I just want to give you my 0.02$ of opinion. 1) You must have a compass when kayaking on larger bodies of water (and a map of the area). Any compass! 2) It's nice, if not even a must have too, to have a deck mounted compass when kayaking. It's easier to follow a bearing without digging the handheld out all the times (espcl. in rough water). 3) For planing and orientation with and on the map, it is nice to have a handheld compass as well. 4) To make life really comfortable it is very nice to have a GPS. A basic unit in the 100$US range is sufficient for seakayaking. IF you can afford one with mapping capability its even better. BUT you need a compass anyway, since a GPS is not a compass and it might fail (saltwater and electronics are sometimes not good friends). What do I use? Well I carry a mid price range Silva hiking compass (was ~30$CAD), and a deck mounted Suunto Orca. The hiking compass is nice, the deck mounted Orca could use larger and easier to read numbers but for 50$CAD it does a good job. Since it is straped to the deck with bungees I had to carve a base plate for it. But it is easy to remove and set up. However, next time I would take a closer look at the Ritchy kayak models. Their numbers look a bit easier to read. Whatever combination of the above shouldn't cost you in the 100 US$ range or less. As a hiker you might want to look in a model with a aiming mirror, but they are not much more expensive then the ones without (at least those from the brand mentioned above). Cheers Ulli *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Feb 12 2001 - 11:59:13 PST
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