Preppost_001 - Getting ready for 4 days on Tomales Bay

MODS!!!

On my last post I talked about how much of a pain in the ass it was to bring my whole setup on a 3+ hour, multi-leg trip. My little camelbak type backpack falling out of my bag in the middle of the crosswalk on a very busy San Jose intersection was kind of the last straw. It holds like a liter and a half of water, so it gets pretty heavy, and the bungee system on the boatpack just wasn't cutting it.

So I decided to add a buckle system to clip Small Backpack onto the side of Big Backpack, as well as a bungee system to keep it from flopping around. I got all artsy and used contrasting buckles in the colors of each backpack. My whole boat setup is an assault on the eyes and I've decided to just lean into it.

blue and green plastic buckle sewed on by a piece of webbing

small blue and black backpack attached to the big green boatpack, with a crisscross of bungees to hold it in place

Maneuvering various items around while in my boat has proven to be kind of precarious, so I decided to sew in a little attachment system so I could have somewhere better than "sitting across my lap" to stash my paddle while I used binoculars or grabbed something from my backpack.

I had these elastic velcro loops that had come with something I'd recently bought (I legitimately don't remember). They were meant to be tossed with the rest of the packaging, but I'd stashed them in my sewing trim collection because I knew I'd find a use for them.

boat on a messy bedroom floor, with the paddle attached to the side with elastic velcro loops — Compression socks with sandals, so hot right now

closeup of the loop — Compression socks with sandals, so hot right now

Dehydrating literally everything

This trip, I decided to make fully dehydrated meals, for a few reasons. Rather than trying to carry 3-4 gallons of water, I decided to bring a few reservoirs and fill up at Tomales Bay State Park a few times throughout the week. Dehydrated food only requires enough water for rehydration - no extra water used to boil anything.

Also, cooking with my little stove on the sand sounded like a pain in the ass and I wanted to streamline the process as much as possible. Also also, space and weight were at a premium since I was going to have to take all this on 3 buses and trains each way to get there.

Also, it sounded luxurious as hell to have things like herbs and vegetables on a camping trip!

glass jar with kombu and shiitake, for dashi — Left to right, from top: vegan cold brew dashi ready to steep, japanese curry sauce ready to go in the oven, vegan beef for the curry and vegan chorizo for other meals, carrots pre and post dehydration, something like 4 servings of rice cooked in stock and dehydrated for quick cooking, potatoes before and after dehydration, final meal ready to go

japanese curry sauce spread over a sheet of parchment on a cookie sheet — Left to right, from top: vegan cold brew dashi ready to steep, japanese curry sauce ready to go in the oven, vegan beef for the curry and vegan chorizo for other meals, carrots pre and post dehydration, something like 4 servings of rice cooked in stock and dehydrated for quick cooking, potatoes before and after dehydration, final meal ready to go

Packing

Packing for a backpacking (or boatpacking) trip is always an ordeal, especially when I'm doing primitive camping. Even just gathering everything in one place takes forever. I like to lay everything out before I pack anything away, to do one final visual scan to make sure I have everything.

Roughly left to right: spare paddle, electric pump, water reservoir, wetsuit, life jacket, binoculars, waterproof satchel, rain jacket, gloves, compass, small first aid kit for backpack, wipes, toiletries, kitchen towels, headlamp, citronella candle, bandana, clothes, hand warmers, dishes, food in moderately hard to open plastic container (raccoons pls don't eat my food), camp stove and pot, fuel, audio recorder, blanket, fabric tent anchors for sand, towel, sleeping bag, tent, water backpack and boat backpack

Clockwise from top left: tofu scramble, breakfast tacos, oatmeal, snacks, dried herbs and various seasoning, toiletries that smell like food and go in the container so raccoons don't break into my tent, Japanese curry, chorizo mac, chili

There is basically 0 room in the boatpack for anything but boat - it doesn't even have a real bottom, just a flap. So everything was going to have to go on the outside and whatever didn't fit, I'd just have to carry. I did a test pack to see how much stuff I could possibly strap on there, and I managed to get everything but my food container and my sleeping bag. Not too bad!

I didn't get a pic, but here's a me with like half that amount of stuff on there for a day trip:

me with a shit ton of stuff attached to my boatpack, including a banana. Almost the whole back of the backpack is covered. — banana for snack

I also did a test pack to make sure everything would actually fit in my boat, and it fit surprisingly well! All the stuff on the floor next to the boat would be affixed to my person.

kayak on the floor with a life jacket and 3 small bags on the floor next to me, a tent bag inside, and a bunch of stuff strapped onto the back. red and white bike lights are attached to each end — I bought bike lights to use at night; I've since learned that the white in front, red in back configuration that cars and bikes use is meaningless in a boat context. There's apparently whole different color coding system. Oh well!

This is a conclusion paragraph! Not really too much else to say! I mostly did this post so my post about the actual trip wouldn't be way too long. Next post will be about said trip.

Bye!