I got really lucky last week; I got a nearly brand new life jacket for free. Reggie (my boss) had a size small, women’s specific Stohlquist brand touring life jacket. I’m not sure if I would have chosen it for myself if I were ordering one, but I sure was glad to get it, and it fit! I’m used to wearing a Chica by Extrasport. So I tried them both on in my room to compare and decided to take a big risk: test the new jacket during a week in the field. Why was this risky? If I found out after an hour of paddling I hated the jacket, I had to paddle 20 or 30 more hours in it. This life jacket was superb throughout the trip and I continued to use it all summer. I never had any rubbing or chaffing problems. My perspective is from a guide, paddling 5+ hours a day in my life jacket. I am 5'2," 130lbs and wear a 34B. Here are some things I love about the jacket, and a few things I might change.

Great things:
*the foam in the chest of the vest is cut away to keep from squishing breasts
*the front pocket is nice. It’s easy to stick my hand into and dig around but wasn’t big and bulky. The pocket is completely flat, but ingeniously they put two pieces of neoprene at the edges to give the pocket enough stretch to dig around in.
*low profile and out of my way. My arms never rubbed against it when I paddled
*reflective piping for visibility in low light
*an accessible place to put my rescue knife
*mine is orange, which is very visible during the day from a long way away
*there are two buckle points that reinforce the zipper. You can buckle (quick release buckles) it closed before you zip it, which makes zipping it faster and easier.

Things I would change:
*It’s a pull-on style PFD which got pretty annoying because I wear a big hat when I paddle. When we stopped on an island I had to take my hat off to take my life jacket off. Of course, the Extrasport Chica I compared it to has a zip front. This makes for easy on/off except that as the Chica wears the zipper gets harder to zip up and there is only one buckle point at the bottom of the vest. So the pull on could be an advantage in some ways.
*this PFD would probably be problematic with a kayak that has a high seat back (instead of a back band) because the lower back of the PFD is rather thick
*the shoulder straps aren’t adjustable in length. If I had bigger breasts, the life jacket would probably ride up all the time or suffocate me.
*I would add another knife placement on the back of the jacket, up high, in case I wanted to carry two different knives or keep my knife on my back instead of in front of me
*the knife placement was sometimes annoying. I usually didn’t have problems, but a couple of times got things caught on my knife. I have a NRS Co-Pilot.

I really like this jacket and am really lucky to have gotten it for free. Many kayakers who spend long hours paddling may want more pockets or more adjustment. I really like this jacket, but if I were buying one, I might also consider the TowMotion or the Cruiser by Stohlquist.

Shopping for a kayak? Check out Ali's review of the Tsunami 160 by Wilderness Systems

This summer I'm spending my time working at Pamlico Sea Base working as a sea kayaking guide. I fell in love with it last summer so I decided to spend another summer here. We live right on the Pamlico River in a little staff cabin. Our cabin looks out over the water and the views are always awesome. Every night I watch the sunset either over the Pamlico river, or over the Atlantic ocean while sitting on a beach. Its a pretty beautiful life.
Tony took this cool promo photo for me on our little waterfront:

My summer here started with work around camp, cleaning up and reorganizing our storage rooms and fixing boats. We had three kayaks with gaping holes in them from last summer. We have a trailer that doesn't have fenders over the tires and the kayaks sat on the tires during a 2 hour trip, resulting in massive holes in the sides. We needed those boats for this summer, so I fixed them with an old kayak, a blow torch and metal spoon. I figured since I was at it, I might as well make an instructable (a tutorial) on fixing one. In hindsight, I think a heat gun may have worked well, perhaps better than a blowtorch. Here's my instructable:

Fixing a plastic (polyethylene) kayak with a hole in it - More DIY How To Projects

For reasons out of my control, I spent an extra 24 hours in Dubai, which I definitely didn't complain about! Mike was "stuck" in Dubai for an extra day too, so we decided to just walk around aimlessly and see what we found. We walked around Deira, the neighborhood our boss Paul lives in and eventually wound up at the souqs and Dubai creek. I bought awesome hand made leather genie shoes. They're bright pink with silver rinestones and mirrors and have curled up toes. I'll try to post an awesome picture at some point.
We wandered into the Hindi district right by Old Dubai. We decided to be tourist-y and go for the obligatory camel ride. The owner and handler actually took my camera and took lots of pictures without me even asking! We only paid 20dhs (about $5) for a 10 minute ride around old Dubai. It wasn't a whole lot different than riding around on a horse, save the getting on and off part. Oh, and camels make crazy noises. I thought it was dying or something. They were these crazy gutteral bubbling gurgling noises. Creepy!

Oh, and I'm headed back there for two months in 2011. I'm going during February and March. Can't wait!

One of the coolest things to see over there were goats in trees. The goats over there were so nimble. They could climb up cliffs and up boulders faster than monkeys. We would challenge the kids to spot "tree goats" and would give fun prizes to the kids that spotted them first.
Here's my favorite shot of a tree goat:

On our last day of work, we decided to take photos of our crew with the Tahoe. Click the photos to see them larger.
First, the serious one-

and then the fun one-

On Saturday, we needed to renew our visit visas which involves driving to a different part of northern Oman. See, even though in Dibba we are in Oman, there is pretty much nothing here except a gas station, a grocery store, a restaurant and a hospital. It isn't an "official" border because everyone has to go into Fujeirah (in the UAE) for internet, banks and various other supplies. Our UAE visas are visit visas and only good for 30 days so we had to go renew it, which involves spending a day in a different country, Oman. So we drive into Ras Al Khaimah and to the western border of the northern part of Oman. We don't have international drivers licenses which keeps us from being able to drive across the border, so we needed a driver. Luckily our landlord Ali was perfectly content to drive us there. He's absolutely hilarious and speaks very good English so we have tons of fun with him. He's even more amusing drunk. Anyway. Heading through Ras Al Khamiah there was a CAMEL IN THE ROAD!! which was unbelievable exciting for us, and I think Ali just got a kick out of how stupidly amused we were by it.


I suppose its like seeing a deer in the road in the states. Still, it was awesome.
So, we drove through RAK and to the border, which costs a good penny to cross. While we're there we head to Kasab, the northern most town in the Musandam. The road to get there is absolutely epic. Its the kind of road you drive and daydream you're really driving a ridulously expensive sports car. Or if you've made it in the world, its the kind of road you take your ridiculously expensive sports car *cough*Craig*cough* to and haul ass. The road is sandwiched between cliffs and ocean. Not only is it an exhilarating drive but the views can't be beat. I'm going to call Top Gear and suggest it for the best road to drive in the Middle East. Oh, and they should totally take something fast there to test out. And show it on TV, so I can live vicariously. Ok enough of that rant...
Here are a couple photos of the road:


so yes, its epic. The original plan was to do some swimming in the ocean, but being a bunch of rock climbers, if there's something to climb around on we're gonna do it. The beach was large and very nice with white sand and cliffs running from the mountains to the sea made up the left side of the horseshoe. We found this awesome boulder to climb.

Micah on the face:

Me heel hooking on the nose-

Mike heel hooking in the same spot-

There were also some awesome boulders sitting just at the waters edge we took advantage of.
Micah-

Me-

There was also a perfect place to deep water solo (rock climb sans rope and harness, you fall into the water) where the cliff met the ocean. The rock wasn't very good quality and fell apart frequently while climbing. The sun was setting and there were jelly fish in the water, so most of us decided not to DWS. Levi stepped up to the plate and went all out. Micah followed but didn't risk falling in. Sharks and jellyfish aren't so nice.
Mike watching Levi climb-

Levi takes the plunge-

Micah takes a turn-

We didn't make it back to Dibba till after midnight, after stopping in RAK for milkshakes and fast food. The sleep deprivation was totally worth the awesome day.