When I first started to fish out of my kayak, I was in about 3ft of water in the Indian River Lagoon, had not put the rod holder on the yak yet, so the fly rod was laying in the bottom of the yak. As I was starting to paddle out, I noticed a manatee crossing in front of me, so I stopped the yak to let it go past me. When it was a prudent distance away, I started to get moving again, and when I took the first paddle stroke, unbeknownst to me, there happened to be another manatee under my yak, which proceeded to flail the water with it's tail while under my kayak. Needless to say, me, the fly rod, and the paddle all went flying from the kayak. And it continued to raise cain for 40 ft. Recovered everything an went along my way, I was lucky that it happened in shallow water. Started wearing a PFD after that.