Re: [Paddlewise] Stinky Shoes

I know that smell!

I have had success by periodically rinsing my (now at arm's length) booties
in a dilute Pine-Sol solution.  Takes care of the odor for the next couple
of trips and is cheap.

   Mark

At 01:39 PM 8/25/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>After almost one season of paddling I think I've narrowed my problem down.
>
>I got a nice pair of Chota paddling shoes for Christmas last year and have run
>into a bad smell problem with them.  Early in the season this year, I got 
>seaweed
>caught in the velcro straps that cross your instep and can't seem to get 
>rid of
>it.  The shoes are all right in the smell department when dry, however after a
>paddle when I throw everything in the back of the car they are wet, when 
>stopping
>on the way home then leaving the car it smells ok since the smell builds 
>slowly
>and I've gotten used to it.  However, getting back into the car is 
>terrible.  The
>experience can charitably described as walking into a tidal mud flat at 
>low tide!
>All I want to do is roll down the windows and drive at high speed to flush 
>out the
>smell.
>
>I've narrowed the smell source down to the shoes, and can only think that 
>it's the
>old seaweed that is the source.  I rinse them religiously when getting 
>home, have
>used tweezers to try and pick those little bits of vegitive matter out of the
>velcro but just can not get rid of all of them or the smell.
>
>Any advise would be appreciated.  The shoes are great and comfortable with a
>curved heel that eliminated the pressure point of my old paddling 
>shoes.  I'm down
>to considering throwing them into the mulch pile over the winter to 
>accererate the
>decomposition process.  However I'm not sure what that will do to the rest 
>of the
>shoe.
>
>John Blackburn

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