There was a good article in National Geographic Adventure about how we form mental models for tasks and how that relates to a number of things, including taking risk and survival. Anyway, had a good story in there about a very accomplished female rock climber in France doing a realtively easy route. In the process of preparing to climb she was carrying on a conversation with someone and was distracted. She stopped to tie her shoe and then began to climb. I don't remember is she slipped or was rappeling down, bottom line her harness wasn't tied off properly and she fell something like 75 feet. There was a convienent pine tree to break her fall, and she walked away from it. Point is, her routine that her mind went through automatically knew it was tying something, and the simple act of tying her shoe was enough subconsicously to check the box. The risk mitigation is simple, and most people do it, but the last thing you should do is take a deep breath and check your gear right before you put that first foot in the boat; then give the people to your left and right the once over. I say this as a fairly new boater, but with a lot of experience at mitigating risk on a nearly daily basis. Example -  We go through no less than four checks before we jump, your buddy checks your gear, you check it, the jump master checks it, and you check it again in the airplane before you go out the door. Guess what? Every year there's still fatailties on drop zones.

get that extra ''p" in there. I'm guesing you were rapping, not raping.

Alright....  That's it! 

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James

Jon D.