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How to Call Mayday When Kayaking or Canoeing
Hopefully, when canoeing or kayaking you’ll never get yourself into a situation where you need to call for outside help, but if you do find yourself there, you need to know how to call Mayday. A Mayday call is an internationally recognized distress signal used to signal a life-threatening emergency that, if heard, should trigger a rescue. Before you learn how to call for Mayday, you need to learn about VHF radios and if you don’t own one, you need to budget for one, because they are one of the items that any coastal kayaker and many canoeists should own. What is a VHF Radio? A marine VHF radio is a two-way…
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Quick Emergency Fix for a Broken Zipper
The most common failure of a zipper in the outdoors is when the zipper parts after closed. If your zipper is a coil zipper–most zippers used for outdoor gear are–then the problem probably lies with the zipper pull. Often the zipper pull becomes deformed and that deformity prevents the coils from meshing, which causes the zipper to split open after you closed it. You can imagine the desire to fix a broken zipper on your tents canopy during bug season in a boreal forest, and you can imagine a run to the boat to grab your emergency duct tape. Before you apply tape, try a quick emergency fix for your…