View topic - Rental Companies and Liability / responsibility / Whatever

I spent my summer vacation this year at my wife's family's cottage on Lo2R in Algonquin. It is usually a peaceful, quiet escape and we enjoy that we are hidden in teh woods without anyone knowing we exist, quietly watching canoeists paddle by and campers play on the beach.

At each end of the lake there are beaches, one is the public beach where folks come to swim and catch some rays, and the other end is a campground where folks leave there RV's and head to the water in search of adventure. Some of the adventurers are offered the opportunity to rent a canoe right there on the beach.

Now the campground and attendant canoe rentals are at teh windward end of teh lake, and we are at teh leeward end. In laymans terms - bigger waves at our end, little waves at the rental end. Wind blows offshore at the rental end, and toward us at the cottage.

For reasons that I don't understand, many of the renters head out with overloaded canoes, unskilled paddlers, and generally end up in trouble as soon as any wind builds. During our weeklong stay this summer we got to practice canoe-over canoe rescues a bunch of times.

I can't for the life of me figure out why the rental places think they can let folks who can't paddle head out in an overloaded canoe when the wind is kicking up decent waves at the other end of the lake. Certainly you sign the waiver on teh rental form, but don't the rental places have some sort of responsibility to make sure teh folks heading out can paddle at least semi-safely? After doing a simple canoe-over canoe rescue these renters think you are a demi-god.

By about Thursday, it started getting old, running out in the middle of lunch to save more people who didn't know how to paddle.

I would go have a chat with the rental folks. Seems they get the money and you get the work.

I would use a little waterproof camera and take pics with dates of the rescues you are doing.

at first I was taken aback at the title. Probably it's not too far in the future when companies start making kidneys.

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http://www.canoetripping.net

and you didn't ask us to stop in and take over the duties for a day (or donate a kidney) so you could sit down and kick back - oh yeah, cause you have little ones running around. Okay, we could have babysat while you got some time on the water - even if it was rescues.

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Present: Slip, Slap and Slop, hide from the sun! Past: Get some colour in those cheeks! Paddle Naked!

I fixed the title for ya littleredcanoe.

Cheryl, you would be welcome anytime if it were MY cottage, but alas, it is not. If you are camping while I am there, I'll come over for a visit though, how's that? Actually SWMBO's grandparents (who own the place) are very adament about protecting their privacy and so have made sure the cottage can't be seen from the water, the shore line has remained unaltered since they built the place back in the 1940's, and only are to use the cottage. That is a shame since its such a great place. It may be one of the most protected parts of the entire park.

I compare it to a fishing hole that you don't dare to tell one person about or everyone will want to go there.