A friend recently turned me onto sack straps and so far I have been impressed. If you haven’t seen them yet, Strap Sacks are basically a small nylon bag with a large opening and drawstring at one end and smaller hole with a ziptie sewn in at the other.

The idea with the Strap Sack is that it attaches permanently (via the ziptie) to your canoe or kayak tie down strap and becomes a quick storage sack for your leftover straps when the boat is ties down. For example, if you got 3 feet of strapping left over; rather then winding and winding (and winding) them around the rooftop cross bar you just ball it up and stuff it in the sack and cinch it close with the drawstring.

It can also be used to store your straps and keep them from tangling in between trips which is where they make my life considerably less confusing.

Pricing for a set of four sacks is about $15.

More info: tie-down-storage.com

Photo credits: tie-down-storage.com

As you know water and electronics don’t mix very well and paddlers who wear hearing aids always have to make the tough choice every time they go out on the water. They can leave the very expensive unit(s) on shore and not hear well on the water or they can take the risk of them getting splashed with water and shorting out. Tough choice indeed.

I remember having a student a couple years ago who came down to the paddling school for a couple of weekend clinics over the summer. Without his hearing aid he couldn’t hear a thing out there so we had to figure out a plan to keep his hearing aid dry. I put him in a super stable boat and made him aware well in advance if we were working on any skills with a medium chance he was going to fall in. I also gave him a dry bag that he could throw the units in while he was working on rescues. It worked out but it was stressful for both of us which killed the fun.

If you are a hearing aid user you will be happy to know that Siemens has just released what they claim is world's first fully waterproof digital hearing aid.

The Siemens Aquaris is IP57 certified which means that you can safely use them three feet underwater for up to 30 minutes. The moisture sealed unit is also shock and dust proof so it will be strong enough to handle the rigors of paddling, rescue practise or even rough water paddling.

To keep the unit behind your ear, it’s got a non-slip soft rubber surface including an attachable sport clip for extra security.

No word on pricing yet but you can learn more about them here.

Image Credit: Siemens

Spot LLC announced another recall of one of their products. You might remember last year when the SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger was having problems transmitting and also got recalled. Now it seems their SPOT Satellite Communicator which comes with the DeLorme Earthmate PN-60w is having similar issues.

In the press release, Spot announced that, “in certain incidents, intended messages may not be transmitted, including requests for help or emergency assistance, when the SPOT Satellite Communicator is used at temperatures below 40 degrees Farhrenheit/4.44 degrees Celsius.”

It seems that the company manufacturing the communicator substituted a couple of parts that were, “not meeting operating specifications”. Those keeping track will note that is what happened last time also.

Here are the full details on the recall including SPOT contact information.

Do you own this axe? If you do you should know that Gerber has announced a recall of it because the knife was slipping out of the handle and lacerating people while in use. So far five people have required stitches.

If you currently have one, Gerber says to remove the knife from the axe handle then contact Gerber to receive a free handle cap, which will hold the knife in the axe handle during transport and storage.

Maybe I’m just not in touch with my inner lumberjack but I don’t see the improvement of a slip out knife in the handle over a standard axe. I must be missing something there.

Gerber Legendary Blades can be reached at (877) 314-9130 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. PT, Monday through Friday. For more info visit gerbergear.com.

Been to etsy.com before? If not then you will discover a huge market of people selling crafty or vintage items. Think of it as a classier version of eBay minus the auction feature. More overpriced stuff but not near as much junk.

Hunting around on recently I came upon this cool vintage canoeing manual from 1969 published the American Red Cross. According to the description it, “includes history, instruction, maintenance and rescue info on canoeing.”