Lost Hatch Covers

So, you are out on beautiful multi-day paddle, boat loaded with gear, just enjoying the good life.  After a wonderful night of camping you begin the loading process only to realize that you have either lost your hatch cover or the water/ocean has reached up and stolen it, leaving your precious boat with a big  open exposed hole.  What do you do now, how will you recover, what is your plan?

I had thought of this occurrence many times and kept meaning to add a spare hatch cover to my gear list.  Unfortunately, procrastination and what not got the best of me and I never got that spare.  Three days ago as I was  loading my boat in a fairly benign surf zone, the ocean reached up and grabbed my rear hatch cover and ripped it off it's tether.  The hatch disappeared into the green and blue spray, never to be seen again.  Arghh, oh no, what now!

For me, I had at least thought of this moment happening and was mentally prepared for dealing with it.  Even though I did not have a spare hatch cover, it was a simple task of getting the XL size freezer zip bag and placing it over the rear hatch and then using cord to secure it in place.  This patch was good enough to keep the casual spray and low waves from inundating  my boat with water, but certainly not anywhere near enough to deal with a roll.  Care and caution was the order of the day.

So, what can you do?  Make sure you have some plastic, either those XL freezer bags or the heavy duty green trash bags in your kit.  Either one of these can be  cut to the right size and then with something like 1.5mm - 2mm cord you can fashion a very tight emergency seal.  I have read somewhere that there are soft emergency covers and these would be ideal to add to your kit.  The ultimate is to acquire a spare cover, duct tape it into your boat and just have it ready for that moment when you really need it.

The lesson from this, you need to be prepared and ready for the incident that you think might never occur.  A lost hatch cover that can't be properly cared for is a real show stopper in a kayak on a long or even short distance trek.

Water Purification, Chemicals or Filter?

This is a question that any backcountry paddler is faced with.  As we leave the confines of civilization we are confronted with one of the key challenges of long distance paddling.  That is, how am I going to get my water and how am I going to make it safe to drink.  We can live without lots of things, but safe drinking water is not one of them.

For my 1700 mile solo trip through the San Juan Islands, British Columbia and SE Alaska I was confronted with these exact questions.  For my trip, after much research I opted to go with the filtration method as my primary purification technique and then Aquapure tablets and boiling as my backup methods.  Before I describe my experience with filters, let me just say that in the future, I will use chemicals, so read on to learn more.

After all my research it appeared that filtration was the best, safest, and most reliable way of purifying water.  I acquired a MSR Gravity Filter and must say that it performed admirably (read my review).  In 147 days I only once had a clog that required back washing, so my overall experience was very good with filtration.  I was able to safely acquire and drink all the water that I needed, never experiencing any issues or bad tasting water.  You might then ask, if you had no problems, then why change?

Well, the issues become more of logistics and ease than with the actual filtration technique.  You see, to use a filter you on a long distance kayak trip you must deal with a number of issues, some of which can be quite complex.  The first issue is that quite often you will not be in a location where you can afford to sit and filter the water at the exact source where you acquire it.  This means that you must then wait to arrive at camp before going through the filtration process.  While the gravity filter worked great, it did require you to have an object high enough to hang everything.  This was quite often a very difficult process, especially in the rocky, tree less environment of Glacier Bay.  So this was another obstacle to getting your water to a drinking state.  Lastly, while I only had one backup of my filter, it was enough of an issue to cause me to re-think how I would deal with a broken or damaged filter.

Even though the gravity filter worked as described, the ability to have drinking water available in the most efficient and timely manner became my overriding goal.  Thus, the move to chemicals solves a great deal of these problems.  First, you can simply acquire your water strait into your Dromedary bags.  I carried three bags, 2/6/10 litre bags that I used for different purposes.  The 2 litre bag was filled on a daily basis with water that was to be used for cooking, thus using boiling as my purification technique.  The 6 & 10 litre bags were used interchangeably based on the frequency of water sources. That is if I was in an environment where water was readily available, I would use the 6 litre bag.  If water was getting scarce, I would use the 10 litre bag.  The move to chemicals meant that at the source, 90% of the time I could simply grab my water, quickly apply chemicals, and then get back into the boat and move on.  Within the allotted amount of time, the water was ready and I was good to go.  By the time you arrived at camp, there was no filtration to be done, and your daily supply of cooking water was simply ready to use, thus not taking from your precious drinking supply.

The chemicals I used were the Aqua Pure tablets, which I cannot recommend at all.  They left a disturbing taste in the water, and if boiled, caused a strange foaming to occur.  However, I was able to use the chemical called Pristine (sold in Canada, the US version is Aquamira) and it worked fantastic.  I was privlidged to paddle with some Canadian guides who shared this with me and their experiences with it were 100% positive over a number of years of use.  Due to this experience, I will be swithching to 100% chemical purification and leaving my filter at home.  This has the added benefit of not only freeing up space but also of removing one more  peice of gear that could potentially break.

To recap, this is my preferred approach:

1. Carry multiple size Dromedary bags. They fold up nice and small when not in use
2. Use a 2 Litre  bag for your daily cooking water
3. Use a larger bag for your drinking water
4. Use Aquamira for your primary purification
5. Use Boilinig for your backup purification

Aquamira Water Treatment

Tent/Tarp/Bivvy - what to take

I got this question a lot along the way.  I personally took a North Face 4 season tent and a 8x10 silnylon tarp.  Both worked excellent other than the details I have already talked about with regards to poles.  As it relates to this question, I really think you need all three, plus an extra tarp. 

While the Tent is great for those extended stops and truly bad weather days, there are many a spot  that simply setting up a bivy and/or the tarp is all that you need.  I did not have a Bivvy but will definitely add it to my list.  For fair weather climates, I think I would skip the Tent altogether and go with a Tarp/Bug netting combination.  So much lighter, easy to set up, and more room in the Yak for food.  Really all you need. 

The bivvy would provide even more options. In BC and Alaska, camp spots are a challenge.  The addition of a bivvy allows you to expand that which is a 'campable' spot.  Many times you would find log strewn beaches that had no room for tents.  However, a bivvy would have provided you all that was needed to sleep comfortably between the logs.  Having that flexibility  would be a real bonus. 

For instance, over the last 2-3 weeks, in the San Juans, I have not even been setting up my Tent.  The weather has been spectacular.  I would have preferred to have the bivvy on these nights just to keep the dew off the bag and to handle the 'what if it rains' circumstance.

One tarp is the minimum I would travel with, while adding a second  tarp would give you the added flexibility of having both a sleeping tarp as well as your eating or lounging area.  This proved incredibly important in Bear country where you had to eat down in the tidal zone away from your tent. The silnylon tarps, while expensive, take up so little room that I would definitely add a second one to my gear list.

Solar is cool but confusing

I am really stoked about working the trip with Solar power.  However, as I have learned over the last 3 weeks of testing, it is definitely a confusing arena.  I ended up acquiring a 14W Powerfilm panel, which is rollable, flexible, and most importantly, water proof.  It is designed for a marine environment, so it should hold up well.  The device is completely sealed as are all of the connectors.  While I would have preferred one of the foldable panels because of packing concerns, they must be completely dried before storing and in AK that was just not going to be feasible.

After unpacking it and testing things out, I was amazed at the simplicity of charging some items and frustrated with others.  In a nutshell, so far this powers all of my smaller devices straight  from the panel via the female travel adapter.  You know, the kind that all of your auto accessories plug into.  With the addition of a small USB auto adapter, I am able to also charge all of my USB devices. 

The issues with this solution is in powering larger devices.  I had purchased this panel because  I was told it would at least trickle charge larger items even if it could not run them.  Well this has just not worked out as planned.  Lesson learned is to buy a minimum of a 28W panel, which would only have cost $100 more.  It turns out that the issue is not with the Wattage of the panels  but with the Amps.  Apparently many devices, including this Asus Eee PC netbook, have an electric component that will not allow juice to flow through to the battery without the correct Amps. So while technically a 14W panel can charge these batteries, the device itself gets in the way.  When you get a bigger Solar Panel, you also get more Amps.

The solution is to either acquire another panel and daisy chain them or to go with  an external batter solution.  With the latter, you use the Solar Panel to charge the external battery, and then use this to charge your devices.  Ironically, this was my original plan, but after much research decided I could get by with just the panel.  So based on a bunch of last minute research, it has come down to the Tekkeon 3450 and the Brunton Solo 7.5.  I think if I was not going out into the wild, the Tekkeon is actually a more flexible solution.  However, with that flexibility comes some complexity that I think will possibly cause me issues so I have opted for the Brunton.

I will provide updates and follow on reports about this combination and let you know how it all works and what, if any issues arise.