As a short briefing let me tell you that he practiced every Saturday paddling 20 miles against wind in order to be fit to do the Panama crossing in cayucos. He was there with another Mexican Horacio and Jeff an American, and completed the crossing, with a fourth mate, a Panamanian very fit girl, against very strong paddlers that had practiced for a year in very unstable wooden logs. Starting the race, everybody laughed at those inexperienced elders, and by the third day the heart of all Panamanians was with the Mexicans, who cheered them all along the last lap, and who ended before at least thirteen teams.

So, Juan is as fit as ever, and paddles like mad and I can stay with him when I am not looking after others, but if I stay behind to see the back paddlers, I have a hard time to catch up with him. So when he got close to the breakers I just saw a big wave on his left that lifted him high and kept him on the cliff with no water on the sides to brace upon. He was falling to the left and counterbalanced and went over on his right side, very close to the rocks.

I paddled to his rescue but was hesitant about how to do it. I took out my tow rope but had not tied it on my side. Threw it to him but was not able to get close enough. Every time I tried a wave was about to send me over his cockpit. I had to brace and wait for it to pass. Jose came with another rope but was also unable to have Juan grab it. I decided to take the chance and caught his boat and started a T rescue but waves were pounding on us and we were getting closer to the rocks, and we had brand new boats. As I was turning his boat to empty, a wave hit me and I capsized. Rolled up and tried again, but a second way put me under the water. Rolled up again but decided that that was not the right thing to do. Juan let the boat go in between the reefs to the beach and looked carefully to see that it would not hit a rock, at the expense of he himself hitting them and stepping on some urchins. He was very devoted to his new Slipstream.

I waited for the right waves and passed over the reefs into the calm waters, slaloming the close to surface rocks and ending in the quiet waters close to Juan. We did a T rescue. He relaxed, recovered breathing and spirit and off we went with the others that approached us surrounding the reefs.

I was so happy to be able to rescue myself through rolls, but I was very unhappy to perform poorly in Juan's behalf under those conditions. I must take action to do better next time. I thought all the time about the CKF rescues in rock gardens and I knew I would have made a poor role there. But, it is never late to learn a lesson.

Lessons learned.

1. Practice rescues on rough waters.
2. Have the tow rope ready and strapped to the PFD, so that the only task is to have the swimmer get it. Have it ready to be taken off at the closest need.
3. Advice kayakers not to paddle close to shallow waters, unless really wanting to take the challenge of large breaking waves.
4. Make sure all paddlers stay together, following a safely route, specially when the sea is rough.

Rafael
El cayucochie.
Mexico

Opinions follow:

Your lessons learned are definitely good ones, but would not have necessarily changed the outcome. It sounds to me like you handled the situation well.

Very often in RG rescues it is necessary to move boat and swimmer into safer water before performing a rescue. We get to do a lot of these and I've yet to perform one myself that I was 100% happy with. They can all be improved.

Sometimes if the swimmer has really gotten into a bad spot (as in your situation), they must swim their boat to a safe area were they can be joined by the rescuer/s.

How bad is bad? It's completely subjective. Sometimes it can't be done by anyone regardless of preparation or equipment. My personal ability varies with how I feel on that day, the boat I'm paddling, and as an inverse function of the number of times I warned the swimmer about not doing what made him (its almost always a him) a swimmer.

I guess Juan learned there is more to kayaking than going fast. He'll have time to ponder the wisdom of paddling away from the group while he's pulling those urchin quills out of his feet over the next few weeks.

As someone who has been hosting trips for several years, all I can say is "Welcome to my world!" There are some valuable lessons that you have learned. The one about wearing the tow line at all times is one that Jen Kleck from Aqua Adventures hammered into my thick head once, when we had a paddler capsize in the surf zone. Patrick Martin went in right away to help, and I went to hook a tow line to him to pull both paddlers out of the surf. However, my tow line was in my day hatch. By the time I got it out, Patrick had managed to get the swimmer back in his boat.

I now wear a rescue vest with a 12 foot tow line always attached. That will work for emergency situations. If I need to tow for a long distance, I can add to that line very easily and make it a 35 foot line.

Paddling with a bunch of friends like the rest of the Old Farts makes it easy to host trips. We have several quite accomplished paddlers in the group who are always willing to help out. We basically do a cooperative type leadership role. Someone will stay up front with the faster group, several will be in the main body, and one or two will be in the tail.

If someone wants to leave the group, they do so with the understanding (it is stated in the briefing before we launch) that they are officially leaving the group when they do so.

Trying to lead a bunch of kayakers by yourself, can be very difficult given the personalities involved. As Patrick mentioned, it is very similar to trying to herd cats. They all do whatever they want.

Having a core group of experienced and practiced kayakers with you makes all of the difference. Get some good practice sessions going and get some of the others involved in really becoming skillful. It will definitely help.

Still, you did well. Nobody got hurt, and all of the equipment is also intact.