A Bad Start To A Season

  Not many details in this story from Channel 7 today -- so here it is........

 Coast Guard, Navy crews Rescue Kayakers Near Dungeness Bay

By  Web Staff

PORT ANGELES, Wash. —

 Coast Guard and Navy crews rescued three kayakers that went missing near Dungeness Bay, Saturday. A Coast Guard helicopter crew hoisted a 50-year-old kayaker, a Coast Guard boatcrew recovered a 52-year-old kayaker, and a Navy helicopter crew hoisted a 39-year-old kayaker out of the water. All three kayakers were transported to Olympic Medical Center in Port Angeles in critical condition. The 52-year-old male from Lacey died and one was later airlifted to a Bellingham hospital in critical condition. The group of 7 kayakers were from the South Sound area on a day trip. Calm sunny skies in the moning quickly got worse and by the time of the rescue winds were at 35 mph with 3-foot high seas. Coast Guard received a report from an individual at the New Dungeness Lighthouse of a possible kayaker in distress around 2:42 p.m. A Response Boat-Medium crew from Coast Guard Station Port Angeles, and an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew from Coast Guard Air Station Port Angeles, were launched in response. The Dolphin helicopter crew arrived on scene to find the 50-year-old kayaker alone in the water. Using their rescue swimmer, they hoisted the kayaker and then transported him to Port Angeles where he was transferred to emergency medical personnel at Olympic Medical Center. "Wearing a drysuit will greatly increase your chances of surviving in this water," said Jeff Gearhart, a search and rescue controller at Sector Puget Sound.

 Hope the 2 survivors will be okay.

I wonder what the weather predictions were for the Dungeness Bay area on Saturday.  Was the wind completely unexpected, or should the kayakers have known better than to be out on the water?

I wanted to go kayak fishing Saturday, but pretty stiff winds were predicted for the entire region in the afternoon.  You don't want to mess with bad weather on Flathead Lake, which has reaches of up to 27 miles and is notorious for having sudden severe storms.  So I decided to pursue land-based recreational opportunities on Saturday.  The weather was pretty nice in the morning, and I was grumpy about blowing off a day of fishing.  However, by early afternoon the wind reached 29 mph on Flathead Lake, with gusts of up to 46 mph.  So it would not have been a good day to be out on the lake in a kayak.  How did we survive all those years before we could get pretty accurate weather forecasts from the internet?

Ugh these stories are so sad RIP. Hope the survivors pull through.

I wonder what the weather predictions were for the Dungeness Bay area on Saturday.  Was the wind completely unexpected, or should the kayakers have known better than to be out on the water?

I can't imagine the wind would be unexpected, the forecast for the whole weekend was pretty grim both on the Coast and in the Puget Sound region. There is still a small craft advisory in the area in question...Edit: The SCA has ended.

Hopefully more information comes out about why the group decided to go out in such conditions.