In 1994, cab drivers in Munich were given cars with new safety equipment: anti-lock brakes. Surprisingly, their crash rate stayed the same. Nothing was wrong with the new brakes. The cabbies simply drove more aggressively, knowing that they had better brakes.

This phenomenon is called risk homeostasis. It also applies to skiers, skydivers, cyclists and, yes, kayakers.

Risk homeostasis states that people have a target level of risk they’re willing to tolerate. Above that risk level, things are scary; below it, they are boring. Give a cabbie better brakes and he’ll drive faster. Give a kayaker a drysuit and she’ll paddle in bigger seas.

This might not seem like a problem, since that kayaker gets more challenging paddling for the same level of risk. However, paddlers often assume that safety equipment provides more safety—or different kinds of safety— than it does.

The U.S. Coast Guard and American Whitewater Association recently published 2010 statistics on boating accidents. The single greatest cause of sea kayak accidents was, for the eleventh year running, “Unexpected changes in weather conditions.” A New Zealand study of near-misses agreed. Of course, “unexpected” is a loaded word.

Most weather changes can be anticipated through forecasts, weather knowledge and seamanship. But relatively few kayakers have honed these skills. It’s quicker and easier, if more expensive, to buy a drysuit.

The best approach is to make risk more apparent

In Sea Kayaking Safety and Rescue, John Lull describes a four-level safety hierarchy. The first is judgment and decision-making. Second, paddling skills and boat control keep kayakers upright and away from hazards. It’s not until the third level—rescues—when that $800 drysuit actually helps. At level four— outside assistance—we’re reliant on a VHF radio, SPOT messenger or cell phone to call in the cavalry. If we’re really worried about safety, we should focus on the top two levels.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Risk homeostasis applies to skill as well as equipment. Kayakers who feel safe in big waves will simply head for bigger waves. Therefore safety education shouldn’t try to make kayaking less risky, since paddlers will just compensate. Nor should it try to lower the appetite for risk, since there’s evidence of a genetic con- nection. Headed into Okisollo Rapid? You probably have an elongated DRD4 gene.

The best approach is to make risk more apparent. In sea kayaking, unlike whitewater paddling, the dangers are mostly invisible. The weather systems, tides and currents that lead to those “unexpected” weather and sea changes are usually hours or miles away when critical decisions are made. Sea kayaker safety relies more on judgment, risk assessment, weather interpretation and the ability to accurately assess skills, rather than boat handling.

There are adventurers who roam to all the far-flung ends of the earth seeking adventure, and there are those who find a lifetime of the stuff right on their doorsteps.

I confess I’ve spent much of my paddling career looking over the rainbow and beyond the horizon for bluer waters. With a paddle and a pair of trusty red clogs rather than sequined ruby slippers, I’ve hunted for Oz on the East Coast and out West, in the South Pacific and on the North Shore.

Much of my time now is spent absorbing other peoples’ adventure stories—emails, blog posts and photo CDs recounting exotic expeditions in Baja, Australia, Fiji, Chile, Italy, Alaska and the like. Some drift through my consciousness like clouds, while others snag on the yellow brick road of imagination, lingering and becoming tangible, almost personal, through their storytelling. Jon Turk and Erik Boomer’s Ellesmere Island expedition (found in our Spring 2012 issue) is one such example. Don Starkell’s storied career is another.

Dreaming is important – but so is paddling

When the stories accumulate in such numbers that I have to struggle against the compulsion to do something wickedly ad- venturous, some would say (they’re probably right) wickedly foolish, of my own—book a flight, sublet my apartment, quit my job, buy a Feathercraft, and turn my back on land—I know it’s time to get out. Not on a summer-long expedition or a record-setting circumnavigation. Just somewhere I can leave log prints in the sand and let the waves wash away the funk of self-pity.