Around the Great Lakes

Electronics

Carrying electronics on an expedition requires special care and planning to not only keep them dry, but also functioning with enough battery power. I’m planning on carrying a good amount of electronics. This is what I’m planning on carrying:

• A small netbook style computer with 7 to 8 hours of battery life.
• Camera One: Canon G9 w/ 4 batteries (1200 pictures) carried in a small Pelican case in the cockpit and over 900 RAW pictures worth of memory (16GB – 22 days worth of pictures at 40 pictures per day).
• Camera Two: Nikon D200 w/4 batteries (1500 pictures before recharge) carried in dry bag with over 1000 RAW pictures worth of memory (16GB – 14 days worth of pictures at 70 pictures per day). Multiple dry bags for an assortment of lenses.
• Cell Phone for Twitter updates.
• Marine Radio.

My main concern with what I’m carrying is battery power. I suspect that I will be able to recharge my equipment easily at enough campsites, but there will be times that I’m unable to do so, especially on the wilderness sections of the trip. For those times, I’ll need to be able to recharge using solar power, so I’ll have to bring along:

• Rollable solar panel.
• Plug-ins for each piece of electronics.

For my cameras, I need to be able to off load pictures from my memory cards. I should be able to do this using the netbook to write to a DVD-drive. Then I’ll send the DVDs home to be uploaded to my harddrive backup system. I don’t want to carry a DVD-drive and discs with me in my kayak, so I’ll send it ahead to post offices using a “bounce box.”  This is something that I used when I hiked the Appalachian Trail. The ATC has a good article. They write:

A popular practice among long-distance hikers is to use a “send-ahead” or “bounce” box, which follows (or leads) you up the Trail. Hikers fill them with supplies such as extra batteries, cell phone chargers, “town clothes,” and toiletries. Often in stores you’ll have to buy more of something than a weight-conscious backpacker needs; a bounce box will allow you to send ahead the extra. Also be sure to include mailing tape, labels, and magic markers so you have supplies to send your box ahead.

A key part of planning is identifying towns were the post office is near a grocery store, so I can quickly buy food, gather up my Bounce Box, do what I need to do, and get it sent back out before the post office closes. I anticipate my Bounce Box to contain:

• DVD-burner.
• Solar charger when I’m in urbanized areas.
• Various power cords based on what I think I’m going to need for the next section.

All this electronic gear adds up in weight, and on smaller trips, I usually only carry the radio and the cameras. I expect that after I weigh all my electronics, I’ll end up carrying around 15 pounds of it. Not exactly light, but something I’ll have to deal with to accomplish my trip goals.

Tags: camera, computer, electronics