Only the true gear heads may be interested in this one. The following is the gear that I used and a little bit of what worked, what didn't, and what I might do differently if I was to do it again.
Gear Used:
- Perception Eclipse Kayak. 17', polypropylene with a rudder - I love this boat. Can't say enough good things about it. She carried a ton of gear, tracks nice and straight, and never thought about capsizing on me even in the biggest wave conditions I have ever paddled.
- Werner straight handle paddle with a really heavy Perception paddle as a back up. Thankfully I never have needed the back up paddle because it would destroy my shoulders within an hour.
- Nylon Eddyline spray skirt
- Stohlquist Tow Motion PFD
- Whistle and Flint/steel kept within PFD
- Paddlefloat, pump, and a 50' rope throwbag. The throwbag turned out to be useful as quick access to line to land when the surf was trying to drag the fully loaded boat back out to sea or to tie up to sailboats.
- Orion Skyblazer II Flares x8
- Both a deck mounted and a hand held compass
- ACR Aquafix 406 EPIRB - float plan was preregistered with NOAA so if it went off they would know that the distress signal was real.
- SPOT Connect - so I could send daily position report to friends and family. Also functioned as a back up distress beacon.
- ACR Firefly3 SOLAS Strobe Light
- Cockpit Cover - for keeping the creepy crawlies out of the cockpit at night. No scorpions, roaches, mice, snakes, bees, or spiders please.
- Mountain Surf Paddle Jacket - I would not bring this next time. The water is fairly warm and any time I was getting wet enough to need it the adrenaline and effort were keeping me warm.
- Marmot Aura 2P tent - I don't think I would use this for this kind of trip again. It didn't shed the wind very well. I both snapped one of the guy lines and had the fly rip in a small spot. Also since the body of the tent is mesh is allowed the fine grit sand in when it was blowing. This is the kind of sand that is especially hell on electronics and camera/sunglass lenses.
- Mountain Hardware Phantom 32 sleeping bag - it got cold at night sometimes. I wouldn't have wanted any lighter of a bag.
- An old 3/4 length Ultralite blowup Thermarest
- 1 wide brimmed hat, 1 baseball cap, and 1 keffiyeh
- 2 bathing suits
- 2 paddle shirts - one short sleeve and one long. I only ever wore the short sleeve one. It is now pretty much destroyed. Should have brought two.
- 1 pair of Tevas - the sand and straps tore up my ankles
- 1 pair of Mountain Masochist trail running shoe - the lava rock tore these up pretty quick though they did already have a bunch of miles on them.
- 3 bandannas - there are at least 101 uses for these things
- Microfiber towel
- Beach towel - initially I thought this was silly but it worked great to lay on or fold up to pad my bony butt in the kayak or when sitting on rocks. Really glad I brought it.
- A bottle of camp soap and a bottle of waterless shampoo
- MSR Whisperlite International Camping Stove with 4 fuel bottles of various sizes
- Camping mess kit and a small teflon frying pan
- Whisperlite repair kit, Patch kit for Thermarest, Sewing kit, 2 spare rudder cables (ended up needing one), and an extra foot peg.
- 10L MSR Dromadory Water Bagsx4 (usually only used 3) and 4 x 1L Nalgene bottles - basically an 11 to 12 day supply of water.
- Garmin eTrex 30 GPS
- IPhone 4 with DriSuit waterproof case
- Olympus Tough TG-810 Camera
- GoPro Hero3 Camera
- IPod Classic
- Seattle Sports SUB HandCrank Flashlight with laser and ability to charge IPod
- SOLIO Magnesium Solar Charger
- Small pair Leica 10x25 binoculars
- Petzl Myo XP headlamp - batteries last forever in this thing. Nice and bright when the batteries are new.
- Only used 9 AA batteries between the headlamp and the GPS
- First aid kit with signal mirror
- Julbo glacier goggles. I also had a pair of Foster Grant Ironman sunglasses but they died the first week.
- Assortment of dry bags - various sizes and companies.
- SEAL Line Baja Deck bag - also worked great as a "purse" when going to town'
- 2 tubes of SPF 50 sunscreen and Chapstick
- A big mesh bag for carrying all the little bags and assortment of stuff when loading and unloading boat.
- Books and harmonica for entertainment
- Collapsible fishing pole with a selection of lures. Spoon lures tended to work the best.
The two things that I would do different next time would be: 1) I would have brought some body glide. I did have some chaffing issues from my PFD around my "love handles". 2) I had 15 pound test fishing line on my rod and it would often snap on the initial strike. Lost a bunch of lures that way. 25 pound test would have been better.
I am sure there are a few other little things I had but this is the bulk of the important stuff. For the most part it worked out fine. The sun, sand, and salt are hard on stuff. All my pants ripped out except for one pair and that only survived because I stopped wearing them after I realized it was my last intact pair. My "waterproof" wristwatch/altimeter also went haywire within the first few days.
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