This is our story of how we went about keeping all of todays modern devices charged while paddling across Bass Straight to Tasmania.
As a kayaker who paddles 90% of the time out in the ocean and often on multiple day trips it's amazing how much electronic hardware is taken on board with us. I guess this is a decision that most modern day paddlers come to face when they are making decisions on what items they are going to pack on ones adventure.I'm not sure about other paddlers, we have started to develop a packing list that both Michael and myself share and are constantly updating and amending. It covers everything from clothing to food and water, camping gear, medical supplies and the list goes on. Later on in our blog we will share all the items we pack along with a packing list as I find extremely interesting to see how other paddlers pack the kayaks and what they choose to take, most of these are essential and without these life on a adventure would probably be very tough.
Of course depending on the amount of days you are going to be away on the paddle tends to depend on how much space space one has in the kayak. One thing I cannot stand on the front deck of my kayak is clutter it tends to make me feel claustrophobic and there's nothing worse than having tangled ropes and trying to avoid knocking things on the deck of your kayak with your paddle. I know when we start fresh in the morning ones paddle stroke is a lot cleaner compared to one's stroke by the end of the afternoon when one's arms tired and the swell, chop and the wind has picked up causing ones stroke to get very messy and start catching items with the your inside of the paddle or worse still your fingernail or knuckles.
During our bass straight crossing we made the decision that we were going to set ourselves up with the voltaic solar system to keep a backup battery charged so when we got to land and set up camp we could charge up from this battery all the electronic items that we depend on on each day. This decision was not as easy as one might think, there are a lot of roads that one can go down to setting up a voltaic solar system that are waterproof, reliable and durable and not too fastidious. we read so many blogs on systems that other paddlers has shared. We both like to tinker and would probably like to consider ourselves innovative. I wish I had a dollar for how many times I've commented on how I always go back to my first gut feeling decision.
This system was on that I first come across when I was doing a mountain bike ride from Sydney to Newcastle and basically all I wanted was to be able to keep my mobile phone charged as we were using it for navigation. I came across the boys from voltaicsystems.com ,The minute I came across this website I knew I had found what I was looking for, I knew these guys had put a lot of work in research and development and had a great sense of commercial design. I'm always a sucker for great practical ideas
