When Captain Ashley Ryder of Deer Harbor Charters and her five passengers set sail on Tuesday, June 21, they didn’t realize their excursion would become a rescue mission.
As the boat neared Point Doughty, Ryder noticed a group of struggling kayakers. They had gotten pretty far out past the point, and the water was rough. She slowed the boat down to check if they were okay. After yelling out to the man, woman and young female, asking if they needed assistance, the response was a “very emphatic” yes.
“I think they would had capsized if I hadn’t been there when I was,” said Ryder.
She originally intended to tow the kayakers past the north east tip of the point but when she noticed that their vessels lacked skirts and had taken on a lot of water, she decided to bring them onboard.
“They were tired, and had been paddling pretty hard,” said Ryder, who credits her boat passengers for assisting in the rescue. “They were extremely grateful. We got her (the young female) into the cabin, gave her a blanket. She was crying when we got to her.”
Ryder said she thinks the kayakers, who were part of a guided tour, had traveled too far ahead from the rest of the group and then became caught in a rough current. Another male kayaker had made it around the point, but got stranded in the process. He was brought back to the group by an anonymous boater.
Ryder stressed the importance of checking water conditions before you go into the ocean.
“If people are going to go out in the water on a kayak, they need to have experience,” said Ryder, who said that on the day of the rescue no one should have been going around the point. “Have a plan. Even really experienced people have died out here.”
This is the second time Ryder has rescued someone from the sea since she became a captain two years ago. She explained that during one of her whale tours last year she aided a man off Henry Island whose Boston Whaler’s engine had died.
“It’s good, it’s fun, you need to know what you’re doing,” Ryder said about people venturing into the ocean. “Keep yourself safe and keep the people you’re with safe.”
