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Packing list · Sea kayak base camps

What to pack for a sea kayak base camp

This is the list I packed from for a week at Orca Camp, tidied into something you can actually use. Tick things off as they go in the bag. The ticks are saved on this device, so come back to it as many times as it takes.

From a week at Orca Camp in August, checked against the operator's own list.

Some gear links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through one, I earn a small referral fee at no cost to you.

Get this list as a PDF

Power and light

Orca Camp had power at the tents to charge from. Not every camp does, and a battery pack means you are never waiting on an outlet either way.

Packing items laid out on grey gravel: a steel water bottle, a black cap, a tube of mineral sunscreen, a headlamp, a battery pack, a can of insect repellent and a paperback
Most of this list, on the beach it was packed for. Bottle, cap, sunscreen, headlamp, battery, repellent, and something to read.

Water, sun and heads

Bring a hat for the sun and a hat for the cold. On this coast you will use both, sometimes in the same afternoon.

Two guests sitting back to back on a driftwood log on a pebble beach, one in a ball cap looking through binoculars, the other in a grey wool beanie
Ball cap and wool beanie, both on the same log. The binoculars are optional. The hats are not.

Clothing

Days run warm or cool and the forecast is a suggestion. The rule is simple: when you are on the water, stay warm and stay dry. Synthetic layers do that. Cotton does not, so leave it at home or accept it is for camp only.

A paddler in a mustard rain jacket, red life jacket and cap holding a Wildcoast paddle across his chest in front of driftwood and a green kayak
A rain jacket you actually like wearing, because on this coast you will.

Footwear

You are rowed ashore and step out into the shallows, which is why the operator tells you to wear water shoes. Two pairs: one for that, one for camp.

A raft of red sea kayaks holding position below a forested shoreline under low cloud, every paddler in a hat and a red life jacket
Rafted up under the rock wall. Every hat in this frame is doing a job.

Personal

The things no one can lend you.

A guest on a pebble beach wrapped in a fast-dry towel after a swim, with the camp sauna among the trees behind her
Fast-dry, and yours. Wildcoast does not supply towels, and I would not assume any base camp does.

Worth the space

None of these are required. The book and the binoculars came along and earned it.

Kit budget

What this list costs, bought new

The kit for this trip, bought new, is about CA$1,911 (US$1,394), across the 18 of 20 items above that name a product. Tick the items you already have and the figure below becomes what is left to buy.

Still to buy CA$1,911 US$1,394 · 18 of 18 items Approx., at 1.37 CAD per USD. Street prices, not quotes; a sale or a used one changes the sum.

Some gear links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through one, I earn a small referral fee at no cost to you.

The same figures as a page of their own, with what the operator provides and the three things worth buying: what it costs to kit yourself for a sea kayak camp.

Checked against: Wildcoast Adventures . Operator limits, especially helicopter baggage weights, are theirs and change; confirm with your booking.

Where this list came from

The weeks behind it