I think that is my concern about using a SPOT for "I'm OK" messages.  People begin to count on them, and they worry more if there isn't one.  Our kids (we no longer have any parents to worry) don't expect any communication from us now, so I guess I would just as soon not start a regular communication that they are expecting.

But the idea of being able to summon help does interest me.  I am not naive enough to think that help could get there in time if one of us had a heart attack or serious stroke and were in danger of imminent death.  We take that risk, and we have discussed it, decided we are willing to take the risk, and we go anyway.

But I do have a personal fear that if my husband were to die on a canoe trip (as a long-time insulin-dependent diabetic with other complications he is more statistically at risk for heart and vascular events, although his yearly tests are always good) I am neither strong enough nor physically fit enough anymore to get myself and a 17-foot canoe plus basic gear back out again.  He carries a lot of the weight for me now, and it would be a really big challenge for me to return alone.  Of course we don't go to really remote places anymore, but even so. . . .if you are five or six portages from the entry point. . . .

I always tell myself that if something dire happened, someone would paddle by in a canoe in a day or so, and I would call to them.  People in the canoe country are good people and they would help me to get back out.  Right?

But having a SPOT begins to look more practical every year.  Maybe when I turn 70.   ;)