Kayaking Experience in The Adventure Program: Safety Precautions

Risks of Kayaking Experience

Risks are indispensable for outdoor adventure programs, including the kayaking experience. It is believed that “risk is as basic to adventure as competition is to sport, but the bets are usually higher” (Mortlock, 1984). Therefore, to safeguard participants during their kayaking experience, ATE emphasized applying a “Culture of Safety” to every participant, showing that risks are always present and that they can only be reduced but not eliminated. Besides, participants engaging in the kayaking experience must sign the “Enrollment and key matters disclosure form” to ensure that they have acknowledged and accepted the terms and conditions, as well as filling in some personal information which includes emergency contacts and health matters.

Excitement of the Kayaking

As participants had become more comfortable with the environment, a tendency for participants to take action to reintroduce excitement would appear (Lester, 2004). Therefore, after getting familiar with the nearby environment, participants will choose to enter a less mundane environment. In this program, participants were being taught the basic skills and movement for kayaking and the safety precautions they needed to pay attention to. Followed by this, time was given for them to practice next to the beach where they were under the supervision of staff and could be looked after. With the practice time, participants usually feel more comfortable with paddling on a kayak and would have a feeling that paddling around the area was not enough. As long as the participants were confident with their skills, they would request for paddling outside to explore more on their own, in which the unknown situation out there lets participants bear more risk and make their experience more intense. Participants would consider the process as satisfying after encountering thrill and excitement from arousing and success in paddling under an unfamiliar environment (Buckley, 2012).

The weather condition is one of the challenges in this kayak program, sometimes big waves add excitement to the trip and different sea levels make the process more challenging. Even though the weather could be checked before the program, it is still not accurate as the weather is unpredictable, no one is sure about how the weather is going to change. Therefore, even if the staff has checked everything, including tides, wind, thunderstorms etc, there are still risks. If the weather suddenly turns bad and there are big wind and waves when participants are paddling, there may be chances that the kayak may roll over which leads to a series of accidents, from minor to serious ones, namely scratches and drowning. So there are always risks in kayak programs due to different weather conditions, however, they are always uncertain, so other safety measures must be implemented to protect the participants.

Uncertain Outcomes of Kayaking

For an experience to qualify as an adventure program, its outcome must be uncertain (Mitchell, 1983). Uncertainty acts a significant role in adventure programs basically because of what they can teach participants, it also forces participants to face their fears and exercise their decision-making skills (Ewert & Sibthrop, 2014). In this program, as mentioned above, participants can choose to paddle further as long as they have got consent from the instructors. However, if the participants have paddled too far in which they have not expected, they may not have enough energy and water for coming back, participants cannot be sure about this since they cannot foresee the weather and sea condition when paddling back. So, they may have to use more energy under some tough situations, like big waves, and this uncertainty may lead to risk-taking for participants as they may suffer from dehydration.

Challenges of Kayaking

The program was well arranged and scheduled with the route and destination set beforehand. However, depending on the ability and skills of different participants, some may request to paddle further if time is allowed, for example, to explore nearby islands or caves to make the trip more interesting and adventurous. They may want to take up more challenges and push themselves to a higher level, such decision increases both the risk and challenging level of the kayak program, as it was not planned and the participants would have to bear the consequences since they made this request themselves. Moreover, the level of challenges also corresponds to the sea conditions, whenever there are big waves, in which the participants are not expected, they will have to use their skills to overcome the waves. Since some of them may not have encountered such circumstances, facing and surviving such conditions can act as a way of enhancing participants’ perception of being able to challenge themselves to deal with unexpected situations, that helps construct a more thrilling and venturesome experience (Lyng, 1990).

Recommendations for Kayaking Experience

Based on the guidelines of the HK education bureau, instructors must check that canoes, life jackets, paddles, and other required equipment are in compliance with safety standards before departure. The instructor didn’t check the kayaking equipment one by one carefully. The instructor claims that they will check the equipment twice a month. It isn’t safe for the participants playing kayaking or no swimming experience. Moreover, although the instructor is carrying their medical kit wherever they were, if the participant was drowned, their medical kit is insufficient to handle it, and waiting for the helicopter may delay medical treatment.ATE’s Tan Ka Wan base should be equipped with an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) near the site, speeding up the medical treatment of the victim, to avoid the fatal outcome because of the postponed treatment.

Safety Guidelines

Tan Ka Wan Base is too simple and crude. There is only one storage room that leaving with the kayaking equipment and first-aid kit, life jacket. There is no guidelines or safety hazards related signage shown on Tan Ka Wan Base to constantly remind them not to do certain things considering that some of the kids might be lacking adventure and kayaking experience. It will result in drowning and got injuries. Therefore, ATE should show more guidelines and safety hazards on the base. For example, the signs about kayaking rules and some clear direction in Tan Ka Wan Base.

Kayaking Practices and Procedure

The participant’s level of maturity is low, some of them were not concentrated and distracted easily when instructors talk about the hazards and prevention, and they might lack experience in kayaking and adventure activities. Although the instructor has introduced the team to safety issues and provide them with a kayak skills training before allowing them to paddle themselves, it is not enough for the kids. Instructors should consider giving more detailed and clear instructions for the kids not to touch or try anything when kayaking or during the activities, they should get permission before performing any action. According to the HK Education Bureau, the slowest canoe should be at the forefront when going out to sea and the experience participant should be at the back. However, we have seen that the front kayak is driving very fast and keeping a long-distance with other ships.If they get injured or the kayak rolled over, the instructor cannot rescue them immediately. They should give more attention to the risk management plan, to give more instructions to the parents and kids to ensure the activities are controllable by the instructor. Moreover, a demonstration of the proper approach to get into the kayak and wear a life jacket could be provided to prevent participants from accidentally damage this equipment due to negligence.

Emergency Plans

Normally, instructors will bring along a small bag of medical kit when conducting kayak trips in case of emergencies. However, the support of such a medical kit will not be enough if a participant is suffering from a twisted ankle or even worse, bone fracture. Therefore, in order to have better procedures in dealing with injuries and sudden incidents in the water, the first suggestion will be having instructors carry a walkie-talkie with them to the kayak so he/she can inform other staff at the site immediately, as they may not have brought their phone out and there may not be signals out there. Moreover, ATE should have its own speed boat for emergency uses. Since the current practice of ATE is wait till the helicopter to come for rescue and it takes a long time as the arrival time is just an estimation. As a result, with their own company boat, the patient can be sent to receive medical care as soon as possible under a sound emergency system.

Documentation and Control of Kayaking

In terms of documentation, there is a detailed risk assessment and control document that listed out all the possible risks and the approaches to manage those risks for staff to take it as a reference when leading the kayaking program. However, the contents of the list had not been updated for a year and that the data could be obsolete, and considering that there are infinite possibilities with regard to the way participants got injured, it is not possible for staff to be able to anticipate all the possible risks. Therefore, it is recommended that staff should always renew the list for at least every season instead of on a yearly basis so as to facilitate a safer outdoor adventure experience.

In terms of follow up actions, A-Team staff and instructors should conduct an investigation on its risk management through having them fill out questionnaires or interviews with the participants after completing the program given the fact that those kids are the ones who experience the program’s risks. Asking them questions could give the organization some insights to improve the quality of the next program, facilitating a better outdoor adventure experience.

Conclusion

To conclude, A-Team Edventure has extraordinary outdoor adventure programs as those kids will be able to have sufficient interpersonal and intrapersonal development such as the raise of self-esteem and enhancement of social skills through being placed at stretch zone and pressed to learn, leading by instructors with profound experience in outdoor education with adequate risk and uncertainty while having outstanding risk management plan at the same time so as to ensure participants can be engaged in the adventure experience in a safe and appropriate manner. Therefore, limited recommendations could be suggested with regard to their risk management practices. 

Works Cited

1. Mortlock, Mike. 'Outdoor Pursuits - Their Place in Curriculum.' The Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, vol. 1, no. 1, 1984, pp. 12-16.
2. Lester, Lindsay. 'Adventure Education and Self-Concept Development.' The Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, vol. 75, no. 6, 2004, pp. 23-28.
3. Buckley, Ralf. 'Adventure Tourism and Global Environmental Change: A New Risk Society?' Journal of Sustainable Tourism, vol. 20, no. 1, 2012, pp. 1-7.
4. Mitchell, John. 'Risk and Adventure in Early Years Outdoor Play: Learning from Forest School.' Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, vol. 16, no. 1, 2015, pp. 10-23.
5. Ewert, Alan, and R. Bruce Sibthorp. 'Outdoor Adventure Education: Applying Transformative Learning Theory to Understanding Instrumental Learning and Personal Growth in Environmental Education.' The Journal of Environmental Education, vol. 45, no. 4, 2014, pp. 239-256.
6. Lyng, Stephen. 'Edgework: A Social Psychological Analysis of Voluntary Risk Taking.' American Journal of Sociology, vol. 95, no. 4, 1990, pp. 851-886.
7. HK Education Bureau. 'Guidelines on Kayak Safety.' Hong Kong Education Bureau, 2018