Yep dry bag and for essentials
like a down sleeping bag a double dry bag.
I can throw my canoe pack in the water, let it float and all will stay dry. The clothes are in a dry bag, the sleeping bag in another. All little drybags are in one big dry bag.
Dryboxes are for items that need some protection like a Pelican for a DSLR…I use a little drybox for things that must be at hand in the boat that I dont want to dig out of the drybags…like a smaller point and shoot camera, my car keys–electronic and permits and passport.
If you get a kayak you should still use dry bags…Hatches leak…sometimes operator error and sometimes the seals wear out.
The wording showed an assumption …
… that canoes are heavy. Otherwise, the solution to the problem of your canoe being too heavy and not suitable for solo paddling would not cause you to think you need a kayak. Instead, you’d want a lighter, smaller boat and make the decision about whether to get a canoe or kayak for reasons OTHER than size and weight.
Lots of ways to keep gear dry.
A method that’s pretty traditional is to line a pack with a heavy-duty plastic bag (garbage bags will not work for this). The pack can sit in the bilge water and get rained-on all day long, and the stuff inside will stay perfectly dry. Tip the boat over and let the pack float in the river for a while, and it might get a little wet inside. Dry bags are another option, but even dry bags normally leak a little at the roll-up top, so for things that must stay absolutely dry, no matter what, a secondary enclosure is a good idea (the secondary enclosure won’t leak because the only water it’s exposed to is the small amount that gets past the seal on the main bag).
Kayakers must use dry bags too, but while canoers use one or two big bags or packs, kayakers use several small ones. There are big dry bags to use singly in kayak storage compartments, but the bag must be placed in the compartment while mostly empty and the items packed one-by-one, so it’s probably even less convenient than using several small bags.
good plastic bags
I’ve found two types of readily available and reasonably price plastic bags for dry gear storage (I use them inside regular kayak drybags). One is the heavy-duty medium sized white plastic bags used in trash compactors – available at most large grocery stores. Of course, these are open top bags that need to be folded, rolled and twisted so they are mainly for backup inside the drybag and are also useful for trash collection and disposal during the trip. The other is the oversized double zip-lock clear plastic storage bags made for compact household storage. They have a portal build in to use a vacuum cleaner to suck out the air and compress the contents (they used to sell them on late night TV info-mercial ads but now show up in most general goods stores). The portal can be used as a manual purge valve, too, allowing you to roll or squeeze the bag and compress the air out to reduce the volume – being air tight they are also water tight. Although since you create a bit of vacuum inside, if it was to be damaged and spring a leak it would suck water in I suppose. But, as I said, these are for backup only and have not failed me yet. I always keep a box of the trash compactor liners in the car – super useful for muddy gear and boots when loading the car, post trip. Perfect size and 4 times thicker than most garbage bags.
Keeping gear dry
Thanks for all the advice and suggestions!
You need to post more!
– Last Updated: Aug-12-11 5:50 PM EST –
Funny stuff!
Your canoe
Your particular canoe might be especially heavy.
That doesn’t mean canoes in general are heavy.
If you compare kayaks and canoes made the same way (with the same material), the canoe will generally weight LESS than the kayak because the canoe doesn’t have the deck.
Keep in mind that your canoe (it seems) can carry two people.
People put tandem canoes on top of Outbacks all the time.
Everyone starts out as amateur
"And, as mentioned before, how the problems caused by those amateurs ended up reflecting on the public’s and the authorities’ perceptions of climbers and backcountry trekkers as a whole. Several of the best rock climbing and caving areas that we had free access to during the '70’s are now off limits or restricted in some other way, in large part due to backlash from overuse and accidents by the untrained."
How many of us started out as an amateur during some fad and then found something we loved and became expert at it?
There is no way to look around and pick which people are buying kayaks because it is a fad and which will end up crossing an ocean someday. Because there is no way to know and because many of us who consider ourselves “real” kayakers started out just like the people who are now condemned as sheep, I say let the fad continue and more power to each and ever person who goes out and buys a kayak on a whim. It is their prerogative to do so and it is none of our business why they are doing it.
Bummer about access being lost because someone else wanted to learn what you already knew. Once you joined the club, no one else was allowed in? Maybe it would have been best to give up the sport you loved to help reduce the number of people in it and to help keep access open for… someone else.
Dave
Many canoes at IPR last weekend.
Tandems and solos. Probably as many canoes as kayaks.
A couple royalex Wenonah Sandpipers paddled with kayak paddles by women. This seems to be a popular combination. Too bad the Sandpiper mold is too damaged to make any more.
Most canoes were paddled with single blades.
All of the paddling was done on Wildcat Creek, which is smallish, twisty and was particularly shallow last weekend, which resulted in a lot of dragging on the bottom and bouncing on boulders.
It always impresses me when skilled paddlers in straight keeled canoes, such as the Sawyer Shockwave and Wenonah Advantage, negotiate such streams with great aplomb. My meager river reading ability and moving water skills become glaringly obvious in such situations.
I was paddling a solo canoe, but would like to have a kayak that I could enjoy on this type of river.
You’ll still need dry bags
The hatches on plastic kayaks, especially the more inexpensive ones, are rarely totally dry. You’ll still need dry bags, just smaller ones than in a canoe, at least if you want to keep things truly dry.
I run into people who want SUVs even
though from a practical and rational point of view, they really need a sedan.
I ran over a bunch of lemmings last week, driving my Accord.
Just show them up
I am not anti-kayak, I was paddling probably the first SOT kayak on West Galveston Bay, starting in the late 90s. I got a lot of “what is that cool little boat” questions from people, probably got a lot of people interested in them just by being out there. Then in the early 2000s, the SOT kayak fishing craze hit Texas hard. A few years back, I got a canoe, and found it to be much better for bay fishing than a SOT, though I paddle it with a double blade. A few times I have had kayak fishermen fishing the same cove as me, who have probably been kayaking half as long as I have, come up to me and say “you really should try a kayak.” Oh, the irony. However, they begin to see the light when the sun is beating down and I actually have an ice chest to put my fish in, and another ice chest to pull cold drinks out of, and I can actually bring live bait with me when the fish don’t seem to be biting plastics. The best way to convince someone they really need a canoe is to demonstrate all the things a canoe can carry, and how much more comfortable it is to be in for a long time.
Thanks Seeker
That’s sort of what I expected. Well, maybe I expected you to respond ‘Pelican’ or ‘Coleman’. ‘Don’t know’ is about the same. So let me assure you that there lots of lighter, faster, drier canoes out there that probably have all the same good features of your current canoe without the headaches. Having said that, kayaks are great too. It’s just important to make an informed decision.
Renting is good
You could suggest that she RENT, not buy, several boats of both the canoe and kayak variety. Let HER figure out which one she likes being in more.
I see more people capsizing rental canoes than capsizing rental rec kayaks (SINK, not SOT). Frankly, the “kayaks are tippy” thing I’ve heard many people claim is just as BS as other blanket statements are. There are differences among boats and people, and some matches just work better than others. No harm in trying a bunch.
The 300-lb lady in a rec kayak vs. a canoe question is something she can decide for herself without having to buy right away.
kind of like cars
The speed limit where I live is 65 mph. Still I see people in all kinds of suped up cars that could probably do 150. Should I tell them they need a Yugo, or is there any room for what they want?
doubt she is getting any boat at all
It sounds like the chubby lady has decided to not get any sort of boat. Turned out her main reason for wanting a kayak was that she was under the illusion that kayaking would be “good exercise” that would cause her to lose weight (like 100 lbs) without having to diet or do other exercise. Would that it were true (I could certainly stand to shed about 20 myself but none of my paddling has trimmed my waistline). I told her that paddling a few hours a weekend would probably be fun but was not likely to have much effect on her weight and she seems to have lost interest.
But I’m glad I posted my little rant about it anyway. This topic sure grew “legs” (or “skegs”?) and I’ve been really intrigued by the exchanges – the best I’ve read in a while with both canoe and kayak users contributing perspectives. Hearing such a range of experiences with all sorts of craft has really been educational.
Thanks, all you paddlers of every persuation!