I say probably because no one will ever know for sure what killed Ron, Rick and Greg.

But I can tell you this simple truth: You could be a great boater or a strong swimmer - and, once you've been in the water for a few minutes without a PFD, you're no better off than a novice who can barely swim.

When we ignore that simple truth about PFDs, and attribute deaths of people who don't wear PFDs primarily to other secondary factors - like the age of their boat, or the weather, or a boater's experience - we are in the same kind of denial as everyone in that cottage that night.

I feel compelled to stress this because when I ask myself, "would this have happened today, eight years later?" the answer - we all know it - is yes, it would happen again today.

It probably did happen today.

Earlier today, how many people out for an afternoon cruise on Grand Lake in Oklahoma actually wore their PFDs?

How many people are making that same mistake tonight, just next door, at the marinas here in Newport Beach?

And in a couple of months it will also be happening on Casco Bay in Maine, and the Snake River in Washington State. People will be making those same mistakes, thousands of times a day right across this continent.

I have surprised myself with the bluntness of that answer - because I am by nature a very optimistic person, I have a great deal of faith in people. And this kind of an answer is an uncharacteristic one for me.

But I give myself that blunt answer, because I cannot avoid the fact that behaviour has not changed. We are not appreciably better in North America at wearing PFDs.

Every year the equivalent of one fully loaded 747 crashes into the lakes and rivers and waterways and coastlines of this continent - one or two people at a time, in boating incidents and drowning.

We are well acquainted with the complex problems that we face.

We are fighting against culture - in some cases, social cultures that have never behaved very safely on boats and don't want to.

We are fighting against pride - the pride of people who, because they are strong swimmers or because they have been fishing or sailing for decades, think there is no danger….