RE: [Paddlewise] Tents Vs. Tarps

In the mid 80's Bea Dowd, my editor at Sea Kayaker magazine. Told me of a
guy who had been given an inflatable tent/air mattress/sleeping bag
combination for Christmas. On New Years eve he decided to try it out and set
it up on a relatives beach where he had gone for a party. After the party in
which he had gotten pretty smashed he went down to the beach and took off
his shoes and crawled in. At one point he was awakened by the sound of waves
and looked out to see that the waves were not too far away. However he
didn't feel like getting up and didn't think they would reach him. He went
back to sleep until at about dawn he was again awakened by the sound of very
waves. This time he found they were slapping against the side of his
shelter. He then noticed that he was floating. Further inspection revealed
why the waves were lapping against his tent, it had drifted up against a
snag and the snag held it in place so the waves lapped against it.  Worse
yet he looked around and discovered he "wasn't in Kansas anymore Toto". He
was in shallows near shore but he was disoriented because it wasn't any
shore that he recognized. He hand paddled himself to the nearby shore to
look around but although it was a clear day he had no idea where he was and
could not figure it out. He walked barefoot for about a mile until he came
to an occupied cabin. He called his relative from there and then finally
discovered that he had crossed to the other side and was some distance (I
believe) up the 1/2 mile wide inlet.
How I came to own one was because I wondered if this tent/air mattress might
also do double duty as  a survival raft as well as shelter for kayakers. I
called the intrepid sleeper and asked more about it. It had been purchased
in Seattle so I went down to take a look at it. Although it was billed as a
"Survivor III" it would be too complicated to inflate from the water but
they were being closed out so I bought one anyhow to try out as a bivy. It
was Conestoga wagon shaped with inflatable end tubes holding up the canopy
and had a lightweight sleeping bag zipped to an air mattress that was 9 or
10 inches thick. An inflatable pump worked to inflate it (someone inflating
it looked to be giving it old style push the chest in artificial
respiration). I really liked it. It was a very comfortable bed that could be
set up nearly anywhere, across logs, on rock outcroppings, or even floating
(although I never used it that way). Sometimes in the NW coastal world of
beach logs tumbled up into a salal thicket, finding space big enough to set
up a tent above high tide can be a real challenge. My Survivor III made this
easy. I used it on any paddling trips where I would be sleeping solo. I
liked it so much that I thought other kayakers might like them too. I began
selling them when we first got a retail store in Kirkland, WA in 1987.
Although reasonably priced (because they were being closed out) they were
unfortunately a hard item to sell, most folks were intrigued by it but just
didn't trust inflatable after being "let down" by  other air mattresses. We
probably sold less than 1/2 a dozen Survivor III's total. Funny thing was,
once I couldn't get them anymore almost everyone who had ever bought one
already stopped by wanting to buy more of them. Although I have used it many
times in Baja where nearly every plant is armed with sharp points, it never
was punctured (the heat-sealable urethane nylon fabric was like that in a
Thermarest(tm) pad). Unfortunately the heat sealable bonds in it  seemed to
be degraded by time and moisture and during a kayak trip to the NW end of
Vancouver Island in 1999 the "inflate by mouth" pump failed and after a week
or so of blowing it up by mouth it went from being a comfortable shelter to
like trying to sleep on a giant soft beach ball as all the internal baffles
that gave it its inflated shape came apart. I'll miss it. Anyone know where
I could get another one?

Matt Broze
http://www.marinerkayaks.com



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gypsykayak_at_aol.com [mailto:Gypsykayak_at_aol.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2001 8:46 AM
> To: mkayaks_at_oz.net; paddlewise_at_paddlewise.net
> Subject: Re: [Paddlewise] Tents Vs. Tarps
>
>
> In a message dated 01-02-28 06:22:19 EST, mkayaks_at_oz.net writes:
>
> <<  I was the only person who used a tarp over
>  my tent or inflatable bivy but a few years ago I went on a trip on the NW
>  Coast of Vancouver Island with two other very  >>
>
> inflatable bivy????    do tell more, Matt.
>
> sandy kramer
> miami
>

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