypotermia was to bring them
in bed with 2 young ladies.
So better than blankets you know what to do next time, if not better to
recovery, maybe something better to remember.
Regards
Luis / Spain