Lake Superior Goodness

The folks that were helicoptered out of Lake Superior last Friday (read news article here) had to abandon their boat and all of their gear. A trip up the coast in a motorboat on Monday was unsuccessful in finding any flotsam  or jetsam from their lost vessel but sometime overnight last night  it showed up on Driftwood Beach, adjacent to Naturally Superior Adventures’ site.

Ray and Carolyn set out to retrieve the tandem sea kayak, which was full of water and sand.  It had lost the front hatch cover and rudder in its travels but was fairly unscathed otherwise (Current Designs should be proud of their Libra design I guess).  As I set about to put all the gear out to dry (nothing worse than mildewy clothes and tent and rusty gear), I noticed that every single dry bag that I came across was full of water.  There were a few different brand names and I was hopeful that I would come across the one that was still bone dry so I wouldl know which would be the superior choice for my next purchase.  I have to say I was disappointed.  No bag stayed dry and even some items that were double bagged in ziplocks and then in a dry bag- also wet.  The exception being these little pill bags that looked like they probably came from the drug store.  They were triple bagged and all medications were high and dry (slight pun intended).

The only items that were still water-free were a polycarbonate latch box from “Outdoor Products” (similar to a Pelican or Otter Box),  a dry pouch from Storus and those little plastic waterproof cases for your matches from Coghlans.

So yes, this unofficial, unscientific experiment is to the extreme.  Not many of us expect our gear to be floating in water for 4 days. Maybe there is no hope for a dry sleeping bag in those kind of conditions but saying that- perhaps a watertight box or dry pouch is a good choice for your first aid kit, camera, medications, electronics, emergency kit and anything else that would be really good to absolutely keep dry in an extreme situation.  If you are looking for a container for your “bail-out kit” also known as a “ditch-kit”, you also might want to look at either of these options. For more information about what to put in your ditch kit- visit Adventure Kayak Magazine’s article on the subject.