LAGUNA VISTA — The memorial to Adrian Garcia grabs at your heart.
A simple cross and flowers, and “Gone Fishing, Adrian” marks the spot on remote Holly Beach just north of this city where he launched his kayak for the last time.
Garcia, 20, a Los Fresnos High graduate, was kayaking in poor conditions on March 31 at Holly Beach, which is known for being an easy place to launch but a tough place to paddle.
Fog rolled in, along with high winds, and somehow Garcia became separated from his friends. His body, without a life jacket, was found a day later near Port Isabel.
For paddlers along the Gulf Coast, Garcia’s story was a wake-up call, and it caused a storm of message board conversations, emails and text messages about kayak safety.
For Boating Safety Week this week, kayaker John Hern of South Padre Island passed along some of his observations about paddling safety in the Laguna Madre and in the Gulf of Mexico.
“The number one mistake is they don’t put on their life jacket,” Hern said. And when it comes to quality, a life jacket isn’t the place to try to save money.
“Are you willing to spend just $5.99 on a life jacket to protect your life?” he asked. “No. You spend what your life is worth.”
Hern said that being out on the water is never safe, and no one should ever become complacent about that. But there are ways to minimize risks.
“Number two is I always have a whistle hanging from my life jacket,” he said. “Your voice won’t penetrate fog like a whistle will.”
His third safety tip involves those floating pool noodles you buy for kids. But they’re anything but kid stuff, Hern says.
“One of those noodles holds up 45 pounds in the water,” Hern said. “My hull is always full of those noodles.”
For the rest of this story and many other EXTRAS, go to our premium site, www.MyValleyStar.com.
Subscribe to it for only $6.99 per month or purchase a print subscription and receive the online version free, which includes an electronic version of the full newspaper and extra photo galleries, links and other information you can’t find anywhere else.
