Equipment Outfitters

Since fire on a boat is second in seriousness only to sinking, you want to keep fire-fighting equipment as readily available as the vessel’s lifesaving devices. Frequent checks to be sure your extinguishers are properly charged are not wasted effort. Nor are drills in which everyone is made aware of what to do. Speed is of the essence when dealing with a fire aboard; calm and quick action is the best approach. Read the rest of this entry »

Dry Foods

The smaller collapsible cupboards that consist of shelf space only are as good for storing canned and dry foods as they are for storing clothes. The same goes for card‑board boxes, and these can be used in the usual way, opening side up.

Wet Foods

If you do not have a fridge or freezer, keep perishables such as milk, meat etc. in a cooler box. If you keep buying ice, you should be able to keep the temperature acceptably low. Pickling or marinating meat was an effective method of preservation before the advent of the freezer: vacuum pack the whole mixture in strong plastic bags (you can buy your own machine that does this) and keep it cool — it will not only last longer but will taste better as well. Vacuum sealable containers are particularly efficient if you exclude as much air as possible. Read the rest of this entry »

Caravanning and Camping Barbecue Units

Portable barbecue are becoming more popular among travellers as the designs become more sophisticated and the products lighter and more efficient. Kettle barbecue are a good example as they are lightweight and long lasting. They come in a wide range of manageable sizes and can be used to make a wide variety of foods. With the lid on, the air flow can be finely tuned and they are mercifully easy to clean. More important, they contain heat well and are considered a perfectly safe place to make a fire when there are non-permanent places available. Their ideal fuel is compressed charcoal brikettes, which are light and conveniently packaged. Read the rest of this entry »

The luxury motorhome must surely represent the ultimate touring vehicle. As a combination of large vehicle and caravan it offers the benefits of both, and allows the traveller the sort of freedoms one would usually find only on a yacht! Passengers, for example, are able to sleep comfortably stretched out while the kilometres speed by.

Modern motorhomes are made for comfort, lightness and aerodynamic efficiency — they’re certainly more evolved than their older relatives. The interior layouts are more sophisticated and well thought out and the specification levels are higher. Although a common complaint is that the smaller versions are underpowered, fuel consumption is an important aspect of touring; while bigger engines have more power and are more exciting to drive, they are very much thirstier. Read the rest of this entry »

The torch inside the sleeping compartment also serves for a last-minute check, when everyone is bedded down, to ensure that no insects have found their way inside the inner tent lining. Midges can sometimes be troublesome to city-dwellers with tender skins, especially on campsites near rivers and lakes, but once inside the zipped-up sleeping compartment they are usually safe from them thanks to the fine mesh from which ventilation panels are made. It is only a matter of remembering to dispose of any that have already intruded. Read the rest of this entry »

Flysheets, groundsheets and A-poles

Although a weight of 4.5 kilos was given in the equipment checklist, some specialist tents weigh as little as half or even a third of that amount. This can be achieved nowadays by making them out of polyurethane- or silicone-proofed nylon, and generally standards of manufacture are very high. But the backpacker or cyclist should think twice before buying a tent without a tough, sewn-in groundsheet. A large protective flysheet which extends right down to the ground is also worth the effort of the extra couple of pounds. As well as making the tent less transparent, warmer and more rain and windproof, a flysheet with a front or side extension provides an undercover space in which to stow your gear or shelter your cooking apparatus during any bad weather. Read the rest of this entry »

Once you have arrived at your destination, check out the surrounding area for anything that might constitute a danger to your child. This can be anything from a communal braai area where hot coals are still burning to a large nest of biting ants. A nearby pool full of happy children is irresistible to any toddler, who may simply wander off to see what’s going on. Other children who may not have smaller siblings can cause unintentional trauma, and accidents happen quickly. Small boys racing around on bicycles may not notice a child in their path until it’s too late. If you see a dangerous situation developing, shout loudly to attract their attention! Read the rest of this entry »

Reports of surfing were first described to the civilized world by Lieutenant James King ofthe British Royal Navy in 1779. He remarked that he’d seen Hawaiians surfing massive “boomers” at Kealakekua Bay. In typical fashion of the self righteous explorers of the period, he described surfing as “most perilous and extraordinary, altogether astonishing and scarcely to be credited.”

Surfing, of course, continued despite the lieutenant’s comments and eventually over 150 years later, under the leadership of legendary Duke Kahanamoku, grew to become the international force in watersports it is today. Duke was the first recognized star of the surfing community. He was so famous that Hollywood stars flocked to Hawaii to meet and be photographed with him. Read the rest of this entry »

Dehydration

Because of the effect of chill on the body and the need to work hard in order to stay warm, dehydration becomes a possibility at below-zero temperatures. It is important to drink lots of liquids in winter and up to a litre a day may be needed just to keep the body fluids in balance. Tea and hot chocolate may be found to be more refreshing than coffee, but neither tea nor coffee by itself, without the addition of milk and/or sugar, offers any calorific support at all.

Frostbite and wind chill

Both are possible in the winter and must therefore be guarded against.

Movement in winter Read the rest of this entry »

Tent pegs, ‘dead men’, and guys

Getting a peg to hold in snow or soft ground can be a real problem, especially in high winds. Hammering a peg into frozen ground can be very difficult. In winter carry some thin steel pegs to cope with the latter difficulty and take a selection of long wooden, serrated plastic, or aluminium pegs for better holding insoft ground.

If they still fail to provide sufficient grip, you can use a `deadman’. These are flat metal plates which you can bury in the soft ground or snow, and their shape offers good holding properties. You can, however, use your initiative and construct your `deadman’ from your normal pegs, or whatever aids come to hand. Read the rest of this entry »

Shell clothing

A full set of ’shell’ clothing, giving protection against wind and water, is essential in winter. People maintain that with the waterproof protection of shell clothing, you can wear down garments and thus keep them dry, and in theory to a certain extent you can. However, I have tried this out in prolonged bad weather, and in practice you still get wet, if not from rain, then from condensation. Condensation is the real enemy of the winter camper.

Porous materials like GORE-TEX may well provide part of the answer to the condensation problem, for they permit body heat to evaporate and yet prevent rain droplets from beating through. Read the rest of this entry »

Priorities

To state priorities for a set of stock solutions is not possible, for the range of problems is infinite. However, certain steps must be established, and the following are fairly typical and should serve as guidelines. In a survival situation you should:

1 Treat any serious injuries, if they exist, or send for medical help

2 Seek shelter

3 Get warm

4 Eat

5 Try not to worry and don’t panic. Read the rest of this entry »

The Umkomaas River, a challenging stretch of water situated near thesmall village of Bulwer in the foothills of the KwaZulu-Natal Drakensberg, provided good trout fishing to anglers for many years before the Natal yellowfish established itself in those waters. In particular, one fast-water section of this beautiful river used to captivate me with its dancing riffles and swift pocket water.

Here a large midstream boulder broke the current into two well-defined tongues; one of these was diverted, almost at right angles, towards the bank where it welled up as it struck the side, forming a deep undercut I knew held good fish. On two previous visits to this stretch of water, I had drifted a small rubber-legged Bitch Creek Nymph into the undercut and on both occasions the pattern had produced several yellowfish, some of respectable size. Read the rest of this entry »

The Stimulator is a favourite dry-fly pattern, which, coming from someone with vastfishing experience across the globe, says much for its effectiveness. It will take fish under varying conditions and Randall uses it on lakes and streams, but is at its best in fast water. The Stimulator is a combination of several attractor and exciter patterns and imitates caddisflies, stoneflies and, at a pinch, grasshoppers.

What makes the Stimulator so effective? Like many successful dry flies, the Stimulator imitates several food forms in general, yet nothing in particular. By varying tail, hackle, body and wing colours a variety of insects — both terrestrial and aquatic — can be matched. The Stimulator combines the general shape and characteristics of patterns such as the Trude series of flies with the attributes of more established downwing patterns such as the Sofa Pillow, all of which were designed initially to imitate the adult stoneflies found on rivers in the western United States. Kaufmann’s Stimulator, however, is not limited to the imitation of stone- fly adults: it is used with great success to imitate other aquatic and terrestrial insects, including adult caddisflies and terrestrials such as grasshoppers and cicadas. The Stimulator has all the characteristics of a western-style dry fly designed for fast-flowing freestone waters and consequently is ideally suited to the fast pocket-water stretches of South African rivers and streams. Read the rest of this entry »

During hopper feeding sprees trout usually lie in the shallow water close to the edges. This makes them more vulnerable to predation than at other times and, as a result, they are skittish and far more alert to abnormal disturbances. It therefore pays to adopt a careful approach at all times and to keep as low a profile as possible, avoiding wading whenever possible and quick movements.

Since the best hopper fishing usually occurs during windy conditions, and since the patterns are usually large, bulky and wind-resistant, rods that generate high line-speeds will greatly aid the angler in his efforts to cast hopper imitations. In the steep-sided kloofs of the Western Cape winds usually blow upstream during the day, which makes fishing hopper patterns that much easier. On rivers and streams of a lower gradient, such as many of those in KwaZulu-Natal and the north-eastern Cape, winds can blow from any direction, making casting the wind-resistant hopper patterns a real chore. Read the rest of this entry »