Aide Comp SC kayaking 1st aid kit

Author: josh

Category: Gear reviews

Created on Saturday, 05 December 2009 10:50

Written by Josh

There's some big trips planned for later this year, including a week-long kayaking fishing/sailing trip for a handful of Hobie AI adventurers around Fraser Island later this year, as well as numerous more kayak camping trips around the Clarence Coast area leading up to it. Inspired by Holger's recent article on the topic of custom-made 1st aid kits, now seemed like a pretty good time to go forth and update my 1st aid kit, which was by now some 7-8 years old. Most of it's contents were just fine however, and a lot of it was transferred and added to the new kit.

I looked into buying the various bits and pieces I wanted to update, as well as a more waterproof container to store it in, and quickly realised that buying a well-suited ready-made waterproof 1st aid kit might not be a bad idea. The Aide Comp SC kit has a fair bit going for it as a kayak-friendly kit due to it's tough little drybag container, as well as how it's contents are sealed. All of it's contents (listed below) are of a very high quality and packaged really well - all of it in tough waterproof satchels (some of it vacuum sealed) and much better than almost all of the alternatives available to me from the local chemist. So what initially seemed like a relatively expensive option turned out to be not so bad after all. I figured $60 was a pretty reasonable investment in a truly worthy kit for kayak fishing.

And with just enough spare room in the drybag for me to add a few hand-picked items, I included a triangular bandage, stretch bandage, a few satchels of suncream, a few satchels of sting-eze cream, a few alcohole swabs, a couple of condoms (not for what you think... but hey...). I also included some painkillers in the form of Nurofen Plus (Ibuprofen & codeine), which is pretty much the strongest painkiller you can get over the counter. I figure that if you need painkillers out there, chances are you need bloody good ones. I'd also pack morphine if I could get it.  

So those items are now combined with the stock items that come with the Aide Comp SC, making for a pretty complete little kit. I store this as a part of my safety kit, which is a bright yellow waterproof box, which sits in the rear storage well of the kayak. I'll elaborate on the contents of my safety kit in a separate write up.