As more people in cottage country get out to enjoy the water, the OPP is recognizing Safe Boating Awareness Week.
The provincial force asks boaters to make a four-item check list, before heading out.
The list includes ensuring you’re wearing a life jacket, ensuring you are sober and drug free and being prepared for the weather. The last item is knowing the effects that cold water can have on your body. That means knowing the 1-10-1 principle, which states that “cold shock” can set in within one minute, and within 10 minutes you can become incapacitated. And, finally, within one hour you can become unconscious with hypothermia.
The OPP also emphasizes the importance of lifejackets, saying only 11 of the 130 boaters or paddlers who died on OPP-patrolled waterways in the last five years were wearing a lifejacket.
Officers with OPP’s Marine Program will be out on waterways up to May 26, to promote safety as part of Safety Boating Awareness Week.