Part of doing a WaterTribe Challenge is making your gear organized, efficient and as light as you feel is needed. The importance of this varies for me but doing it some of the time keeps the total weight of my gear down. I just happened to stumble into creating this cooking kit a week or two before the race and it served me very well. I can’t take credit for all of it. Some came from other adults in my son’s Boy Scout troop. The stove came from my fishing and camping buddy Scott. I stumbled into making it all fit together.
Here is the gear list:
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– Condor H2O Pouch (No bladder or water container)
– Stanley Adventure Camp Cook Set 24oz Stainless – Steel (Only the stainless steel pot is used)
– MSR PocketRocket Stove
– Large fuel container for stove.
– A stainless steel or titanium spoon.
– An Altoids tin container
– Lighter
– Tinfoil
– Paper Towel (Wrap up stove inside pot to keep it from banging around and to use for wipe downs)
– Hot Sauce
It was very convenient to keep this kit accessible during the trip. There were occasions where I needed to cook on the go or cook without unloading the boat. For example. SandyBottom and I got stuck on a shoal when the tide went out near Highland Beach in Everglades National Park. We used that time to cook. My stove was easily accessed and we ate hot meals while we waited 3 hours for the tide to come back in. Comeing up the St. Mary’s River I needed to put in several hours of night time paddling before stopping. I stopped for 10 minutes to break out the stove and boil water. Then went back to paddling while my meal re-hydrated. An organized and quickly accessible stove kit makes this possible.
Pictures of the kit:
Measurements on the pot are very helpful
Action shot on the St. Mary’s River. Its important to note when you are doing long distance adventure races you will start feeling tired. A lot of times this isn’t a signal that you need sleep or rest. Its a signal that you need fuel. Once you learn that you will be able to travel further and faster.
Other notes:
– I like a single piece metal spoon with a long handle. A metal spoon is easier for me to clean. I can also hold it over the flame to disinfect it if I don’t think my previous cleaning was enough. A long handle makes eating from freeze dried food back much easier.
– The “large”: fuel containers lasted almost 3 weeks during my trip. Usage was a little less than once a day due to stops at restaurants on the water from time to time.
– The MSR Pocket Rocket stove and Stanley pot is not as efficient as a Jet Boil. It seemed to take almost twice as long to heat up water but I still like how everything goes together and will continue to use this kit. 3 1/2 minutes vs 7 minutes was not an issue for me.