I confess I love to waste time paging through paddling and outdoor magazines. I admit to being a gear junky without shame or apology. It is a relatively harmless addiction and has never cost me anything but money. I would feel naked without my Tilley hat, polarized anti-spot wrap-around sunglasses and carbon fiber bent shaft paddle. These items are well worn, familiar and comfortable. They are like a favorite pair of ratty old jeans that I keep rescuing from the trash each time my wife tries to throw them out. Of course, I have accumulated lots of other gear over the years, at least one of everything, but much of it goes unused except on rare occasions. I enjoy the process of deciding what is essential and what can be left behind for each trip.American marketing has been very successful in planting the notion that any outdoor sport is at least as much about the gear and the uniform as about the activity itself. Only the most destitute homeless person would ever be seen riding a bicycle in jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers instead of an expensive flamboyantly colored jersey, spandex shorts and two hundred dollar cycling shoes. It is claimed that both cycling and paddling clothing and gear are made in those garish day-glow colors for the safety of being easily seen by drivers or motor boaters but I think it is actually just an opportunity to dress up in uniform and proclaim an identity.
There appears to me to be a disparity between the prodigious quantities of expensive gear sold and the numbers of people who actually use it in the field. I am suspicious that more time is devoted to wishing to be outdoors than to actually being there. Maybe buying gear helps to satisfy an appetite for outdoor activities without demanding the time, sweat or risk of actually going outdoors. There is no doubt that shopping is more popular than all other sports combined. My paddling friends and acquaintances of course are folks who do actually get outdoors. Otherwise, I would likely never have met most of them. They have given me the opportunity to witness an interesting variety of perspectives and philosophies with respect to paddling paraphernalia.
Our friends Art and Jenny belong to the gear-is-the-sport school of kayaking. Art is a small guy, roughly as athletic in appearance and ability as Woody Allen. He can often be heard giving his wife Jenny detailed instructions on how to do whatever activity they are currently involved in. Jenny is strong, capable and tolerant. She calmly ignores every word of Art’s instructions. They hired two kayaks and a guide for their first paddling experience. It was a six-mile trip on the quiet and scenic Wakulla River near Tallahassee. Unlikely as it may seem under such benign conditions, Art managed to capsize.
Despite that inauspicious beginning, they enjoyed the outing so much that inside of two weeks they showed up for their first club trip, the proud owners of two new top-of-the-line kayaks. They had a new trailer to carry their new boats on, two nice lightweight composite paddles and two Tilley hats to go with their head-to-toe Columbia paddling outfits. They had paddle leashes, pumps, the very best pfd’s, full and half spray skirts, waterproof deck bags, whistles, knives, first aid kits, paddle floats, hydration bags, extra rope, carabineers and more. I estimated that in that two-week period they spent in the neighborhood of seven thousand dollars to get started in paddling. They were ready for anything! Had they been young, muscular and beautiful, they might have passed for models in one of those sexy photos in Outside Magazine demonstrating all the latest gear.
Art was particularly proud of his waterproof deck bag into which he put his wallet, cell phone and other vulnerable stuff. On their second outing with the club, we made a landing on Shell Island beach near Panama City, Florida in moderate surf. Most of us including Jenny comfortably rode the surf onto the beach but Art was so busy informing Jenny of the proper way to handle a boat in surf that he got himself turned broadside just at the wrong moment. In doing so, he accomplished several things of value. He tested the seawater, later assuring us that it was suitable for swimming. He practiced his Eskimo roll, learning that only half of a roll can be completed in water less than two feet deep and lastly, he found out that his expensive deck bag did indeed hold water. Unfortunately, it held water IN better than it held it OUT as evidenced by a ruined cell phone and a saturated wallet.
In contrast, Jack is a minimalist. He is a bachelor who all but retired in his mid-thirties to dedicate himself to a life of paddling, hiking, hunting and fishing. He paddles a very old, very experienced plastic sea kayak, wears army surplus camo clothing, uses a cheap plastic paddle and wears Family Dollar sunglasses. It would shame him to own a recent model Subaru Outback with fancy Thule roof racks. He much prefers to throw his old kayak in the bed of his ancient and decrepit pickup and tie it in with a piece of frayed rope.
Although I am not entirely unsympathetic with Jack’s pride in getting by on as little as possible, there is a point at which I draw the line. Jack has been my companion on many multi-day trips. On one paddling and trekking expedition in the Carolina Mountains he brought nothing to eat or drink for an entire week except Lipton dried pasta and rice pouches, granola bars and a water filter. I had loaded my hatches with a cooler full of steaks, beer, juice, fresh vegetables and even brownies. At every mealtime, I felt compelled to offer to share my comparatively scrumptious fare. I suppose it is to his credit that he nearly always refused. There is something to be said for his approach. I can testify that his enjoyment of the sport is not in the least diminished by his simple and Spartan style.
Nancy is devoted to safety and in consequence to safety gear. She has had hundreds of hours of formal training. She likes to share her in-depth knowledge of the finer details of paddling technique and pontificates ad nauseum about safety and rescue. She seems to take perverse pleasure in telling harrowing stories of tragic kayaking accidents. Nancy always packs every manner of safety equipment; throw ropes, aerial flares, boat horns, towing harness, space blanket, emergency food rations as well the standard paddle float and bilge pump. She has every possible piece of equipment that might be used to keep water out of the boat and of her person. She has a perfectly custom fitted thick neoprene spray skirt always worn even in the hot Florida summertime, an elaborate and expensive dry top with tourniquet seals at the neck and sleeves, waterproof paddling boots, nose plugs and ear plugs. It is a shame they haven’t come up with a good mouth plug yet.
On one recent trip on a mild summer day at a nearby gulf beach, we arrived at the launch site, everyone launched and we all waited impatiently as Nancy took another fifteen minutes to seal all the seals, zip all the zippers, pull all the bungees and tie everything together to be ready to paddle. It was a scenic and a social paddle but Nancy ignored the scenery and the society. Instead, she devoted the entire trip to practicing sculling for support, bow ruddering, sideslips, high braces and other technical maneuvers. Perhaps, one day when she grows confident enough that she can keep the water out she will lose her fear of it and enjoy paddling.
For Gina functionality always takes a back seat to luxury and creature comfort. Her kayak is wide and roomy enough to accommodate a virtual lounge chair seating arrangement although in consequence it is slow as molasses. Her deck bag is at least as spacious as the largest of ladies handbags and, no doubt, similar in content and organization. It is a rare moment when her right hand is not blindly fishing into its depths for one or another essential item of cosmetic, medical, gastronomic or social importance.
Kurt is a closet gearhead. He has at least as much gear as anyone else and generally of the very highest quality but only in basic black. Even though he is always getting something new, nothing ever looks new. I wonder if, before using it, he takes each new item out in the back yard and distresses it by beating it with chains, scrubbing it with gravel and mud and maybe staining it with a little used motor oil.
This is I think, an inverted fashion statement. It is both a manifestation of a fiercely independent distaste for uniforms and conformity and a way to uphold a crusty old veteran image. I too get all my gear in basic black. I tell myself that it is because it sets off the flashy wooden boats that I build and sell but in truth, I think I share Kurt’s need to look like an iconoclastic old salt although in that respect I am no match for him. Maybe I should start paddling with a hook and an eye patch.