Bags

All you need are the .50 cent Ikea Bags for moving your gear around on your kayak trips.  These bags are cheap, fold flat, and nearly indestructible.  I carried 3 bags with me up the Atlantic Coast, and all three bags made the entire trip.  Through 9 months of loading and unloading, they were wrinkled and very dirty, but otherwise in absolutely perfect condition, so they really do last.  One of the other great things about the bags is that they allow you to easily organize your boat during the loading and un-loading process.

After loading the boat, a bag was stored in each of my hatches and was readily available for unloading.  When I arrive on shore, I pop a hatch, pull out a bag, and start loading it up.  With 3 bags I could completely empty my boat, and with two I had everything needed for the evening.  The process is just reversed for loading -- break camp, sort gear into your bags and then carry them down to the boat.  Each bag has its own compartment, so it is very easy to keep everything organized. 

As I have written about before, it is critical to load your boat in the same way each time when doing long distance travelling.  Not only does this make the process of boat loading quicker, but it provides you with a built in mechanism that will alert you to lost gear.  It is amazing how the brain works, but I guarantee you if you load your boat the exact same way each time, then when you go to load it and something is missing, your brain will start twitching until you realize what is wrong.  This has saved me many at time, plus it just makes things so much quicker.

I am now down to carrying a single Ikea bag worth of gear and one of the very small Ikea bags for the day hatch.  This ultralight setup means I have a lighter more manueverable boat and way more room for fresh food, which is often very bulky.  However, eating fresh fruits and vegetables makes meals much more appealing.

If you need an Ikea bag drop me a note, I have extras and am happy to send out a few.  I realize that not everyone has family that makes runs to Ikea for them and comes home with arm loads of blue bags.  I am hoping to score some of the new polka dot ones just to make a fashion statement out on the water or on the trail.