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I have really grown to like taking pictures on the water. I get out a fair bit, and I see quite a bit of weird stuff while kayaking, so I’ve gotten some interesting shots over the last 5 or so years I’ve had a waterproof point and shoot.

So I was pretty bummed when I dropped my old Pentax Optio WP60 in the parking lot in South Haven about a year ago. The battery door broke off. Camera to its credit is still functional, but it is obviously not operable on the water. I looked into getting it fixed with Pentax just before Thanksgiving. They said $100 to look at it and repair the door. So I thought about it and thought about it. I finally decided for the price of a new Panasonic DMC TS3 Waterproof Point and Shoot, $249.00, that it was more worth it to get a new camera.

Here were some of my issues with the Pentax.

• Shutter lag, shutter lag, shutter lag. The camera had terrible response to closing the shutter even in bright light conditions outdoors with the button pressed halfway down to focus the camera first.
• Poor image quality, sometimes color and crispness in photos did not turn out very well based on subtle lighting changes. Keep in mind this was mostly outdoors photography.
• Lens would fog up on the inside often. This happened a lot, at really inopportune times. Like I go out to surf one time a year in saltwater and see a dolphin, lens fogs up. Would have been a great shot… Too bad for that big smudge.

So I did a lot of research from other paddlers, and from dpreview, on their waterproof camera roundup review, and ended up looking more and more at the Panasonic DMC TS3.

I haven’t tried it out on the water yet, but I am going to give it a whirl this weekend I hope. I will post a follow up review with some photos.

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How do you choose a new kayaking lifejacket?

I am looking for a new kayaking lifejacket. The hunt is on. I’ve had the same PFD from Kokatat for years, I love it, but all of the foam has been broken down over the last few years and is sort of squidging to the bottom. It looks like I don’t care about flotation when I wear it, so it’s time to give it up. They aren’t making the one I used to wear, so now I have to look for a new one.

A lifejacket is a very personal thing, you have to wear it all the time, and it has to fit, carry some gear and not get in the way. This is probably the most important piece of gear apart from, boat, paddle or skirt in my opinion.

So how do you choose a new PFD?

My criteria for a new kayaking PFD/Lifejacket is as follows:

• low profile
• good fit
• minimal ride up when in the water
• A few pockets to store snacks and my waterproof camera

To me a lifejacket is something you have to wear because it’s foolish to go without. So I try to make it as slim, low profile, and non-bulky as I can. I have tons of gear to put on that I need for coaching, warmth, and self-preservation, the Lifejacket is the one that always goes, so I try to think of it more as second skin than a daypack.

Here are few things that I am not considering in the new lifejacket and the reason why:

• Integrated tow system. I have my own towbelt, and I like having a belt I can drop rather than a lifejacket system.
• Super-pockety lifejackets. I really don’t need that much space, I would rather have a slimmer profile for rescues, forward stroke, and all of my efforts than to have 6 bulky pockets I may use 1/3 of the time.
• O2 Lifejackets. I looked at them. And they seem to be mucho-expensive. Though Jeff Allen swears by them.

Here are a few of the Lifejackets, life-preserver, PFDs what have you that I am considering. (why did the coast guard have to change the designation from PFD to lifejacket again?….

The Orbit Tour from Kokatat , I tried on a Canoecopia felt great and seems to fit the bill, slim low profile and a couple of decent pockets, One for a radio one for the camera, done!

The Ronin from Kokatat seems great, but it was a little bulky. But slightly better color choices, and better pocket options, but still a little too big.

The Astral Willis Buoyancy Aid seems to fit the low-profile, but I don’t see any pockets? Anyone have one or tried one on, send me a comment.

If anyone else knows of great lifejackets that fit the bill I haven’t considered send them along with links man, I really need the help.

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The small but powerful-beyond-all-description couple Sharon and Alec Bloyd-Peshkin are out in the Pacific Northwest this week. They made a stop-over at the Snapdragon factory to check out how our stuff is made. It is really cool when you think about it. There are really only a few people who make all of the cool stuff we get to use on the water. And Snapdragon is a very handmade sort of shop, which is pretty awesome. I have a snap-dragon touring skirt I really love. Possibly the best skirt I’ve had in a long time.

Check it out at after the jump. Bloyd-Peshkin’s Visit to Snapdragon Workshop.

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I did a quick review of all of the wetuit shoes I’ve owned in the gear reviews. The primary considerations were fit inside the boat, warmth, and the strength of the sole. The bottom line is that the best gear for keeping your feet warm comes from surfing, but that it doesn’t pair well with drysuits. Let me know what your thoughts are after checking out the wetsuit shoe review article.

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on May 6th Johnson Outdoors finalized it’s sale of Scottish Brand Lendal Paddles to Nigel Dennis, aka Celtic Paddles. This is a great step in getting the venerable and respectable Scottish paddle maker back on track. There were a lot of rumours early on about the demise of Lendal and the ongoing future of the paddle maker. It’s great to see that the brand will continue. I hope to see a lot more Lendal’s out on the water in the near future.

Playak has the full details on the Lendal Purchase by Nigel Dennis here.

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Panasonic and Sony both recently released two new waterproof digital compact cameras.

Panasonic released the Lumix TS1. And Sony released the Cybershot TX5.

In the beginning there were far fewer choices for paddling with a compact digital point and shoot camera. Pentax and Olympus were the two choices. Recently the market has opened up to offer major competition for the waterproof compact digital point and shoot camera.

I have personally gone through two Pentax Optio’s. In short their durability isn’t terrific. Water droplets and fog appear under the LCD and the lens after limited paddling use. I had my new Pentax Optio w60 for less than a month before it started happening. It hasn’t killed the camera, but it obviously renders the camera quite useless.

Digital Photography review has given the Panasonic Lumix TS1 high marks.

Digital Photography review also has a waterproof camera group test. I highly recommend checking it out.

DP review has not downgraded the Optio for waterproofness or any of the other defects, so take the review with a grain of salt. It is highly technical in that if you want to find out which camera to buy based on the sensor size, mega-pixel rating, or video quality, you will most likely find the review very thorough. But for kayakers shooting in white water, the surf zone, or in colder climates, they haven’t exactly done their field testing so to speak.

So DP review if you want to send Go Kayak Now, a crate of cameras to test for durability. I promise to give them each a thorough Great Lakes Surf Kayaking once over. We will return all paperweighted cameras. $10.00 says they are all Pentax Optio Wx’s.

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Jon Turk wrote a nice article on the benefits of wetsuits vs drysuits some years ago for Sea Kayaker magazine. I wanted to put together some of my own empirical assessments based on real world tests over this spring to perhaps figure out for myself if wetsuits and paddling are really a bad investment. And in the interest of full disclosure I have a Kokatat full gore-tex meridian drysuit that I love.

After Kokatat started developing full gore-tex paddling suits that were really light and flexible, wetsuits got a bit of a bad name within paddlng. After getting into kayak surfing I started noticing what other people were using on Lake Michigan. I noticed that no one else other than kayakers were using drysuits. Board surfers were in 5/4 wetsuits in dec, or 4/3 in Nov, kite surfers and windsurfers often wear 4/3 suits. Hoods, booties, and gloves of course are the norm, but no one wore drysuits. My question was why? Wouldn’t you want to be dry inside like the kayakers are in their gore-tex suits?

Well the answer is somewhat no. But the reasons are a little surprising.
I think there are two major factors at play, and one minor factor.

The first major factor is cost. The average full goretex/breathable proprietary material suit, (which is the only one worth having in my opinion) costs somewhere between $800-$1200 dollars.

Ouch. My wallet hurts.

The average 4/3 Full wetsuit is somewhere between $300-$400.

Ok so there is roughly an average 60%-75% cost reduction in going with a wetsuit.

Why? The materials are less for neoprene rubber than they are for Gore-tex. There is also less material because it is stretchy. You can certainly pay more for a wetsuit, Rip Curl and Xcel both have suits that are closer to $600-$800 dollars.

So the question is: how did we get to where we are now if wet suits are less expensive than drysuits?

Wetsuits work on roughly the same principle as a drysuit. Keep the water out, but what little water is let in is warmed next to the skin. (edited with help from Brian Nystrom) Neoprene rubber is stretchy and flexible to a point, but a full suit of any materials does have certain limitations.

When kayaking first became popular people used what they had for keeping warm on the water. Diving and surfing suits were used by paddlers and were quickly deemed too restrictive to be used for paddling. However that was almost 30 years ago. Surfing wetsuits specifically have been getting better and better in terms of the material and flexibility. Surfers need a similar range of motion for paddling out that kayakers do. As a result they demanded warmer, lighter, and less restrictive designs. So over the last 30 years surfing wetsuits have become much more flexible and use less material overall to give a better range of motion.

So they are less expensive and don’t restrict your motion too much? So why haven’t they become widespread.

Here we come to the crux of the issue, or our second major factor, heat management.

A wetsuit is a giant non-breathable suit that is meant to keep you warm by only allowing in a tiny layer of water. So there is no ideally very little evaporative cooling, otherwise it doesn’t work. So if you are in the water you can stay warm. However kayakers aren’t really in the water per se, they are on it, and therefore get wet only as a result of being so close to the surface. However by preparing for incidents and accidents we dress for immersion. So a wetsuit worn while exercising and not getting wet, or not very wet results in a lot of non-evaporative heat.

Here we come to the emprical test. I have been testing a 4/3 Xcel infinity fullsuit by sea kayaking in it. I can say that it is very warm and when coupled with a kokatat fuzzy rubber bomber’s cap, I am toasty to the core in even 30-40 degree air and water temps. I tested by paddling hard in cold air and cold water and cold water and warm air. I quickly grew pretty warm in the suit on both days to the point where I had to roll to cool off. However, once I rolled it was really just a mild temperature fluctuation, it wasn’t drastic. I even did a rescue yesterday in the suit to see how cold I was going to get. My body stayed really warm, head, face, feet and hands were colder than my body. So I was warm enough and then cool enough as long as I stayed wet. My suit was flexible enough to perform any maneuver I would normally make in my kayak. Also the additional flotation on the arms and legs makes you float better doing static braces, hand rolls etc, (just like a tuiliq).

The last minor issue is a matter of keeping water out of your kayak if you paddle a decked kayak. Most drysuits offer a tunnel for a spraydeck to allow you to have a good seal to keep water out. However I found If you pair the full wetsuit with a light paddle jacket you can essentially keep all the water out.

So really the question comes down to whether you are going to get wet, or stay dry. If you are doing a rough water excercise where you may be in and out of the water, is a drysuit better than a wetsuit?

Based on the input I have had from Jon Turk and Jeff Allen, the answer is probably not. A direct quote from Jeff Allen is that we are amphibious creatures. While we do spend most of our time on the water while kayaking, when we come on land we come in contact with a lot of harsh variables such as shells, rocks, and other sharp scrapey things that tend to puncture gore-tex suits, which causes them to catastrophically fail. Ask me about my ACA Assessment sometime where this happened to me. Wetsuits tend not to fail so catastrophically in these incidents. The other area is that when in the water, a fullwetsuit has a lot of flotation and is much easier to swim in than a drysuit. I have often said that swimming in a drysuit is like swimming in a giant garbage bag. Doable but not fun.

The main advantage to a drysuit is the ability to layer up or down underneath for whatever conditions come your way. However at a certain point you reach the same threshold for warmth to excercise that you do with a wetsuit. You have too much on to paddle effectively and once moving you’re too hot too paddle.

There are a lot of pros and cons to consider. I personally now have both a wetsuit and a drysuit. I think my wetsuit will become a fixture of my kayak surfing endeavours where I am in a cold wet environment, rather than sea kayaking where I tend to stay mostly dry unless subjected to serious conditions. But I look back at a few parts of my summer last year on Lake Superior, GLSKS for instance where we had 3 days of cold rainy wet surf. I probably would have been more comfortable in a wetsuit than a drysuit over those days based on how long I was out and how wet I was. Of course layering up under the suit would have helped to a point.

For my part I think I may start recommending full wetsuits to students on a budget. They are warm, safe and inexpensive. And if they get very serious about kayaking, a full drysuit can always be purchased later. But why not have them find a $200.00 solution to the eternal problem of kayaking, how to stay warm and have fun while paddling.

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Interestingly over the last 15 days the keyword, “Lendal XTI” has been swelling on Go Kayak Now. I think this might be due to the fact that consumers are having a hard time finding Lendal Blades. I’ve heard the rumor that they are running inventory out, and not making any for a while until the company gets a few things sorted out. If you have any stock on Lendal Blades, maybe place a comment on this site. We already have one volunteer who stepped forward from the retail front.

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Lendal has been pulled from the 2010 Johnson Outdoors catalog. Rumors abound about their eventual purchase by another larger company *SKUK*?. For those of us that bought a Lendal before Johnson Outdoors prior to the purchase, they made a fine paddle that lots of us used to go places, surf, run rivers, and even lily dip through a few ponds. While I really like my Werner paddles, I don’t think a marketplace dominated by one manufacturer is ever a good thing (see Google, Microsoft, Apple et al).

Lendal kept Werner on it’s toes. Certainly Werner would never have even attempted to make a 4-piece take apart unless Lendal was dominating that space. Unfortunately Lendal’s move to Maine and management at Johnson Outdoors has tarnished their brand a bit. For the sake of the sport, I hope Lendal re-emerges from this period as a serious contender again. While my posts on Lendal quality problems probably did nothing to help their brand image, my intent was to point out that bigger isn’t always better. Johnson Outdoors didn’t help a small company and brand do anything better. It didn’t market the product any better, it didn’t help them innovate the product line at all, and they certainly didn’t help manufacture them any better. So now Lendal is down, hopefully not out, and Johnson can move on without really caring about the wreckage they left behind. Not sure how any of this helped paddle sports at all…

Good luck to Lendal, and I hope we get to see a few more on the water.

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The how to choose the right kayak roof rack article provided a lot of great detail on selecting a kayak roof rack. The one gaping hole in the equation was kayak trailers. Kayak trailers make loading your kayak really easy. The trailer is lower to the ground, you don’t have to lift your boat quite as high in the first place. The kayaks are also behind the car and not causing as much wind resistance and killing your gas mileage. really the only issue with a trailer, is well… the trailer.

Towing a trailer requires a trailers hitch. Not every vehicle has a trailer hitch, trailer hitches are usually the provenance of pick-up trucks. My van actually has a trailer package, but no hitch. So you have to either purchase your vehicle with a hitch, or get it retrofitted. And this is not cheap. However if you are looking to carry four or five kayaks and a bunch of gear, maybe this isn’t such a bad investment. I am seriously considering a trailer. But I am trying to weigh my options.

Here are a few things to consider:

• The number of kayaks you want to carry?
• How often you will be carrying the maximum number of kayaks?
• Do you have a trailer hitch?
• Do you have a lot of people with you carrying gear?
• Do you have difficulty loading a boat onto a tall vehicle alone?

For instance: if you are like me, you have a wife, two kids, a dog, five kayaks and maybe even a bike or three. When I go on vacation, I have to load all of this onto a tall minivan. I am only 5’7″ tall, so I usually grab a step ladder and get to work. We also bring a ton of camping gear and it would be nice to be able to pack bikes. But this happens once or twice a summer where everyone goes. I am still young and fit enough to get everything up on the roof. But the payoff would be pretty nice. All of it could go on the trailer with a cargo box, and even have some of the car freed up from my smelly neoprene smell. But is it worth the once or twice a summer to buy a $2000.00 trailer?

Maybe…

I travel to the lake on my own a lot, or with one friend. So it probably isn’t worth it. However if your answers to the questions above are 5-14, every day, yes, yes, yes. A kayak trailer is probably for you.

I am continuing to look at some kayak trailers and evaluate my options.

I’ve seens some really nice kayak trailers. The Bloyd-Peshkin’s have a particularly nice one with custom cabinets ala Alec. Maybe they can share some pictures in a comment…
*cough* hint, hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge

Editor’s note: The Bloyd-Peshkin’s Kindly shared their comment below and these photos:

That said. Some things I would look for in a trailer.

Here are some sites that are offering trailers:

Canoe Kayak Trailers
Yakima’s new Rack and Roll Trailer
Castle Craft

I tend to like the simpler high capacity trailers. I can always rig a cargo box on my own.

The Yakima trailer looks simple and effective, but when looking at the price, it seems like the smaller fabrication shops have it made on price and capacity.

John Fleming Shared this image.



The bike trailer is courtesy of Ben Lawry. I would love to have one of these for doing the Kal-Haven to South Haven from Kalamazoo.

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