Product: MEC Brooks Dry Bag
Price: $22.46 – $52.46 (based on the different sizes)
Store: MEC
The MEC Brooks Dry Bag comes in different sizes. The 35L bag is perfect for bringing your lunch, a towel for swimming, sunscreen, a sunglasses case and a windbreaker for a day trip kayaking. It’s nice to have everything accessible without having to worry about getting everything wet. It’s important to have some essentials with you as you never know when the weather might change.
On a multi-day trip kayaking in Desolation Sound, larger MEC Brooks Dry Bags can fit sleeping bags, mattresses, a tent, food, gear, and clothing. With this price range, it’s affordable for most people. These bags keep your gear dry while travelling from one place to another kayaking.
Table of Contents
Sizes
The sizes range from 5 L to 55 L. The smaller bags are good for snacks, lunch, and toiletries. The medium size bags could be used for food or clothing. The bigger bags can fit a tent, sleeping bag, or mattress.
Colours
The clearance colours come in yellow, blue and black. You can use different colours to organize your stuff. Yellow for food, blue for gear and black for clothes for example. Colour-coding your items can make it much easier to keep track of everything while you’re kayaking. With the different sizes, you could organize all your snacks and lunches in different bags while maintaining the same colour.
Fabric
These bags have a 600-denier polyester durable ether-based TPU coating. It’s durable making it hard to puncture. Unfortunately, these bags don’t offer a clear see-through option. You can’t tell what’s inside the bag by looking at it. You’ll need to open it up to figure out what’s in your bag unless you label them. Most of the time, it’s easy to fold over the roll top closure multiple times to ensure water doesn’t enter the bag. If you overstuff a bag, it can be hard to fold over.
Tip: Make sure the black strips at the top of the bag match up evenly when starting to fold it over. Otherwise, if the seal isn’t tight, the water might leak in and get through to your items.
Clip
The clips allow you to easily fasten the ends together to close the bag once you’ve rolled the closure a couple of times. The clips can fasten to the inside of the kayak to make sure the bag doesn’t roll around your legs or float away. You can clip your underwater camera to the bag as well to keep everything together.
How They Were Tested
Our tester tested the bags while kayaking on Lake Revelstoke for a day trip and while kayaking Desolation Sound on a multi-day trip. Having a small bag with lip balm, snacks, lunch, and a swimsuit that you can easily access in the sitting area makes it handy to grab something while kayaking. It’s more inconvenient if you have to stop at the edge of a lake or ocean to unpack bags in search of a specific item in a compartment. A smaller bag allows you to find everything easily without it getting lost with the items in a bigger bag.
While kayaking for multiple days, our tester was able to put all the belongings in different coloured bags that were different sizes. They could keep their clothes, mattresses, sleeping bags, tents, food, and cooking gear all in separate bags to keep everything organized.
Tip #1: If you’re in bear country, it’s important to keep cooking gear and food away from the tent, mattress and sleeping bag to avoid contaminating your items with smells and encouraging bears to come find you. Pack cooking items and food in separate bags from clothes and sleeping gear.
Tip #2: When camping, keep your food in the kayak compartments if there are no food lockers. It will help deter the bears from accessing your food.
The bags are easy to carry while holding onto the clip and aren’t too bulky allowing our tester to bring them from the kayak to the campsite. With different sizes, our tester was able to carry bags separately. Smaller bags were carried together while bigger bags were moved separately.
Overview of MEC Brooks Dry Bag
Pros
- It keeps items dry.
- It comes in three different colours.
- It comes in multiple sizes.
- It’s affordable.
- It’s durable making it hard to puncture.
Cons
- It’s sometimes hard to fold the bag on itself.
- You can’t see through the bag as clear bags aren’t an option.
- Water can get through to your items if it isn’t sealed tightly and securely.
MEC Brooks Dry Bag is Best for:
- Multi-day trips kayaking.
- A day outing kayaking.
- Keeping your gear dry while travelling from one place to another.
- Easily transporting items from your kayak to your campsite.
Additional Links
- Review: MEC Fulcrum Guide PFD
- Review: Keen Newport Sandals
- 15 Awesome Kayaking Gifts for Moms
- How to Have an Awesome Day Kayaking with Dad
- How to Get Better at Kayaking?
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