Central Okanagan

Every spring and summer, the RCMP and various other government agencies urge boaters to take care and be aware on the water, and every year someone forgets that message.

A tragedy was narrowly averted on Okanagan Lake Saturday afternoon when a motorboat ran over a pair of kayakers not far from the shore at Whisky Cove in Carrs Landing.

"It was a miracle," says Scott Clark, who was paddling with his girl friend Irma Klassen in a double kayak when the incident occurred.

Clark says they were paddling close to shore near the public beach when they saw a speed boat coming back towards is dock, drop off its skier off, then take a sharp left and head right towards them.

"We were waving and screaming at him and he didn't see anything. There was five people in the boat all turned around and watching the skier."

The boat hit so hard, Clark says he was spun around at least three times before he could bring himself under control, fearing for Irma's well-being.

Witnesses on the shore told Clark the crash looked terrifying.

"I'm a level three first aid attendant, I thought, OK when you come up you've got to get ready to go back down because there's no way she was going to be conscious. When I came up and looked around, she was looking at me. I could not believe that she didn't get knocked out and that we didn't get ripped up by the propellers."

Clark escaped relatively unscathed, however Klassen, fearing her leg was broken, had to be taken to Vernon for X-rays, which revealed a badly bruised tibia, but nothing broken.

Clark says the other boat stopped and checked to see on their well being, but he's frustrated and angry by the lack of awareness shown by the boaters.

"We were 10 feet away from the shore, we weren't even out in the water. There was no reason to be driving the boat like that there."

Clark says he's too much of a kayaking enthusiast to let this near tragedy stop him from going out again, but some things will change in the future.

"We love it and were having a phenomenal day, but I'm going to make a bigger to effort to go up in the mountains where there's only 10 horsepower boats allowed."