Pack by Numbers

Loaded and trimmed for 3 1/2 weeks

As with all things kayaking, folks have found different solutions that work for them and have differing opinions.  Sometimes the solutions are well conceived and other times not-so-much.  I’m going to discuss my method of packing for a kayaking trip for a single overnight or for a month at a time.  Since I’ve never been out for more than a month my experience hits a wall at that point.  This is what works for me.

My first rule is no deck loading.  The only kit on the deck will be a spare paddle, chart case, GPS and helmet.  Nothing but navigation and safety gear.  There is an issue with windage that comes with deck loading but for me it is about safety and deck access.  When things go sideways that deck may be your only friend and savior.  If it is cluttered with bags, carts and furniture safety can be severely compromised.  My helmet is the only item on the back deck and it is attached in a manner that allows it to be easily removed and discarded if in the way.   

Basics: 

• Take only what you are really going to need.  
• Know what every item weighs and distribute the weight so that the boat retains its empty balance.  In other words, it is not stern or bow heavy unless you know from personal experience that it performs better in ALL conditions when loaded in an unbalanced state.
• Place heavy items closer to the cockpit with lighter items towards the bow and stern. 
• In your kit selection prioritize packed size over weight. 
• There should be no unsecured gear in the cockpit. 
• If you can’t fit it in the hull set it aside for now as you probably don’t need it. 

 

Take only what you need:

•  Bring basic clothing.  No extra stuff.  This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no fooling around.  Don’t worry about having the perfect layer. 
• Choose clothing and gear that serves multiple purposes when possible.   If you have a Storm Cag you don’t need a separate raincoat and how many different shoes do you really need?.   
• Don’t try to pack clean clothes for each day.  That takes up too much space. 
• Accept that you are going to get dirty and you are going to stink.  Wool stinks less than synthetics.
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Gear weight: 

• Some folks try to color code their drybags or label them with hangtags that describe the contents.  Good ideas and those are nice-to-haves but not gotta-haves.  The gotta-have is how much does each bag or loose item weigh.
• I use mostly small and/or compression drybags with two tapered bags with purge valves for bow and stern.
• Once you have all of your necessary gear assembled and bagged, weigh each item and record that on a spreadsheet. 

Start packing it into the boat where it makes sense to you while being mindful of “heavy-to-the-center-light-to-the ends.  Did it all fit INSIDE the hull?  Check your spreadsheet to see how close to balanced are you? Start figuring out what items need to go fore or aft based on weight, size and shape to achieve balanced trim while fitting INTO the hull.  It may take you a while to get the weight properly placed to achieve trim. 

• Didn’t all fit?  OK, start figuring out what your nice-to-haves are and set them aside.   Keep working at it until you have fit all of your gotta-haves INSIDE the boat in a balanced fashion. If you find room for a nice-to-have that’s a score! 
• Figure out how much water you REALLY need to carry and put it into bags.  I prefer the MSR Dromedary Bags but others work well and they conform to available spaces.   Plastic water bottles are inefficient as they don’t conform and take up as much space empty as they do when full. 
• Don’t carry more water than you need.  I seldom carry more than I will personally need for two or three days though I take a 10-liter, 6-liter and 4-liter bag for clean, filtered water.  With my filter I pack two dirty-water collection bags which combined packs smaller than a 2 liter Nalgene bottle.
• Know that a 10-liter bag holding only 4-liters will fit into spaces that a 4-liter bag will not. Empty Dromedary Bags take up very little space, essentially the size of their non-conformable cap.  Water weighs about 2 pounds per liter and bags can be moved around to balance your boat.  It’s a puzzle.  It’s all about space!

It all fits INSIDE the hull

Practice!!!!!: 

• Now that you are balanced and have fit your gotta-haves INSIDE the hull start practicing packing and unpacking. 
• Have two beach bags.  Large Ikea bags are great as they are cheap, light and take up nearly zero space when empty.  Use one for the cockpit forward and one for behind the cockpit.
• Practice until each item is always in the same place and you can pack fast with or without daylight.  When you have performed enough reps to be efficient you will know exactly what is inside every bag by location and feel and won’t need color-coding or labels.  Once you have practiced enough that you know what each item is and where it lives, practice some more. 
• Have some spare time before dinner?  Great! Go out into the garage and practice some more.

Stages of packing

You never want to be the last person packed and off the beach because you are fidgeting with your gear and trying to figure out where everything goes.  There are many people that you don’t want to be in this life and the last person off the beach is one of them.  

Kayak Packing Hacks - Kokatat Storm Cag

 

Image courtesy of Nautopp Kajakcenter Grebbstad

Paddling the Northwest Coast can be a cold and wet affair.  While all Pacific coastal residents own multiple rain jackets made of various materials that feature numerous doo-dahs that seal, vent, hood, snug and are acceptable restaurant and clubwear anywhere in North America very few of them were designed with our disease in mind.  Consequently, for paddling, all of their doo-dahs fall well short of addressing our paddling needs.  With all of the pockets, vents and adjustments they can only be worn under a PFD on the water or on the beach.  Their sole saving grace is that they help us look stylish on the shore.

Enter the Kokatat Storm Cag.  Guaranteed to look goofy on the shore and deemed acceptable clubwear only in British Columbia and Alaska it is featured on the bodies of intelligent paddlers who share our disease anywhere in North America.  It has very few doo-dahs but does have everything that we really need. 

The cut allows it to be pulled on over your immersion gear and PFD while seated in your boat and secures around the coaming of your kayak.     The adjustable hood can be used with or without a helmet.   It features a fleece-lined kangaroo handwarmer pocket with a small velcroed opening allowing you to access pockets in your PFD, There is also a zippered pocket over the kangaroo pocket that I personally find very useful.  If you unzip that pocket you can stuff the garment into it while turning it inside out, Zip that shut and you have a fleece-covered pillow for sleeping. 

 

The shape of the cag allows you to sit down and tuck your legs inside for warmth.  Sort of a truncated personal bothy bag.  I have bivi-ed in this garment and will attest to the added warmth it provides overall but also for your toes and feet.   

Loosely packed it is scarcely larger than a Jetboil stove and since it is flexible it will fit into a space that the Jetboil will not.  With the Storm Cag you are carrying a rain layer for paddling and for shore, a wind breaker, bothy bag and pillow.  Such a deal and a great space saver inside your kayak.   

This link leads to a short review of the garment.   If you don’t mind looking a tad goofy on shore, take one of these instead of your ramma-lamma dead-dinosaur GoreTex wonder jacket.  I’ve worn mine on BC Ferries, campsites and all over Prince Rupert but never once have been kicked out of a restaurant, lounge or bar.  It is the only rainwear that I pack for kayak trips. 

 

Kayak Packing Hacks - Toilet Paper

Note paperback book in the right corner of the window

How much to bring?  How little can I get away with?  My first coastal trip was with a nature boy who thought that leaves and smooth rocks were acceptable substitutes for #2 hygiene.   He didn’t bring any toilet paper at all and I quickly learned that his smooth-rock-requirement severely limited the number of beaches that we could camp on.  I felt that his Mr. Nature approach was extreme but I wanted to fit in so I pretended to go along with his plan but stole as much toilet paper as I could from the “Queen of Chilliwack’s” mensroom.  I hid this tree-wasting contraband in my boat and would only take it out when needed.  I nervously performed regular inventories and it wasn’t long before I realized that demand was outstripping supply.  What to do?   

On Day 8 I bid adieu to the very last of my secret, stolen toilet paper.  I was really depressed at the thought of what was coming next but then, miraculously, my luck changed.  I found a damp and mouse-eaten paperback book delicately balancing on the empty window frame of the dilapidated cabin on Triquet Island.  I quickly stuffed it down my pants before nature boy could see it and claim it as community fire starter,  No way was I going to share this bounty with him.  He was welcome to all of the barnacle covered rocks and cedar bows that he loved so much and of which there were many. 

At the conclusion of that trip I quit paddling with Nature Boy as I felt that I had learned everything he had to teach me and adopted my own toilet paper sensibilities which embraced "more-is-better" as a key tenet.  The problem, though, was that while TP is light it takes up a lot of space so I found a way to reduce that volume and fit it into spaces that often go to waste.  This is what works for me. 

Four Rolls in the Space of Two

Take a large leak proof bag and shove two rolls of toilet paper into it.  I use 10” wide zip locks.  Sit on the bag to smoosh the rolls and compress the paper and while still sitting on it close the airtight seal.  Now open the seal just enough to insert a straw and suck the remaining air out.  Seal the bag.  Take a length of jute or some other flammable line and tie it around the bag.  Leave a length of line on each sealed bag.  Two to three feet is probably plenty.  Tape the bag tight ensuring that the line is secured to the bag.  Don’t laugh but I pack 8 rolls this way into 4 bags.  Take a bit of colored electrical tape and put a different colored tape on the end of each line.  Red, white and blue is my go-to.  The bags will be oval and elongated.  I shove them one at a time into the very stern or bow of my boat as it is space seldom used for anything else.  Force them back there in an order so that you can remember which string to pull for the next bag of TP (hence red, white and blue).  The jute can be burned and the bags can be reused at home.  

In case you are curious about the book, by wild coincidence that paperback was “Roughing It” by Mark Twain.   I shit you not. 

Kayak Bill Camps - Dallas Island

Originally published October 17, 2017

Dallas Island was one of Bill’s primary camps.  At ~21NM from Shearwater it was midway to his camps on Aristazabal.  Dallas is located along the eastern edge of Milbanke Sound and at the entry to Finlayson Channel where it provided superb shelter and a clear view of conditions on Milbanke Sound prior to committing to crossing over to Higgins Passage.  It was a one or two day paddle from his shack on Brian Clerx’s property that he referred to as “Denny Island Camp”.  By leaving Shearwater near the turn to ebb he could get to the Ivory Island / Blair Inlet complex at the turn to flood.  This would give him a push north to Dallas for the final 7 NM.  If conditions or tides didn’t cooperate there were bivy camps scattered along Seaforth Channel and a couple of camps in Blair Inlet where he could hole up.

In 2007 Dave, Greg and I stayed at the Dallas Island Camp.  Bill had spent eight days here in June 2003 on his way out to his more remote camps and had spent two more nights in October on his way back to Denny Island Camp.  He was headed back to Shearwater to do some painting and resupply for what would turn out to be his last trip.  He had just two months to live. 

Bivi at Safety Cove

 

On day 14 of our 2023 trip from Klemtu to Port Hardy Dave Resler and I ended up at a place called Safety Cove on east side of Calvert Island.  That came at the end of a 22-mile day grinding against rain driven by 15 kt headwinds and a moderate sea state.  Hard work in snotty conditions.  We figured that with a name like Safety Cove we would find a decent place to camp.  We had earned it but no such luck.  What we found was a sliver of high slope shell “beach” that would barely survive the 12.4’ high tide while providing no room for tents.  The backing forest was impenetrable.  There were two big logs that we could sit between in an upright fetal position, so I strung my tarp over them.  It was tight but would have to do. 

This was to be a wet, windy drysuit bivi in our PFD’s, hooded Storm Cags, wool hats, and spray skirts around our necks for added insulation.  I pulled the foam seat from the Grand Illusion to insulate my butt and put on my last dry Glacier Gloves.  We piled all our drybags on top of our legs and spread Dave’s ultralight tarp over us for a blanket.  It felt OK for about 30 minutes. 

The cold wind and rain continued through the night and, having firsthand experience with hypothermia, I monitored my temperature closely.  Shortly before sunrise the wind dropped, the rain stopped, and I actually fell asleep for 30 minutes or so. 

Not the worst night I have spent on the BC coast but still earns a rating of Type III fun.

Never Turn Your Back on the Sea

 

Honolulu’s own Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola Kahanamoku is recognized as the  Father of Surfing and during his life gained worldwide popularity as an Olympic swimmer, all round waterman and humble philosopher.  Many popular quotes track back to him during his 77 years and maybe the most famous is “Never turn your back on the ocean”. 

Duke Kahanamoku

1910 - Library of Congress - 10653

The late, great Eric Soares was a spectacular modern-day waterman in his own right.  Co-founder and Commander of the Tsunami Rangers he and his crew introduced the world to a gonzo sea kayaking discipline that is called Rock Gardening.  While Eric departed this plane in 2012, he left us with his Ten Commandments of Sea Kayaking.  Knowing a good idea when he heard it he borrowed from Duke and his First Commandment is “Never turn your back on the sea”. 

Eric Soares

copyright Michael Powers