Sign, sign, everywhere a sign

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign? *

I don’t get around that much and was surprised to see the following sign erected at my beach.

One of the many helpful signs with hazardous scenery lurking in the background

Apparently there are nine similar signs on one beach in the National Park just south of here.

I showed some German tourists, travelling from Melbourne to Sydney, this sign, and said they were on all beaches.

A National Park worker said they were, or about to be, on all ocean beaches which have road access in NSW.

Me thinks - people drown at beaches and these signs may reduce the number of fatalities.

(Me also thinks that if you are in an unfamiliar environment, you find out relevant info and use common sense – when I travelled to North America, I found out about bears in the wild, before setting out kayaking.)

We desperately need appropriate signage, clearly explaining the hazards of kayaking, ‘out there’ amongst the scenery. Enormous on-going benefits will include…

• kayaking ‘misadventures’  will be a thing of the past
• insurance premiums for kayakers will be reduced
• more of those honest ‘sign reading’ folk will participate in kayaking

I am proposing a set of kayak guidelines, which would be the basis for an extensive set of signs, spaced five metres apart, beside all ‘kayakable’ water bodies (permanent and ephemeral), and also waterproof UV resistant stickers, for all kayaks and kayaking gear. 

A draft version of these guidelines will appear in my next post.

Vincent

*from the song ‘Signs’ by The 5 Man Electrical Band
lyrics as recorded by The Five Man Electrical Band in 1971