Do not wear laced shoes in a canoe, for experience has taught boating-men that about the most inconvenient articles of clothing to wear in the water are laced shoes. While swimming your feet are of absolutely no use if incased in this style of foot-gear, and all the work must be done with the arms. But if you have old slippers, they may be kicked off, and then you are dressed practically in a bathing-suit, and can swim with comfort and ease.
Possibly these precautions may suggest the idea that a ducking is not at all an improbable accident, and it must be confessed that the boy who thinks he can learn to handle small boats without an occasional unlooked-for swim is liable to discover his mistake before he has become master of his craft.
Stick to Your Boat
Always remember that a wet head is a very small object in the water, and liable to be passed by unnoticed, but that a capsized boat can scarcely fail to attract attention and insure a speedy rescue from an awkward position. As for the real danger of boating, it cannot be great where care is used. Not one fatality has occurred on the water, among all of my large circle of boating friends, and personally I have never witnessed a fatal accident in all the years I have spent rowing and sailing.
Life-Preservers
All canoes should have a good cork life-preserver in them when the owner ventures away from land. I never but once ventured any distance without one, and that is the only time I was ever in need of a life-preserver. The ordinary cork jacket is best. It can be used for a seat, and when spread on the bottom of your canoe, with an old coat or some article thrown over it for a cushion, it is not at all an uncomfortable seat. Most canoes have airtight compartments fore and aft—that is, at both ends—and the boat itself is then a good life-preserver. Even without the airtight compartments, unless your boat is loaded with ballast or freight, there is no danger of its sinking. A canvas canoe, as a rule, has enough woodwork about it to support your weight when the boat is full of water.
An upset canvas canoe supported me for an hour and a half during a blow on Long Island Sound, and had not a passing steamer rescued me, the canoe would evidently have buoyed me up as long as I could have held on to the hull.