Expedition Portal / April, 2019
Packboat is my made-up word for easily portable boats that roll into a bag but deploy in minutes, in contrast with hardshell kayaks or canoes in aluminum, plastic, or composite. I’m here to suggest that if lugging a cumbersome hardshell on your overland rig isn’t for you, then a packboat weighing from 2 to 40 pounds and never bigger than a backpack might well be, while adding another great way to explore the outdoors…
I used Panasonic’s Lumix FT2 wet cameras for 13 years or more, a simple, slim, one-handed, all-weather P&S which didn’t have to be mollycoddled. In 2011 we even used them to make a series of packrafting videos.
Later FTs seemed to lose the functionality of the FT2, so as they died or sank, I replaced them with used cheapies off ebay until they got too hard to find. Desert, pocket or sea, I’ve always liked the Lumix range’s preference for a wider 24mm-ish lens. Ridiculous zoom levels were far less important because picture quality dived. But after a really old FT1 burner unsurprisingly failed to survive a few minutes of snorkelling the other month, I decided to step up to a used Olympus TG-5 after some paddle boarders rated them.
Commonly the Olympus TG-5 (from 2025 a TG-7 but barely changed) and Panasonic FT7 (left) get rated as the best P&S waterproof cameras. But they seem expensive for what they are, and when you consider the tiny zoom lens tucked inside the inch-thick body, you’re never going to get great shots, especially in low light or at full zoom.
Even then, my FTs always needed to be tricked into slightly lower (better) exposures by half-clicking on the sky, pulling down and composing before clicking. It was only when I got a Lumix LX100 that I realised
a: how handy an EV Comp dial (left) is; I use it on almost every shot. And
b: how relatively crappy some of my FT pics were. I used the FT less and less.
Back to the TG-5. Watching one of the vids below I learned it has an unmarked ‘control dial’ in the same, top-right position and which can work as an EV Comp dial. That alone is worth the price of the camera.
Having been inspired to RTFM for once, I now realise the TG-5 is actually much closer to the LX than I though, not least in terms of the staggering number of things it can do. You can even clip on wide or tele converter lenses (a bodge, imo, if photo quality matters) but more usefully, you can fit a clear filter over the vulnerable lens window. For that you need the Olympus CLA-T01 adapter (£20; or a £6 JJC knock-off; above left) to which you then screw in a regular 40.5mm filter: UV, polarised, whatever (above).
With a piece of screen guard stuck over the LCD, the Olympus Tough can now be treated Olympus Rough, with both screen guard and UV filter being inexpensively replaceable. Note: towards the end of my TG’s life I dispensed with the 40-mm filter to make it slimmer in the pocket. Within a few months the stock built-in lens cover glass/plastic had become scratched (left) to the point of ruining pictures and finally finishing off the still-working camera for me. Moral: fit a quality UV lens filter; the stock cover is not up to it.
It also has an easy-to-use custom self-timer, a blessing for us paddle-blogging singletons. Normally I’ve had to settle for 3-shots-at-10 seconds, or simply shoot video and extract a cruddy still, but on the TG you press the sequential shooting (‘6 o’clock’) button and press the Info button to edit:
• delay (1–30 secs).
• number of frames (up to 10) and
• frame interval (0.5–3 secs).
I have tried doing selfies with the video and extracting stills, but even on the highest ‘SuperFine’ video setting, the extracted 16:9 still is 1920 x 1080 pixels, while a photo is 4000 x 2256. You do notice the difference so getting to grips with the custom self-timer is best, even if autofocusing on a passing boat can be hit and miss.
The battery is a slim 1270Ah which does masses of shots (four days or more) and you can charge it in the camera which is one less thing to carry. But for 20 quid I bought 3 clone batteries plus a travel-friendly USB housing rather than a mains charger (right) which will work off a laptop, battery pack, USB wall plug or a solar snorkel.
Once I’d have said GPS position, elevation and a compass in a camera were gimmicks. Now I’d admit they add some redundancy when a proper GPS unit goes flat, as it did on me one time. There’s an easy-access external switch to turn the GPS on to log a waypoint of the picture, for what that’s worth. Otherwise, all the other data, as above, is viewable by simply pressing the Info button with the camera off. Up it comes for 10 secs, north by northwest. The TG-5 will also take great pictures. At home I use my TG almost every day.
Tough by name and tough by nature (see below)
A baffling new menu to master – sigh
A smashing camera
Two times I thought I’d killed my TG, as I’ve done with so many cameras over the years. Biking in the Moroccan Sahara one time, the red wrist strap loosened unnoticed and the TG tumbled along a hard road at 30mph. Picking it up, one corner was smashed in, but amazingly it still worked. I taped up the hole, gluing it later and used it for a few more years.
Scotland 2021: lunch on a slatted plank bridge up a glen. The camera slipped out of my pocket and fell through the gap into the a stream bed where it lay for at least five minutes before I noticed. This must be it, surely; just as long as the SD card makes it. Because I never use it under water, I’ve never bothered silicone-greasing the two access doors as they recommend, but I fished it out, blew the water out of the battery compartment and it still took pictures!
But soon the screen gradually clouded over, so did the lens and one by one, functions dropped away. Eventually turning it on gave nothing. Water must have worked its way though the system, shorting everything out.
Back home, a couple of days later I bought another used TG and had just started stripping the old one when I thought, I’ll just slip a battery in on the off chance. To my utter amazement the TG5 fired up good as before. All functions resumed and photos saved to and exported from an SD card. This is a Tough camera! I now have a spare as-new TG5 one which I was thinking about getting anyway.
See also: Kebab Death Weir Tunnel
Years ago I recce’d South London’s Wandle ‘River’ from Merton Abbey Mills to the Thames at Wandsworth – a varied urban run of just a few miles – and all from the safety of my pushbike.
It’s not far from where I live but I decided the Wandle held too many elements which played to my watery phobias, not least near the end where the current sucks you into a series of sunless tunnels (left) under a shopping centre and former brewery. Sounds like a perfect setting for a macabre Gothic horror story.
But not everyone is so timid. Tim from Longshore International (defunct) followed tnhe Wandle with a couple of his boats. Full story with a description of the real hazards and more photos on Medium.
At a Dive shop in Whitianga on the North Island’s Coromandel peninsula half a day from Auckland, I asked the teenage girl left at the till which way the tidal currents flowed around here. She smiled at me like I was an idiot and explained slowly.
‘Well, when the tide comes in it like, comes towards you, and when it goes out, it sort of goes away.’
Before I got into sea paddling that’s what I would have said, but I explained what I meant, that tidal flows moved to and fro in a given direction along a coast, not just in out, in out, like a Can-Can dancer’s legs At any constriction or headland it’s a good thing to know when planning or timing a paddle. She looked it up on the internet.
‘Anticlockwise.’
‘Thanks.’
Tides apart, did I really think the surging expanse of the Pacific would be calm enough for a humble 10km coastal packayak round the cliffs of Cook Bluff to the famous and much fridge-magneted tourist icon of Cathedral Cove (painting below)? No, but now on my wavelength, Dive Girl went on to offer me tomorrow’s gloomy forecast: 4-metre swells, 35 knot gusts and occasional showers of razor-billed flying fish.
A good day for a cliff walk then. Coming back next evening from Cooks Beach, I was a little appalled to see Mercury Bay awash with white-capped rollers, as if some tsunami was on the go. Surf’s up, if you have the nerve.
It was right here in 1769 that Captain Cook and his crew – on the hunt for the fabled Terra Australis – first raised the British flag on the New Zealand shore while engaged in observing the transit of Mercury.
Maybe I’d get a chance the day after, my last. But even in the calm morning, the storm’s after-swell was still pounding the cliffs and beaches of Mercury Bay. Who knows how it was at the Cove of Broken Dreams which, they said, was still closed from the land side, anyway.
Luckily, the cliff-rimmed natural harbour of Whitianga was sheltered from all this Pacific aggression. And better still, the tides were ideally timed to be swept into the inlet, before getting spat out on the mid-afternoon ebb like a retching gannet’s breakfast.
Settling up on a grassy strand near the marina, I realised I’d left my pfd at the hostel – this after noting a warning sign advising that all in <6-m long boats required them. Oh well, if spotted hopefully the harbour master will zoom up alongside me on his jet ski and lend me one for the day. As it was, I was heading inland where there’d be no one.
Once tempered up via my hose extension, I scooted over the yacht-clogged harbour mouth, ferrying across the strong current filling the shallow inlet, tilting marker buoys as it went. I was told later that, partly as a result of dredging a channel for marina access, that Whitianga’s natural harbour was fastest flowing in New Zealand.
On the west side, under a wave-carved overhang (left) I hopped out to temper the MRS again. I like an inflatable as firm as possible but am finding, perhaps due to its larger than normal volume for a non-pump inflatable, that the S1 commonly needs a second pump up a few minutes in.
I’m now wondering if something about half the size or volume of my 600-g K-Pump Mini would be handy to get the Nomad up to operating pressure in one go. This eBay pump (right) cost me just 3 quid posted and is actually similar to the mini pump Alpacka initially offered with their $2000 Alpackalypse. With a pump like this, after high-volume air-bagging, you could judiciously pump to a highish pressure on the shore – assuming the cheapo eBay pump can hack it. Yes, a pump’s another thing to carry/lose and the comparatively bulky K-Pump will do the job in a few short strokes. But unlike a paddle, it’s not ‘mission critical’, as they say in the movies.
Fitting a PRV and being able to pump away until the PRV purged (as I do with my Seawave IK) would be even easier, because you could also happily leave the boat out on a hot beach without fear of it exploding into a thousand ribbons of ruptured TPU. PRVs are unknown on packrafts so maybe I’m over-thinking it, but double-tempering is a bit of a faff even if, as humans go, I have a good pair of nicotine-free lungs.
Anyway, I padded southwards, weaving among the lifeless yachts and cruisers, reminding me of our Hayling Island paddle last summer. Let me tell you, in this world there are a lot of massively under-used boats bobbing around and gathering algae.
Once past a sinister big black tug, the bay opened out and I was in the clear. Nearby, alongside a jetty below a cliff leading to a dwelling hidden in the bush, I spotted this pioneering-era carving.
Beyond here the shore looked oddly mangrovey and inaccessible. Mangroves this far south at nearly 37°? I’d only ever seen then around Darwin where I’d once eaten a so-called oolie worm which feeds in their trunks. Sure enough, turns out hereabouts is the southermost extent of mangroves.
I’m not so keen on this sort of drab coastline, but live and let alternative lifeforms live, I suppose. In fact it was fun to probe the passages below the shady groves as it was due to reach 30°C today.
It took a bit more idle nosing about before I finally located the channel leading southeast to the two small rivers which fed the harbour inlet. The channel narrowed as the supposedly slack tide swept me into the tangled maze of salt-loving woodland. Curving left and right, south and east, as the scaly boughs closed in, it occurred to me that this far down in the bay wouldn’t be a great place to get lost and then stranded in thigh-deep, oolie-ridden silt for the next few hours. Who knows how quick the tide turns. Anticipating this, I’d clocked a hilltop landmark over on the western hills to help orientate myself, then pushed on in as far as I dared, getting maybe 500m from shore before spinning around into the still-rising tide and scuttling back out into the open.
The tide really ought to have turned by now, carrying me back the way I’d come, but the forecast nor’westerly was on time and in my face. Luckily the Nomad’s generous stub nose stopped me making a mockery of the harbour’s 5-knot limit so it was a long hour’s slog back to the harbour mouth, bent against the breeze and slapping waves. A similarly windy afternoon on the Wairoa River a few days back must have got me into paddling shape, so the effort was all put down to good exercise.
Once past the marina, I’d hoped to slip below the jetty, under the harbour master’s cabin and out into Mercury Bay itself. Maybe cruise below Shakespeare Cliffs and then land on Buffalo Beach, like a proper Pacific navigator. But it was not to be. Chances are I’d have just embarrassed myself, tumbling through the surf and into the shore fishermen’s barbed hooks.
My time was up in NZ. Next day, rolling my cleverly adapted UDB (more below) to the bus stop, all was as calm as a kiwi’s cozy nest. I was reminded how sea kayakers must feel when they haul all the way up to the Summer Isles to be met by tent-bothering gales, only to find great conditions as they pack up.
It’ll be there next time and for sure the east side of the Coromandel looks like the fantastic place for some fabulous sea paddling. The beachside hostel I stayed at laid on hefty old SoTs for free and there were plenty of kayak touring outfits in town and around. Give it a go if you ever find yourself down here.
For this trip moving from airport to airport and in a bid to spare my creaking back, I mated my trusty Watershed UDB to a chopped-down lightweight folding trolley I’ve used on previous packboating trips. With chunky zip ties and a strap, the shortened frame fitted securely to the rugged UDB’s back harness tabs.
My load was way under the airline limit, but the thinking was that, once packboating my planned river for a few days, the UDB and small trolley would still be compact, compared to a regular wheeled travel bag.
It was all a way of stopping myself buying the painfully pricey but actually only 500g heavier Ortlieb Duffle RS 140 I’ve been eyeing up. Fitted with an IP67 TiZip (not as good as the UDB’s brass drysuit zip), it’s the biggest one they do, so ought to take my Seawave IK and gear. Lacking a backbone frame of Ort’s RG duffles, the 140 actually rolls up even smaller (right) than my DIY contraption.
A handy side benefit (which might also apply to the airtight Ortlieb), was that being able to inflate my UDB into a rigid airtight sausage made it easier to wheel around (but not as comfy as a full-framed wheel bag). I got some odd looks giving my bag a blow job by the arrivals luggage carousel, because at departure check-in I had to tug the zip open a bit to ensure it would air-off safely at 32,000 feet.
In my hand I carried my nifty Ortlieb 30-L Travel Zip.
The MRS Nomad S1 I tested last summer in Scotland is my new packraft. Goodbye to my great little Alpacka Yak. Like the Yak before, it held its value and I sure got my money’s worth out of it over 4 years. The Nomad is an unusually long packraft with a central seat, making it more of a packyak which paddles much like a short IK (no yawing), has more space and weighs under 5kg with a roll-back skirt and thigh braces. So – easy to walk with for as long as you like.
I’d originally planned the classic North Island paddle: the canoe-able and therefore safely packraftable Whanganui River in the southwest. The best section is a 5- or 3-day-with-huts run for which you need to be self-sufficient as there are no towns, let alone roads or bridges until you take out at Pikiriki. I was set up for that, but it turned out getting to the remote Whakahoro put-in, then from Piki back to Auckland for my plane took more time than I’d allowed myself, once my flights got rescheduled.
No worries, this in New Zealand: international nexus for outdoor activities. I’d had a bike test arranged at Tauranga on the North Island’s Bay of Plenty, so decided to stick around that region instead of watching days pass by from a bus window.
A brochure at the hostel proposed evening kayaking up a glow-worm gorge off Lake McLaren, 20kms south of town. Even in daylight that sounded fun, so I taxied over and planned to walk and paddle back. Lake McLaren is a country park (left) with forest trails spread around a small reservoir and an old power station by a waterfall. A good place to reacclimatise myself with the S1 as a quick spin in Sydney a week earlier showed up a crease mid-hull which suggested a slow puncture or just the usual ‘is-it-a-bit-soft?’ neurosis combined with too much fine dining.
The boat was tempered and inflated to the max with my patented IAT (inflation assist tube; right). With the yellow hose you’re able to do a much better puff than just with your mouth on the Boston valve. I paddled my way round to the glowworm gorge inlet where families where feeding the ducks and enjoying Waitangi Day picnics. But the gorge stream was barely deep enough to float a duck and my quick foot-recce didn’t go far enough. If there was a paddleable pool up there, it was probably tiny. So I settled for cruising about the lake a bit and force-feeding more air where it wouldn’t go. I didn’t recall any hull creases when I tried the S1 last summer. And I’m sure the seat was suspended off the floor which spreads the load better, rather than pressing on the floor. Anyway, no leaks on this boat.
From the park it was a 6km walk back along the main road to rejoin the river at the newer Ruahihi power station. Between the park and Ruahihi I presume the lake’s output gets diverted through pipelines, baring occasional releases for the white water brigade. Having appraised the range of Newzealandish roadside detritus, just by the station I slithered down a steep bank thick with red flowers (left) and reinflated.
A nice current kicked out of the power station’s bores and I set off for the 12km run to a water park by a road bridge west of Tauranga.
It would be nice to report the Wairoa was a magical paddle. Giant, palm-like fern trees certainly give NZ’s lush, English-looking countryside an other-worldly, Jurassic quality. It’s no coincidence that just down the road they’ve renamed a town Hobbiton (below) in honour of the movie filmed there.
The Wairoa might make a nice afternoon’s flatwater canoeing, but I do miss a bit of easy Massifian eau vivant. Youtube vids suggested the Whanganui has some rapids fit to tip beginners’ canoe, but here all I got was the cooling breeze which developed into an annoying headwind. I put my head down and dug away, on the way passing a clifftop tree (left) which surely must be one good deluge away from crashing down into the river.
I may have skipped lunch and haven’t padded since the summer, but I was getting more tired than I should be. Something felt off with the seating and bracing set-up meaning I wasn’t relaxed. One problem with the mid-seated Nomad (or any packraft much longer than 130cm inside) is that you can’t jam yourself in, back-to-foot, leaning on the stern with the feet braced against the bow. The Packrafting Store included Anfibio knee braces which, after some adjustment, improved things a bit, but wasn’t as good as bow-braced feet. I see the Store are now selling an MRS footrest for €30 (right) which shortens the distance by six inches or so. I’ve since fitted one, improving bracing and comfort.
A jet ski shot by up river, kicking up some welcome wake. Then a paddle boarder passed by and a group getting merry on a motor pontoon. It had been over two hours now so I asked a bank-side dog lady how far to the water park
’Oh it’s a few kilometres’.
Surely not. I pulled over and, clinging to a moored boat against the wind, fired up the GPS. That’s more like it – not so far at all.
Soon there were kids churning along on pedallo-powered water slides, SoTs, giant inflatable silliness and a water chute hurling screaming infants into the river. What better way to spend Waitangi Day. Beyond, traffic rumbled over the road bridge and before that, a steep tidal bank lead up to a nicely mowed lawn for a dry-off during a bit of a lie-down. One-fifty minutes for 12 clicks – not so bad considering it felt like dog water much of the way.
From here it was a 7-km hike through Tauranga’s affluent suburbs back to the hostel. On the way, a supermarket called me like a siren:
‘Food… Foooood, large amounts’. Once out, I’d didn’t even re-park my trundler (as trolleys are called here) before gorging myself on a pain-au-choc, peaches and yoghurts. The rest of the shopping for the evening meal nicely balanced my paddle for the long walk back.
Updated Summer 2025
See also:
Inflation valves and PRVs
My PoV on electric pumps for IKs
Tested: Flextailgear rechargeable packraft pump
Packraft air pressure
Your inflatable packboat needs a pump to take form as well as to top-up once on the water. These functions may be best performed by two different pumps. The folding bellows footpump (left) is history and even low-pressure IKs now come with some sort of hard plastic barrel pump. Some pump on both up and down strokes to fill your boat faster, but as you reach higher pressures they automatically or manually switch to downstroke-only inflation to reduce the effort. They work best on flat, firm ground where you can stand on the stirrup plates and get stuck in. The excellent Bravo 4 RED Kite pump below (newer ones are blue) is still well under £20 and will pump up an IK in 5 minutes.
I got a Bravo 6 with my Seawave once but found it hard work – who knows why. The cheaper Bravo 4 does claim to be an ‘R.E.D’ (‘reduced effort device’) and I can confirm this isn’t some gimmicky acronym. The other port on the Bravo’s handle can be used to suck air from an IK so it rolls up good and flat; you can see creases forming in the hull as you suck it down.
I left my Bravo 4 RED at home one time so bought a Sevylor RB2500G barrel pump (below left) for a tenner. Same size as the Bravo barrels, it did OK for the awkward topping-up of my Semperit’s lilo plugs and came with others adaptors plud sucked as well as pumped. But pumping up my Seawave from flat was exhausting towards the end: I actually got out of breath and had to rest! Morale of this fascinating anecdote: get a Bravo 4 RED and the right adaptor for your boat.
Not all barrels have a built-in pressure gauge which is obviously dead handy in getting the right pressure without needing to faff about with a separate manometer (see below). It’s worth an extra tenner to get a built-in gauge, especially with DS boats.
The K-Pump Mini (above right) is a handy top-up pump or compact 600-g travel pump. It took 15 minutes to fully inflate up my 14-foot Seawave; the push-fit nozzle works on any IK with one-way spring valves. You have to press and hold the nozzle against the valve. Using it a lot one time, I got the feeling it might break something or wear out the seal (which needs regreasing once in a while). I’ve also used the K-Pump to top up my Nomad S1 packraft which was too big and long to inflate firmly with just its airbag. Fuller review of the K-Pump Mini here. They’re hard to find in the UK, the very long, and slim US-made K-Pump 200 (right) may also be suited to higher-pressure dropstitch applications.
Left, the Bestway Air Hammer is an ‘upside-down’ barrel pump which comes in three sizes and costs from just £6 on eBay. If you don’t want to paddle with your full-size barrel pump, the smallest Air Hammer could work as a compact top-up pump like the K-Pump, but a tenth of the price. The one on the left came with a ROBfin and was rated at 4psi.
More and more IKs now feature super-rigid, high-pressure dropstitch hulls – either just floors or the entire hull which runs 2–5 times higher pressures than regular IKs. Your old Bravo footpump will blow its brains out trying to reach a typical 7-10psi.
Barrel pumps with long, slim bodies, as opposed to the shorter, stockier examples above, put out less volume (DS IKs have less volume anyway) but can more easily attain higher pressures. It’s something to do with the ø of the pump face x the stroke. You don’t necessarily need a super high-pressure iSup board pump.
Some of these pumps may be double action. At a certain psi they become single action (downstroke only). I believe the Bravo Alu 4 RED (0.8 bar) works like that. Or they have a switch to do the same and help attain higher pressures. It works. Whatever pump you get for your DS IK, make sure it is rated to comfortably exceed your DS boat’s pressure rating.
Bayonet nozzles for ‘raft’ valves.
Who would have thought there’s something to be said about bayonet nozzles? Well there is. There are two types: plain (below right, Gumotex) and crossbar-peg or detent (left, Bravo). Both need soft spacer washers to fit snugly against your boat’s raft valve, but the small peg inside the green one will press open your valve stem as you connect it.
You will notice a similar peg on car tyre inflation hoses and also on a hand manometer (below). A manometer can’t get a pressure reading without this peg partially opening the valve as you push it on. A nozzle with a peg/detent means that:
a: you’re not pushing the valve spring open each time you pump (easier pumping) and
b: if your pump has a manometer you will get a constant/live reading as the pressure climbs which is the point of having a built-in manometer. The Bravo one goes from 3 quid; search: ‘Bravo Adjustable HP Valve adapter’.
The only drawback might be that you need to remove a pegged nozzle carefully with Push-Push (Gumotex) valves. Normally a little air escapes as you do this, but if the valve doesn’t spring back closed, air will rush out. Turn slowly then pull away briskly; you’ll get the knack.
Pressure gauge (manometer)
Until I got a Grabner which has no PRVs but ran a relatively high, 0.3 bar (4.3 psi), I never bothered with a pressure gauge (manometer, below) and just pumped up by feel. A lot of people do this. Since then, I ran a Gumotex Seawave and fitted PRVs to all chambers. That meant I still didn’t need a pressure gauge to get the right pressure; I simply kept pumping until each PRV hissed: the boat was then at operating pressure. My Seawave 2 was left stock (no side PRVs) so I have got into the habit of keeping a Bravo manometer with the K-Pump Mini and checking the sides at each paddle when I top up. I have checked this manometer against the floor and it measured 0.25bar which matches with the PRV rating, so I think it’s pretty accurate. Try and get a model with a range of no more than 1 bar (as below left) as that is the range you’re working in. At the moment, Sea Mark Nunn sell it in the UK.
With high-pressure DS IKs, you probably want a pressure gauge as the boat will perform best at the right pressure which may be higher than you’re used to.
Packrafts used to be inflated with a featherlight airbag which came with the boat. A nozzle on the bag screwed into the boat’s valve and you scoop air into the bag (easier with a breeze) and ‘bear hug’ it to cram the air into the boat. It’s takes about ten scoops and two minutes to inflate a boat this way, then unscrew the bag nozzle and quickly screw on the valve without losing too much air.
Next, you used to top off by mouth on a separate twistlock valve: the firmer the boat the better it rides. In the video below (speeded up x 15) from walking up to a beach with my paddle in my pack, to loading up and paddling away took 8 minutes.
Things have moved on. Most packrafts now have a single one-way Boston valve which tackles initial inflation and topping up to a firm pressure.
Inexpensive and tiny rechargeable electric pumps (left and below) now effortlessly do the initial job of the air bag, once you fit the right adaptor. Flextail minipump reviewed here.
And for those who don’t have lungs like Luciano Pavarotti, once aired up a light and compact mini handpump (left) will get the boat good and firm. Firm boats paddle better, and like IKs, a packraft that feels firmly inflated by hot ambient air on land will go soft once cooled in the water and will need more topping up.
The Anfibio pump above is an adapted eBay balloon pump with an added hose so you can top-up on the water, if needed. It also differs from eBay cheapies in that the handle now unscrews from the pumping shaft to make it less prone to snapping in transit (as I found with the earlier version).
With a Flextail and an Anfibio pump you’re packing good to go, but I always keep the original air bag plus a short section of garden hose (for topping up; below) with my boat in case either pump fails.
Note: a good packraft should hold air for days at a time, but don’t leave it fully inflated and out of the water in the hot sun. The air inside heats up and expands, pressures rise and the seams will get strained and may rupture.
See also Packboating in Southern France
Rivieres Nature en France review
Bradt Paddling France
Back in print after 16 years, Rivers Publishing have updated their 2002 White Water Massif Central canoe guide, now less scarily titled: Best Canoe Trips in the South of France. Packboats aren’t mentioned, but what’s doable in a canoe is well suited to IKs and is easier still in packrafts.
Compared to a Pesda Press paddling guide, Best Canoe Trips looks old school and a bit amateurish, but there’s nothing else like it in English covering France’s inspiring Massif region (right). It’s a good example of: ‘write it and they might come’. Even now, let alone back in 2002, trying to amass this sort of information online would take days of effort and translating, (though I belatedly can see how online translation apps can make a book like Rivieres Nature en France usable by readers with limited French. Whichever you choose, this is why there’s still a place for proper, well-researched paper guidebooks.
Visiting over the years with packboats using planes and trains and mates in vans, I’ve ticked off just about all the original book’s big rivers. Like a lot of activities in France, the whole scene is so much more fun, open and less rule-bound than the UK. You can’t help but smile as you bundle into a Tarn or Ardeche rapid alongside floating barrels and screaming teenagers clinging to upturned rentals.
What they say:
[Best Canoe Trips in the South of France] is written for the recreational canoeist, kayaker, or stand-up paddle boarder going on holiday to the South of France. Rivers include the famous Gorges du Tarn, Gorges de l’Ardèche, Dordogne and Lot, besides some lesser known jewels such as the Allier, Hérault, Orb, Vézere and Célé.
The Massif Central is renowned for its canoeing and the rivers in this guidebook are some of the best in the world for canoe-camping. This guide book targets those rivers that have easy white water and assured water levels in the summer months of July and August, when most families have to take their holidays. New dams, reservoirs, and guaranteed water releases means that canoe tourism is now huge in the Massif Central and this guide covers over 800km of class 1-3 [rivers], with all the details needed for a fabulous and truly escapist, holiday.
This new edition has details of two new rivers, 22 detailed colour maps, updated river descriptions, recommended campsites and lots of inspiring photographs.
What I think
• Great selection of brilliant rivers
• Loads and loads of good colour photos show how it is
• Some maps lacking in detail and consistency
• Route descriptions could be more concise
• Poor updating; errors on the two rivers I paddled recently
• What’s with the fake cover?
Review
If you know the original edition (far left), first thing you’ll spot is the near-identical cover, but with scary, frothing rapids airbrushed out and a somewhat anachronistic SUP pasted on, a embarrassingly clumsy attempt to cash-in on the current SUP craze.
Some of Rivers’ other publications feature very nice retro poster-style covers (right) which would have suited Best Canoe Trips perfectly. Can a non-faked image of canoeing in the Massif be so hard to track down? The book is full of them. But if you don’t know the previous edition you’ll probably not notice the front cover photoshoppery. Imagine what AI could manage today?!
Inside, it’s now full colour and twin column, like a Pesda. Two small rivers have been added: the 23-km Sioule north of Clermont, and all of 13km of the Dourbie meeting the Tarn at Millau. It’s not much which proves they did a thorough job first time around, even if some descriptions were incomplete.
Up front are Planning and Resources sections before getting stuck into the 11 (actually 12, with Chassezac) river descriptions.
Each river still gets a rating table for magnificence, enjoyment, child-friendliness, as well as cleanliness, temperature, flow in cumecs, and busy-ness. Of these last four, the traffic is most useful for what to expect. Without lab tests, all the rivers I’ve done looked clean enough, and temperature was what it was on the day, depending on depth or season. And who but a river pro knows what ‘7 cumecs’ looks like? There must be some rationale to it, but to me identifying the locations of more easily understood river level gauges (where present) would be much more useful, as you can refer to this handy live river levels website.
The river descriptions remain long-winded – 85km of Tarn goes on for 16 pages, albeit with loads of photo padding. It makes it hard to pin down the nitty-gritty. Headings include Camping, Off the River, Food & Drink, more Camping, then Maps & Guides. Then each suggested shuttle-able day-stage is described, some getting Summary and Description headings, some not. Boxes cover asides, others list tourist offices and campsite telephone numbers where surely websites (as in the old edition) are infinitely more useful. The ‘Off the River’ heading is a nice touch, suggesting the many other things to see and do locally, and you get a recommendation for the best IGN map/s for the river.
You’ll need that because, despite a handy, ‘big picture’ river map scaled-down to fit a page, with the subsequent stage maps you’ll struggle to orientate yourself unless you keep track closely, and the important detail is rendered inconsistently from map to map. All but three of the 20-odd maps are the same as edition 1. At over 1:100,000 scale (some over twice that), the 50k or bigger walking standard would be much better, such as Chassezac on p64. Only the map for the new Sioule river shows how it should have been done: a coincidentally usable scale of 71k and each weir, rapid and so on marked with a small red dash so you know what’s coming or where you are. To a nervous newb this is important. The old maps retain tiny dashes marking such things, but in blue over a blue river with blue writing that’s hard to read.
Just follow the river you might think. But when you’re wondering just how far to that nasty-sounding weir (which turns out to be nothing), without offline GPS mapping or a phone signal, a well-drawn and detailed map with bridges and other landmarks, is so much more useful and intuitive than columns and columns of text where one drossage reads very much like another. For 20 quid I’d expect to have proper, usable maps.
Full, town-to-town river descriptions would also make more sense than obscure put-in to obscure take-out. We managed fine continuing beyond the half-described Chassezac (listed under ‘Ardeche’ for some reason) all the way to the actual Ardeche confluence. Same with the Tarn: Florac to Millau is a great 3-4 days. Why not just provide a full and accurate description right through to the white water course in Millau (a fun finale!) and let the reader decide where to start and end?
Whoever they sent to update the Allier phoned it in. Distances (another useful aid to orientation; easily measured online) were out. Over-emphasised descriptions of ‘blink-and-you-miss-them’ pre-industrial weirs are now irrelevant, while other chute-avoiding weirs have become fun Class 2s. There are even left/right portaging errors introduced since the previous edition. See the Allier page for more detail.
The ‘fluffy-duck-mascot’ joke was done to death first time round. Unfortunately, the author still thinks it has some mileage in this edition. Oh well, chacun a son gout.
The switch to colour has given the book a fresh new look, but as a worthwhile improvement, the inconsistent updating has led to a missed opportunity. It’s perhaps to be expected because, as the author hints and my impressions concur, fewer families holiday like this anymore. Holiday-makers just bundle into a rental for a day and get vanned back to the campsite. All that is a shame as without the first edition I’d have missed out on a whole lot of memorable paddling adventures in lovely southern France, one of the best paddling locales in western Europe.
See also:
Deck bags for packboats
FYI 2023: Not sure what or how but TiZip tell me the MasterSeal design has updated
As mentioned here, wafting down the Tarn Gorge one summer with a Watershed Chattooga drybag jammed under my knees gave me plenty of time to configure a ‘deckbag’ to better fit my needs.
Peli cases are too heavy and cumbersome for these sorts of trips, while dependably dunk-proof – or even submersible bags like the Chattooga are too big and too fiddly to seal easily (since replaced with an Ortlieb Travel Zip). All I needed a 5-litre bag to sit on the floor below my knees for my must-stay-dries.
Using state-of-the-art Adobe Crayon™ CAD software I came up with a design (above) and optimal dims of about 29cm x 15cm wide by 12cm deep giving about 5 litres volume. Part of the attraction of this project was learning to heat-weld TPU fabric with a small iron. It looks so much easier and less messy than glue. Or so I thought.
Before I got – quite literally – stuck in, I considered adapting some of the many heavy-duty SealLine PVC roll-top dry bags I have knocking about. All I needed to do was stick a zip in, then somehow cap one end with a round piece of something. I may well try that later but what I was actually aiming for was a stable box not a cylinder to sit securely on the floor of a boat.
Heat welding: important to understand
PVC plastic can’t be heat sealed with an iron because it’s double coated. With double-coated anything (TPU, PVC, etc) the hot iron will easily melt the coating and make a right mess. Done this way you need to use a heat gun and a roller (left) which requires three hands. Or use single-sided PVC seam tape. Or of course, use glue.
The body of my Pakbag could be made from single-coated yellow 210D packraft hull fabric, with the near-square end panels in ‘both-sides-coated’ 420D black packraft floor material. At 650g/sqm (27oz/sq yard) this stuff is good and thick. The thin yellow is 275g/sqm.
Half a metre minimum order of each cost €10 and €20 respectively from extremtextil in Germany; a very handy resource for the home fabrician. What you see left is what’s left over. Extrem were also one of the only places I found who’d sell a couple of 23-cm TiZip MasterSeal 10s for €23 each. Rolled delivery cost a bit more but avoided folds and was very fast. In the meantime I bought a used Prolux iron off ebay for 20 quid and already had some scissors, a table, a ruler and a knife.
I’m not so skilled at home handicrafts so expected to make a right mess of things first time round, and was prepared to make a second bag. The next best thing I could do was think carefully before diving in like Edward Scissorhands at a confetti convention.
One smart decision I made was to use a wooden mould to form the bag around. I could have laboriously hand-sawn some kitchen-shelf leftovers down to size, but after more ebaying found a pair of hobbyist’s knick-knack balsa boxes which added up to 15 x 12 x 30 stacked.
As mentioned, you can’t iron on the coated side of TPU fabric; the coating will melt all over your iron before it bonds to whatever’s underneath. You can only directly heat an uncoated surface while pressing down the coated side which melts to the corresponding panel – coated or uncoated.
You can learn a lot from the DIY Packraft website. Lord knows how these guys manage to make packrafts from a roll of raw TPU. There can be no doubt that my attempt would end up looking like Picasso in an abattoir, but a dinky, curve-free pakbag ought to be within my abilities.
They mention the need for an iron with an adequate and consistent spread of heat up to around 220°C. Rated at 205°C, my cheapo Prolux was not in this category. I understand model makers find them ideal for applying thin transfers. For TPU work you need an iron with more poke, costing at least three times as much.
I practised joining 210D to 210D, but sealing was far from instantaneously miraculous. It took repeated ironing and pressing, as well as spot heating to get a full seal with virtually no air gaps or lifted edges. You could then peel it apart if you got an edge up, but you certainly couldn’t pull it apart. I thought maybe the coating may be too thin or once melted was gone for good, but it’s probably just my crap iron.
For the end panels you need to seal 210D on to the thick black 420D. The box mould really helped to make a neat-enough job. One interesting observation about joining fabrics by sewing or heat-welding is that millimetre-precise measurements aren’t critical as they are with wood or metal. I took more time than I needed cutting the exact forms and trying to get precisely perpendicular edges. A big metal set square may help, or you can find stuff round the house – in my case, some square glass bathroom scales. Another tip is arrange something sticky under your cutting edge ruler so it doesn’t slip as you slice hard to get a full, straight cut.
The length of the bag is partly governed by the available zip size. The 23cm MS10 Tizip which extrem sell is presumably used as a relief zip on men’s drysuits, but for a bag has a minimally useful aperture of just 19cm. The next size they sell is a massive 71cm. They must make TiZip sizes in between (for example for packraft cargo hulls), but good luck tracking them down online.
Several features are omitted from the Adobe Crayon blueprint at the top of the page:
• The overlap sleeve on the side to contain the shoulder strap to avoid entrapment. On rough water I’ll just unhook the shoulder strap and stash it
• Otherwise the full-length shoulder strap can adjust down to ‘handbag ‘length so there’s less is lying about
• No side net. Would still quite like this but not sure how to do it neatly
• TiZip is not diagonal – not important –
but the arched stays idea underneath it may be. I noticed in France under the knees gets a lot of drips off the paddle (PSZ; right) which can get in when you open up.
Convex top would be good but a shake of the bag may thrown off excess drips before unzipping
• Need to find a way to attach it to the packraft floor. Velcro might be low profile but with the repeated force of pulling apart, I’m not sure the shiny-backed stuff I have will glue to the bag or the floor well enough, even with proper two-part glue. So Ill just clip one of the strap rings a D-ring glued on, mid-floor
A few months later… using the Pakbag
After paddling the Wairoa River in New Zealand as a day trip, I can boldly claim my MYO Pakbag is fit for purpose. It’s just the right size for a water bootle, camera, GPS and wallet, even if the easy-to-use zip is a tad short for easy access.
One thing I didn’t appreciate is that, slung over the shoulder while sat in the boat, the bag is still handy to access but keeps off a wet floor and is always attached to you. No need to think where it is.
Sadly my glue or gluing skills are not so fit for purpose. I need to reglue the strap end-rings and a couple of corners. This time I’ll probably use 2-part glue which I know will tear off the coating from the fabric core before it separates from what it’s glued to.
What I’d really like is for someone to make this properly. The difficulty – as possibly mentioned above – seems to be that anything with TiZips requires the consent and approval of TiZip Inc before they supply a zip. It’s a way of ensuring a proper application to their tight specs is done so that their reputation is not harmed. Which is why many TiZip products, like my Ortlieb Travel Zip bag are unusually expensive. You’d think there must be alternative or knock-off TiZips around; I’m pretty sure I searched and searched.
See also:
Anfibio DeckPack
MYOG TiZip Pakbag
Whether on day trips or overnighters, how do you organise easy access to regularly used items and valuables, including stuff you want to carry when away from your packboat? I’m talking something capable of handling less than flat water, rated at least IP65 (right) to stash the wallet, phone, tablet, camera, travel docs, ammo and snacks. Stuff you want to keep dry in case of swamping or capsize, as well as being easy to get to on the water.
For walking or cycling, a daypack does the trick but that doesn’t really work in a paddle boat. The pockets and pouches in your pfd (right) have their uses, but they’re not waterproof. You want something that’s airtight when briefly submerged while easy to access on the water and portable off it. It’s actually quite a tall order.
Things like paper maps and nav aids (GPS, compass) I keep in a separate waterproof pouch like the SealLine (left) with a double ziploc seal, even if this is yet more clutter knocking about around your legs.
Since I took that photo I’ve mounted a compass on the side of my Seawave IK – 
very handy as it’s always there at a glance.
And I now use a IPX7-rated Garmin Montana with loads of mapping space, though I prefer to keep salty seawater off it where possible.
Waterproof waist bags
A small, roll-top waterproof waistpack actually ticks many boxes as long as you don’t mind being attached to yet more clobber. There are quite a few out there between 2 and 6 litres, from OverBoard (2 sizes) to Aquapac and the bigger SealLine. The good thing is a waistpack sits up on your lap, out of the water and the paddle splash zone (PSZ), but well within reach.
The bad thing is they’re a faff to roll up and clip down quickly and reliably, and if you’re bobbing around in the water swimming after your boat you can be sure they’ll slowly leak. Read reviews and you’ll come across disgruntled accounts of ruined cameras or phones following a quick dip or even too much splashing. The problem, as usual, is the roll top; it needs to be tightly rolled down 2 or 3 times, then tightly clipped and even cinched down to the sides to make a good, dunk-proof seal. I believe a lot also depends on the nature of those sealing surfaces. As long as you avoid creases, smooth, shiny vinyl or PU pressing against the same will make a better seal than anything textured, like Cordura.
Hard cases
For years the obvious solution seemed to be small ABS or polypropylene hard cases commonly used for camera gear. I started years ago with a 9-litre Otterbox in my Gumotex Sunny days (left). The Otter was lighter and cheaper than the well-known Peli cases, and with either, you know the box will be airtight, access quick enough and boxes make a handy solid footrest in an IK as well as a seat or raised surface on a beach.
After some years I changed to a Peli 1400, a bit less volume than the Otter, but a bit wider and flatter. Adding some retaining straps my Macbook Air fits neatly inside the lid (right), and below there’s room for everything I need in a day.
The only thing that spoils the Peli and similar boxes are the clamps which are hard to open or close effortlessly. Some sort of lever-arch mechanism would be better. Because of this I use the box less often than I would during a paddle. On top of that, a shoulder strap for hands-free carrying is awkward unless attachment rings are added. And at 2 kilos the 1400 is a bit hefty.
I really don’t need a PeliCase’s crush-proof ruggedness. All I want is submersion-proof airtightness up IP65 for which a lunchbox (right) or food storage box might do as well, as long as the durability and seal could be relied on.
Around the same time I got into packrafts I discovered Watershed dry bags. Most of them use an oversized rubbery zip-loc seal which is submersion-proof and therefore miles better than roll-tops. The yellow, 30-litre Chattooga (left) was also more chuckable than a hard case, made a good pillow, and for me had secondary uses for biking. It fits under the knees just about, but as many find, can be difficult to open and close. To operate smoothly and seal quickly the big seal needs lubing with 404 or silicon grease.
I finally got tired of my Chattooga’s tedious seal-closure and got a (now discontinued) Ortlieb Travel Zip (below left) for £100. It has has proved to be a perfect daybag, also at 30 litres. I’ve used this packrafting in New Zealand, motorbiking in Morocco and paddling in Sardinia. The TiZip sees to immersions and two outside mesh-zip pockets make easy access to things that can get wet. Inside are a couple of zip pockets and the carry straps come together with the clever and comfortable hard plastic handle. Add a comfy shoulder strap with a pad and you’re good to go.
They seem to replaced it with a ‘40L‘ version (right) with backpack straps, but it seems to have the same dimensions as mine and so will be as good.
Camera Bags
If you’re serious about paddling photos, get the best waterproof camera you can afford, like the Lumix FT7 – right – £400, or an Olympus TG5 Tough (left). You need a good one because the tiny lens must work within the housing so low-end ones are only OK while the light is good. Occasionally they’ll expose perfectly, but don’t bother the optical zoom beyond halfway unless it’s Elvis galloping on a unicorn.
Any shots on this website from 2019 on, like this story, are shot with the Olympus. You can see the difference. Get one of these cameras and the whole section below on waterproof camera bags becomes irrelevant.
With a regular camera which I’ve also used, you need reliable water protection. I bought a used Aquapac camera bag (left). They’re just your usual roll down and clip jobbies, but inside the lid is a ziploc seal (right) which makes the bag much more dunk-proof than regular roll tops. Testing in a sink, bubbles only escape very slowly, but treading water with it attached to your waist might not end so well.
One flaw with these Aquapac camera bags are the flimsy belt loops. On mine I glued over one with a big tabbed patch (right). But really it’s too bulky to hang off a belt; I ziptie mine into one of the net pouches of my Anfibio Buoy Boy pdf, but only fold over and clip down when at sea. To properly close the seal is too much faffing and usually unnecessary – until it is.
Doing a sink submersion test (right) reminds you of the difference between hard cases and sealed bags. A rigid box is unaffected by the increased pressure of light submersion. If anything, the pressure forces the lid down on the seal even more.
With a bag it’s the opposite: even a few inches underwater compresses the bag, forcing the air out through any weak point, usually the closure. This is why submarines are made of steel, not PVC fabric.
On the Tarn I found the Chattooga under my knees too big in general, and too big to exit the boat easily (or in a rush). But I sure didn’t miss lugging the hefty Peli 1400 around.
I thought a lot about my needs and for the Allier came up with an interim solution: a smaller 1150-like hardcase (left) of about 2 litres volume for my essentials, including the LX. It worked OK, bar the usual easy opening issues.
I knew from the Tarn what I really wanted was a small waterproof under-knee ‘deckbag’ with a waterproof zip closure. The zip eliminates the bulk as well as dunking unreliability of roll-tops, while the bag weighs much less than a box and carries effortlessly and comfortably on a shoulder strap. I had the dimensions and design all jotted down in my head and eventually made one because…
Waterproof TiZip bags
A lot of Googling later I realised no one makes such a thing. There are plenty of TiZip daypacks like the Lowepro Dryzone range, or larger, watersports-oriented duffles from the likes of Ortlieb or Aire (Frodo; right) or SealLine, which resemble my own YKK-zipped Watershed UDB – one of my favourite bags. But none of the above are smaller than my 30-litre Chattooga.
The closest candidates I’ve found include the IP67-rated Ortlieb Trunk Bag (right and left). At 8 litres it’s a bit on the big side (add up the claimed dims and it’s more like 11 litres). And these days it only comes with a fitting mechanism to lock it to a bike rack. Very clever but this all helps raise the weight to over a kilo and price up to £98. The fabric is also not your usual pliant and mildly carcinogenic Ortlieb PVC, but resembles Heavalon (with its distinctive hexagon patterning) which Gumotex use as decking on some boats.
The Trunk-Bag could suit a lot of paddlers but as it’s made for bikes, you do wonder if it’s actually dunk-proof. Tellingly, the product description says underwater resistance: ‘lower edge of product, duration: 30 mins‘. As well all know, it’s common to be paddling a packraft with a little water swilling around the floor, so unless you slaver the base of your Trunk-Bag in Aquaseal, water will slowly seep through. Not good.
You’d imagine fly fishing waist bags, are ready for dunking. But they’re so large they often came with an added shoulder or neck harness to help take the weight. Plus it seems fly fishing gear may be to outdoor gear like smoked salmon is to fish fingers – prices are nuts. Patagonia make the Stormfront (left), a 10-litre waistpack with an added shoulder strap – yours for as little as £180! It’s just a dunking PVC handbag with a zip!
You’ll find any number of other fly fishing roll-top bags at twice the price of hiking or SUPing examples pictured above.
Note that many find waterproof zips like the plastic TiZip or brass YKK stiff to operate, just as they are on a dry suit. Ideally, you need a good T-toggle and some sort of tab to pull against. And I do wonder if incorporating TiZips to the required standards explains the high prices for gear using them. The full range of TiZips is not readily sold to consumers, only to manufacturers for products which use them.
Anyway, long story long, I decided it might be fun to make my own TiZip deck bag. Read about that here.
Inflatable Kayaks & Packrafts 
