High and dry

I've been spending my free time playing with some gear samples I received from the Backwoods store (at no cost, I must add. Yes, I must). There was quite a variety of things to play with: a pillow, some dinnerware, a porta-potty (oh, I know you can't wait for that one!) and a little dry pouch.

The little pouch is made by Seal Line. The packaging shows a cell phone in it. I found that it held my cheapo cell phone just fine, but the Whee's Blackberry was too wide too fit.  Weren't we trying to get tinier phones a few years back?  Why are they all getting mondo size again?

I started putting the Seal Line pouch through its paces on a short camping trip to Kansas, when we were met by a steady drizzle. I needed to be sure it wasn't leaking, so in the best scientific method, I put a receipt in it and hung it outside the tent for the night.

This did several things.
1- it put the pouch out in the drizzle. The ink on the receipt would smear if it got damp. 
2-The bright shiny pouch might attract some raccoons for pictures.
3-The gas receipt proved I went away from home.  I gotta get my affirmation where I can.

The next morning, no sign of dampness in the pouch. Too easy. Time to move on to step two.

Step two was to put something in the pouch that took up space and actually put pressure on the seal. Enter the Whee's Ipod.  Duh- you didn't think I was gonna use MY Ipod, did you?!

Conveniently, it also rained the same day.  That in itself was reason to celebrate, considering how dry it's been here.  I celebrated by throwing the pouch outside and leaving it overnight.  (Contrary to what you're thinking I don't do all my testing while I'm asleep, but it has its advantages).

The next morning, no dampness inside the pouch.  It's time  to get tough.

What's the scariest thing you can do to an electronic device?  Give it to a tweenager, of course!  Instant limited lifespan.  So I tried to imagine what The Whee would do with this.  She would... clip it onto her backpack.  And then... she would swing the backpack around really fast as she was walking.  And the pouch would fly off and smack into the concrete, killing the electronic device.  (Do you hear the voice of past experience in this?)

Ramp it up by having the device fly off and land in flowing water.  Oh yeah.  Now we're talking.

We had sufficient rain that the gutters were running pretty well (scientific testing sometimes means using what's at hand).  I threw the pouch-literally-into the gutter outside my house.  Covered by two inches of running water.  Dirty running water.

And left it for 10 minutes.  Still dry. I made a short clip of the attempted drowning, but it didn't want to load into the blog. Bleh. The specs on this waterproof pouch state it can be submerged up to one meter for 30 minutes without leaking. We-e-e-ell, that called for one more test. 

I call it the Philo test.  It's even better than the tweenager test.  Philo has dropped more things overboard than I can count. Phones. Car keys. Eyeglasses.  I go fishing with him just for thrill of waiting to see what he'll lose next. And because I carry all the spares.

I took the pouch to the lake, fastened it to my stringer, which is about 3' long, and hung it overboard from my kayak.  There are not pictures because I am well aware of the limitations of my coordination. The possibility of losing the pouch, the paddle or the Pentax was high, and at least one of those was going to be bad. Not to mention that Lake Thunderbird is the color of chocolate milk and you can't see through the water. And I'm talking the cheap chocolate milk, not the good stuff.

I was more than happy with the outcome.

Final analysis:

• when you get the Seal Line pouch, the first thing you do after opening it is throw away the dinky ball chain and put a substantial carabiner on it.
• don't buy expensive electronic for tweenagers. This has nothing to do with the Seal Line, but it's important information for you to have.
• don't try to overstuff the pouch. Cramming something too fat into a too-small space is ugly. Think Spanx.
• The pouch is tweenager and Philoboy proof.  That's saying a lot.
• It's touch screen compatible, if you have one of those touchy-feely phones.
• use it for phones, i-pods, i.d.'s, dentures, and important papers to get you through customs.
• fasten it to your backpack, your kayak, or your tent, if you need to know which one is yours.
• It comes in three sizes. I tested the small, but there's also a medium and a large, if you can't bear to leave your e-reader behind while you're in the wilderness.
• At $19.95, you might think it's a little pricey, but it's cheaper than losing your cell phone, and WAY cheaper than drowning your Kindle. Just ask the Whee.