Thanks, I specifically left out food and water. If I have time to take my flight bag there's a quart of water and maybe a sandwich (along with wool hat and socks). The point of the kit however is alerting the "system" to where I am and getting a Coast Guard helo in the air.

There is a lot of redundancy built in but it's all focused on eliminating search from the effort and moving straight to rescue -- being pulled out of the water before hypothermia makes it moot.

I'd really like to be pulled out before Cospas-Sarsat has time to respond.

Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic?