Peter Osman wrote: > > G'Day > Could anyone volunteer the three worst mistakes I could make? Its part of a > sea kayak trip from Sydney (Australia) to Newcastle (Australia). > > All the best, PeterO > 1. Bringing too much stuff. Too many campers think of a camping trip as an extension of their dining room, bedroom and backyard. The more you bring to achieve the creature comforts of home, the more you have to carry to and from your boat, the heavier your boat will be, etc. Less means more in enjoying the natural world around you. 2. Putting the stuff into big dry bags. Use lots of small to medium sized bags. Write the contents on them or have some color code as to their contents. Bigger dry bags are harder to pack into a boat and harder to find items in. In this imperfect world, dry bags do fail. If you have your contents in 3 dry bags and one fails, one third of your stuff gets wet. If you have them in 8 or 9, then only a little over 10 percent gets wet. 3. Hanging around camp in the morning on a multi-day trip. If you are trying to cover any considerable distances, you are almost always better off getting out near the crack of dawn, without breakfast (have an energy bar and some water), and paddling three hours or so before stopping for your oatmeal. The reason: statistically and athmospherically seas and winds are at their calmest in the early morning (also very late in the day as darkness descends). If you get out early, you will have a better chance at getting in some miles along your course (3 hours times 3.5 knots gives you some 10 miles of distance under your belt). If conditions do become unsettled later, you won't find yourself attempting to press through bad seas because you feel a need to achieve some distance that day. If conditions remain good, you can paddle lots or settle in earlier in the day at a landing and campsite picked with greater leisure. You hardly ever hear of an expedition gone bad in the early morning; most of the s--t hits the fan in the afternoon when people are trying to get somewhere in bad conditions. In general, go as minimalist and St. Francis saintly as you can rather than hedonistic and Yuppie modern day worldly and gadget-laden. ralph diaz -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024 Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com "Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Aug 14 2000 - 06:02:56 PDT
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