Kayak GPS Mount

      Kayak manufacturers seem to be pretty slow to evolve to changes.  I’m sure there’s some people diggin’ the built-in bow compasses and map to navigate because its oldschool, but I personally find a GPS indispensible and well worth the slight detraction from being one with nature while using an electronic GPS.  Especially in areas nearby like Georgian Bay where there’s literally thousands of islands and is quite simple to get lost – even with good map and compass skills.  I also like it for finding my put in and take out points and even use it for finding local pubs, places to eat or LCBOs in areas I am not familiar with.   

      That said, fixing your GPS to your kayak can be a challenging task.  Many kayaks have a built in recess to accommodate a bow compass but virtually none, even today have a mounting system for a GPS even though many people that kayak use one.

      When I first got my kayak I just used the carabiner clip to attach my GPS to the deck rigging, but it’s not accessible or visible hands-free and flops around rubbing on things on the deck.  So just a few weeks after getting my kayak I looked around for a kayak mount for my GPS.  At the time I had a Garmin Colorado.  I could not find any aftermarket mounts at all at the time, not even the suction ones.  Nowadays there are a handful of aftermarket GPS mounts but all of them are the suction cup type.   I don’t find the suction cup ‘ram mount’ type of mount ideal or acceptable – they are all way too heavy and I don’t want to rely on a suction cup to hold my GPS on my kayak either – especially on a rotomolded kayak. 

        I did find an OEM Garmin ‘marine mount’ for my Colorado GPS, which is also compatible mount with my newer Garmin GPSMAP 62s, but it seemed to have a three screw mounting pattern, which I assume is a common type of mount in the boating industry, the marine mount .  I bought one online and figured I would attempt to mount it to my kayak instead somehow when it arrived.  It turned out to be quite a simple and awesome solution for a kayak mount.

      When the marine mount arrived, I saw what it actually was – it has a round circular base plate that is intended to be fixed to a surface with three countersunk holes, and the upper part attaches to the base by a single thumb screw.  It has adjustments for yaw and pitch so it can be positioned just right for perfect accessibility and view.  So the trick was to figure out how to mount the base disc onto the kayak top surface in front of the cockpit.  I could have simply drilled three holes and mounted it with screws but I didn’t like that idea, since I didn’t want to add more screws and nuts to the underside of the cockpit to scrape my knees on, and I didn’t want to drill holes in the boat in the first place.  So I figured I would attach it with an adhesive.  After all, the disc is quite large (about 4” diameter), so even if an adhesive had moderate adhesion it should be OK.  But the top surface of my kayak is curved slightly not flat and didn’t match the disc quite well.  I ended up contouring the bottom surface of the mounting disc a little with the nose of a belt sander so the contours matched well.  I mounted the mounting disc to the top surface of the kayak with silicone caulking, after lightly sanding the kayak surface to roughen it and cleaning both surfaces with rubbing alcohol to maximize adhesion.  

      Just a note – the type of caulking that adheres best is actually the cheap kind, the one that smells like vinegar.  It also sets up the fastest.  The more expensive types I have used need 24 hours to set up and I have found they actually don’t adhere as well (but might make up for that with mold resistance).  After installing the baseplate several inches in front of the cockpit, leaving a bit of space for my skirt pull handle and using the mount, it was perfect for what I wanted.  I could even remove the mount easily, for transport or when I don’t want to use my GPS – leaving only the low profile mounting base on the kayak.

      Really, I find this a pretty awesome lightweight solution for a kayak mount for a GPS, even better than any other aftermarket ones that exist.

      I did have an  incident where the GPS popped off along with the upper mount from the lower base when I whacked it with my paddle shaft while frantically flailing around trying to paddle upstream.  I managed to find my GPS on the bottom of the icy cold fast moving stream after wading around the stream for an hour and a half.  Another time I lost my Garmin Colorado GPS, when I got caught in a strainer on Bronte Creek.  I had the upper mount tethered, but not the GPS itself since the Colorado didn't have any holes in it to be able to tether it itself and it popped out, still resting to this day at the bottom of Bronte Creek under a train bridge.  This only happened twice, but since I got my Garmin 62s have tethered the actual GPS to the rigging with a piece of paracord and a carabiner in case that ever happens again, if you are wondering what the cord is all about.
      Fortunately most Garmin GPSs have marine mounts available for them, and this can be the solution for you if you are looking for a GPS mount.  I have been using this for about 3 years now and it is perfect for what I want out of a GPS mount for my kayak.

A couple related links to kayak GPS mounts:

http://www.atlantiskayaks.com/gps.htm

http://www.ram-mount.com/CatalogResults/PartDetails/tabid/63/partid/082065077045066045049051056045071065051049/Default.aspx

http://race.fit2paddle.com/C1159474119/E20061217173753/index.html

Song of the Paddle – Buying a Boat, Part 2 The Beginning

So, the hype being built up and what we had in our minds the kayaks we wanted, the three of us (myself, Steve, and Peter) started looking around for shops that would carry our chosen kayaks. We all decided to get the Wilderness Systems Tempest 170 without even having had set foot into one. We checked out the local Adventure Guide store, a multi-sport all around outdoor store, but the sales guy there told us that we would have to wait 12 weeks to get one, that we should have preordered one long ago in the winter and that the people at that company take the summer off to go kayaking, so good luck getting three of them for that summer’s paddling season. Gimme a break. So we called around and heard some good things about The Complete Paddler off the QEW in Toronto, a paddling only shop. They happened to have stock of the model we wanted, and two hours later, we walked out of there, each of us having purchased a kayak and all the accessories needed to start. Mine orange, Peter’s mango (orange fading to orange) and Steve’s yellow. I nicknamed them Agent Orange, Agent Mango and Agent Banana. I also picked up the top of the line carbon fiber Ikelos paddle. Go hard or go home. Even though it’s kind of crazy to drop that much coin on a sport I had never even tried before, I knew that I would love it and spend many hours doing it. Thankfully I was right with my choices on all accounts and haven’t looked back.

It sounds a bit cliché but getting into this pastime/sport was a revelation to me, something that has brought some great happiness, excitement and joy to my life and I have spend many hours/days/weekends/weeks enjoying it ever since. It’s something much more than simply the pleasure of linking your strokes, pulling the water and gliding across it. It opens a whole new world of opportunity.

Suddenly any body of water around – reservoir, river, creek and even streams has the potential to be traveled upon for a day trip or longer adventure. Sure, in my area there’s the standard locally well known day paddling routes such as the Grand River, but anything was now fair game. Google Earth, google maps and my GPS are incredible new tools to find put-in and take-out points where previously would require a lot of scouting by car or word of mouth to find. We came up with the term ‘bushyakking’ obviously a take on bushwhacking, going down small creeks, and many times we brought saws to be able navigate through the deadfall across the creek’s path. Exciting adventures around the Ontario countryside and wilderness await. An added bonus was that these adventures would enable us to become intimate with smalltown Ontario and see the local areas in a way that simply driving through towns doesn’t let you do.

Song of the Paddle – Buying a Boat, Part 1 The Decision

      It’s funny that one rarely hears of anyone referring to canoes and kayaks as boats, probably because the word boat has utilitarian connotations associated with it, instead of the more soulful feelings conjured up with using the words canoe or kayak what but that’s what they are - boats. Growing up, I had not much experience with paddling. I think my parents just weren’t into it very much. I had gone hiking and backpacking a lot with my parents and Scouting/Venturers but not so much paddling, although I did feel a great lure towards it. At one point in my youth I was somewhat obsessed with canoeing, or rather the idea of it. I had watched Waterwalker, Bill Mason’s 1984 feature length documentary about him exploring the areas around Lake Superior with his canoe and it fascinated me. The beauty of the landscape and the adventure of canoeing in the wilderness captivated me as a 12 year old. But at that time, I did not do anything about my attraction towards paddling, other than taking a short canoe paddling course on the Ottawa River.

      Years went by and during my university time, I ignored my passion for the outdoors, aside from car camping trips. After I started working full time, I started to rekindle my interest for hiking and began backpacking, mostly solo in different areas in Ontario. I did this for many years, my yearly ‘summer vacation’ (more like autumn vacation) usually consisting of a week’s backpacking somewhere but not much consideration for purchasing a boat. In hindsight, this was partly because I had no place to store one, partly because I really didn’t know what boat I would want and partly because the backpacking world around me was still relatively new and there was much to be explored still in that regards.

      Then there was that fateful day in spring 2008. A bunch of people including myself were gathered at my friend Steve’s parents’ cottage on Rice Lake for the May 24 weekend for some partying. We started poring over some canoe and kayak marketing literature Steve picked up at the Adventure Show in Toronto a week or two back, at first just a curiosity, but turned into an obsession by the end of the weekend. After all, this cottage is on a lake, but there were no boats to use there, only a dilapidated aluminum rowboat hiding in the bushes so the lake being in front of our faces led to the itch for some paddling. As with many sports nowadays, the amount of choices and styles of products is simply astounding and actually quite overwhelming. I had only been in a kayak once – a day trip in a rented tandem one at Arrowhead that couldn’t track a straight line if it’s life depended on it. Despite that experience I figured I would prefer a kayak over a canoe. To me, a kayak has a more pure and intimate paddling experience much better suited for solo trips, but that’s a topic for another discussion.

      Aside from which make to get, the number of choices are incredible: hard or soft chine, Greenland or North American style, skeg or pedal rudder, whitewater, river or ocean kayak, what style hatches, rotomolded polyethylene , fiberglass or Kevlar construction, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17ft long, number of hatches??? In the end, only one really stood out as the clear choice for a rough and tumble, jack-of-all-trades multipurpose performance kayak, and that ended up being the rotomolded Wilderness Systems Tempest 170.