Ben Fuller

That makes some warped sense. Those of you who travel to the UK know that the same book is close to double the US price. Will be interesting to see if the US edition is the same high grade moisture proof paper. At the US price it is the bargain of all time. Even if it stayed at UK price. Delta is about 3 lattes.

Just got my copy. Sea Kayaking for the intermediate and advanced paddler. It is something that any paddler would want for the holidays. Despite some references to skinny sticks that some would find less than flattering, the book is the first one to acknowledge skinny sticks. The photos are spectacular as are the drawings. I think getting one is a web project right now, but if there are any retailers listening, it would be a good one. This being an unsolicited mini review. Of course with this warm weather, book paddling becomes less interesting.

I have been playing with various solutions. The removable compass with light underneath is simple and has the added merit that it can be placed where you can wipe it off. Light source can be light sticks, or an LED under the compass. Besides the Orca, a Aqua meter works well and has bigger numbers. Gear heads can have fun with electricity. Compasses like the nexus mounted ahead of bow hatches are hard as they aren't real big and are not transparent underneath. I have been experimenting with various LED solutions. The groove on a 10 inch round hatch cover is just the right width to hold a triple red led that is normally used to light stairs on boats. I have had to tape off the extra lights as there was too much glare, and have also deconstructed and reconstructed them to aim the light better. I have also built an minicell arch in which an led is buried and that works nicely with a cord to hold it in place. Otherwise about the only thing is to aim a red lens flash light at the forward compass. Problem is that even with good light, the numbers are small and if its foggy or wet, what is readable in day time becomes much harder.I have been coming around to the need for a separate night nav removable compass if you have one of the nice compact forward compass mounts. Best rig I ever had was one of the big Bruntons with the factory light mounted on my forward hatch. It went when I sold the boat, but it made long night paddles really nice. Marinized LEDs which includes the circuitry are available from most marine supply stores. If you perform surgery on one, you can reseal the whole thing in GOOP or something similar. For batteries a small water proof container into which goes a double AA battery holder or a 9v cell. A set of plug in contact on the outside so you can seal the hole for the wire. You can get waterproof connectors but the snap type work well if cleaned after salt immersion. Reverse one of the double AA's so you don't have an inadvertent short. If you use a 9v you'll need connectors on the inside which should be unplugged if not in use. I have also had reasonable luck just with a unprotected 9v in the hatch. Thin wires led over the rim of a hatch don't seem to lead to leaking. One of these days I will get the camera out and record all this stuff.

There was indeed a bivy although not on a rock ledge so that the smart people with tent like bivys could set them up in relative luxury. The dumb person (me) used the hypo bag derivative: light poly mummy bag, in a radient blanket, on top of a thermorest in a inexpensive tarp sandwich . It works. There is condesation. Happiness was that the rain held off for a night. Small compass lit from underneath close enough to read seemed to work. Cylume sticks not red white or green on your head not boat. Try to learn nav without fancy stuff like Nav Aids; make sure you can do it with a hiking compass as protractor. Run T rescues getting vic to right boat then hang on to you aft of cockpit and pull boat up upright then turn over to empty. In seas with rocks to leeward, have a third boat towing before you need to. Daisy chain your tow line and practice putting it away fast ( stuff into vest.) Drill: Tow for 20 strokes then switch for a couple of hundred yards. Need to be quick. Bring along an extra chart and hiking compass and/or nav aid. Dry suits that have lost the water repellant coating from the outside are pretty chilly beasts.

Did not realize that the tape you were using is plastic. Vehicle should have given me a clue. The gaffer tape is indeed different stuff. You do get more colors and more widths; the 1 inch is just right for the black between band between hull and deck. I think I will order some to play with. Wide bands can go on the deck of a boat or on the bottom ( depressing thought). Or you could do some CG style hull chevrons. May try to split it for narrowing. I suspect that the adhesive is more aggressive than gaffer tape, more like reflective tape. What I am curious about is how well the flourescence holds up; day glo paint fades as does the color on gaffer tape.

I have found that tape wears on the tips and on the spine of the paddle where you use it to get in and out of the boat. So I have been taping the power/ back face or if a GP, the spine. If you want to get fancy you can run some tape over the spine in a chevron or bar pattern. For the reflective, I have been wrapping the shaft just before it goes into the blace on the EP. If you want to use paint ( flourescent ) you can get real creative, masking off what does not want color. If your blade is black or a dark color you need to spray on a layer of white first.

Another source for this and there are more colors. Should be peeled and replaced annually. Its on my paddles and boats. http://www.identi-tape.com/fluorescent_gaffer.htm

Never thought about using Mr. Zog's..... Good idea Besides the ice water shield there are a couple of other technologies that look promising. Self Adhesive silicone tape e.g. X-Treme tape which could be wrapped around the whole boat in the ends. Vinyl underwater epoxy swimming pool liner repair kits A similar fiberglass based product by ATI industries called Power wrap. The epoxys require a few minutes to set up which could be done if a boat was pulled out on a raft or on a ledge. Has any one played with any of these?

Island themselves would have boring foliage...spruce doesn't change much, but looking up to the Camden Hills would be pretty good. And the hardwoods away from the salt spray ( which is why they don't like island edges) should be pretty good. Supposed to be a banner foliage year. As we said when I lived in the south "y'all come." That said I will be down at Delmarva.

I have some. Good stuff, but does not do the Denzo tape thing. Has anyone found a US equivalent? There are some underwater expoxy tapes that look promising, but they take a little time to set.

I've been paddling Muscongus for a decade anyway. As often as not when you look seaward you see Franklin Island light. The light was established in 1807; the current tower was built in 1855. I'd paddled out to the light a number of times but the island is a IF&W seabird island and is closed from 1 April to 31 August. So last Sunday on a bluebird day, light southerly and warm, I shoved off from Friendship and two hours,and about 5.5 nm later, after a half hour Mita island inspection stop, landed on Franklin. Landed in a little rock notch under the CG pier. Walked to a large wooden platform about at the light level past a roofless oil house down a path with raspberries still ripe and golden rod, Monarch's flitting about. From the platform ( helo platform) you get a view from Pemaquid in the west, to Allen in the east. Trees shield Monhegan. Muscongus is laid out in front of you, with the Camden Hills in the background. Walking down to the tower is a bonus. When the Coast Guard automated the light the keepers brick house and outbuildings were knocked down. Foundations still exist. The CG pier is on the site of the old boathouse and you can see 1878? cut into the stone by some Lighthouse Service person with time. Back via Allen and Benner Island and down the chain just south of Caldwell, home via Gay Island 17 nm about 4 and a half hours. Only real crossing is the run from Franklin to Allen, 3 nm and there is no landing down that chain. But Franklin is easy to reach as an out and back using one of the MITA islands as a base or as a day trip. Biggest crossing is 3/4 nm and you there are plenty of chances to pull back. If you are on Muscongus this time of year, you should give it a try.

Nail the aluminum foot braces hard with some fresh water.... adjustable foot braces stop being adjustable. Same for rudder hard ware.

Could I interest someone in my old Nikonos? 35 mm and 80 mm w. various finders? Of course you only get 36 pics and you actually have to look at the light to set the exposure and guess or do some preframing for distance. Still there is no shutter lag, the results are outstanding and you can use the case to drive a tent peg. I am glad that I got a Pentax 43.

Warranty stated that it was for a year and I had used the paddle hard for over a year before it locked. And I had broken it so badly in getting trying to get it apart that there was only one blade that could get salvaged. I delayed in sending it back as I figured it was out of warranty and was pleasantly surprised. In the second and current generation of paddles problem seems to have been solved. My point was that when manufacturers will look at the out of warranty date and say sorry.... e.g. Magellan with a GPS that leaked on me, these folks didn't.

For fast warm up, some of the Brit gear is useful notably the nylon parachute like tent that they have. Pull it over a few people and see how fast things warm up. Many of us in the cold corner have added this not inexpensive item to our kits. Locally we have been pretty happy with the cag that Ikelos makes. A solar powered shop. He can customize fits. Real basic, coated nylon, hand pockets. But our friends in Sea Kayak Georgia have designed the Cadillac ( Lexus ) of cags. Features to numurous to list. You have to see one. Besides the thermos, I toss a mini solid fuel stove into the back, one of those Tommy cookers. Material can be used to start a real fire or heat a cuppa. Have matches and fire starting gear in a couple of places. Small and redudancy here can spare you a real bad time.

Just wanted to let the community know about the superior warranty work provided to me by Epic. Short form is that paddle hung up after over a year of use. I managed to mangle it pretty badly in trying to take it apart. Contacted Epic. Took some time and I did not push it as I figured that it was well past the warranty date. They said send it along even though it was out of warranty, and I had made the situation worse. I had no expectations. Paddle is now back, with mostly new parts: only one blade was savagable. No cost to me. Just finished dayglo orange taping the new blade and got reflective tape on the shaft. If you see it on the water give me a shout, you'd be welcome to try it out. This all in the middle of moving production to China and getting a new model out the door which I look forward to seeing. These folks really stand behind their products and work to make things right. Bravo Zulu.

After the incident off Newburyport, I got curious about ways of handling 12 gauge pistols and shells. I now have my pistol connected to the magazine with a length of cord onto which I have a clip. Clip is connected to the pfd. But what I wanted to know was whether this all could live without being in a ziplock. It all could be bundled in a ziplock but both magazine and pistol can punch holes in it and loose shells can get dropped as we found out. And you can't clip on with the clip inside a ziplock. So I queried Orion as I had not seen specs on immersion for 12 gauge flares. Herewith answer. "Thank you for your email ! Our flares have to undergo a 24 hour submersion test to pass Coast Guard regulations - so getting them wet should not be a problem." Has anyone had experience with this? The pistol flares work so much better than pencils that if your pockets are big enough it may be the way to go. Rinse and dry fire the pistol from time to time....

While the best sling is no sling, years of guiding and teaching have shown that there are some people who have serious challenges no matter how good the technique. Guides up here routinely carry them and I think the one we have found least prone to tangle is floating rope, pretty good sized. 3/8-1/2 inch. Best one I ever had was a long spliced piece of 3 strand, long spliced so I could use the secret weapon, 8 inches or so of garden house through which sling was led. Slide the hose around to the your foot and step into it. Rope does not fold around foot. Same principle as rope ladder with wooden rungs. The hose works on knotted slings as well, just that it won't slide over the knot.

Have done the lightstick bit. Solution lacks the elegance that I am seeking. Best rig I had was a brunton 85 on a hatch with the light already built in. Had a plug in battery pack. It was 12 volts and I had to reduce it as it looked like a red ball moving through the night.

These are bulbs designed to run at 9-12; I have been running them at 6, 4 double A's in a radioshack holder. Keeps the number of battery types down.

Am looking for a solution to lighting athe now seemingly ubiquitous 70-P compass. There is a factory add on but seemingly not available on this side of the pond. I can tape on cylume sticks but that is kind of boring. So I have been experimenting with red LED's. These are the marine kind, sealed. Have altered the 3 LED kind, sold as a step light,so that all three shine straight. It fits snugly in the grove of a 10 inch hatch Run with 9 or 6 volts there is glare. What seems better is lighting the top at the rear, with either the aforesaid triple, a single ( sold as an Accent light or or use one of the LED round indicator lights. You'd bury the light in piece of minicell cut to the diameter of the compass. Piece of bungy to hold it in place. Run the wires to the fore hatch. They are pretty thin. Then to a watertight container for the batteries. Has anyone actully done this? So that I don't have to reinvent? And while playing around I realized that there were some scratches on the compass housing. Got out the toothpaste and polished them out, an old jeweler / watch chrystal trick.

If you have problems, heat the screw with soldering iron. Hot epoxy does not hold real well. Ben

Awlgrip is reasonably toxic; I am not sure you can get your head with resprirator into the boat. It also does not come in small quantities. Designed for spray application etc. If you want to epoxy it consider a slow or no blush epoxy, then overcoat a UV protective polyurthane varnish, or forgo the epoxy completely.

Actually for most paddlers the performance will be the same or better than they get out of their EPs. I have done some testing and find that there is about half a knot speed difference in comparison to a light conventional EP at the full aenerobic end of the paddling spectrum, e.g. a boat that I can get to 6 with a EP I can only get to 5.5 with a GP. For most of us who stay in the 4 knot range this is immaterial. Had no problem passing a 4* assessment with the GP or in staying with colleagues in a 4 hour run to Matinicus. And in teaching a guide course last weekend in that little 20 knot blow that came through. In fact I managed to break my paddle getting in the boat on a nasty lee shore after I had been the victim in a Cleopatras Needle / Hypo scenrio, and found that paddling in the big breeze with my EP less pleasant.

Couple of points. I was on the CKC curriculum group when this came up. Strongly fought for something more like NSPN as I understand it or like we do when we give Maine Guide courses, and in fact I shared with the ACA the content of some of the guide courses. Instead of beefing up the hours they chose to trim the conditions. So that this course is about half the hours that I would give in a Maine Guide course. For example there is not time at all to start to develop scenarios or really develop some proficiency in navigation, let alone dealing with fog. Think of the ACA cert as the minimum needed on a bluebird day and the skill to spot and avoid bad stuff. If the gent that managed to lose a couple of kids off the Florida coast a few years back, an experienced wilderness (land) trip leader and river paddler had done this course, the students might not have been lost.