A boat is an adventure machine, taking you, family and friends to places where nobody but boaters can go. A hiking trail at the end of a mountain lake, a camping trip to a coastal island, wild-horse watching at the outer banks, or retracing the Mississippi travels of Mark Twain are all within your boating horizons.
Your adventures can be as tame as a weekend on the Intracoastal Waterway or a Northwoods island, or as extreme as a cruise to the San Juans in the Pacific Northwest. Whether you camp, day-trip, star-watch, or spy on wildlife from a safe distance, here is gear that can make your day, weekend, or week more enjoyable.
How We Tested
Our team has used each of these gadgets in the field just as boaters and adventurers might, and they are included here because we found them to work effectively and as advertised.
Gerber Stake Out Multitool
Everyone on our team keeps some Gerber gear at hand. For boaters and campers, the Stake Out should be in a pocket or clipped to your backpack. Named for its stake-pulling hook, the hook can also be used to tighten a tent guy line and, because it is smooth to avoid marring monofilament, it can be used to cinch down fishing knots. Its knife blade is sharp, with a sturdy auger for drilling, and a snap hook secures it to a backpack or belt loop. It’ll also open a beer bottle. We think that the scissors will be the tool that causes it to be passed around camp, or the saw blade for fashioning tent stakes or camp tools. $55; gerber.com; and $45 on Amazon
ACR ResQLink
ACR’s new ResQLink AIS personal locator beacon is groundbreaking. It is satellite- and local-network-based, plus it offers a “nearby” beacon for last-minute rescue positioning. It’s strictly for marine use, so don’t expect to take it to the woods, but with AIS capabilities built in, your marine rescue request will be transmitted to all vessels within range that are equipped with AIS, enhancing the efforts of official rescue personnel—meaning you’ll be protected in the most remote marine waters. With mobile-phone connectivity, be assured that your SOS is received and help is on the way. $515; acratex.com or Amazon
Garmin Quatix 7 Pro Smartwatch
This sharp-looking smartwatch is perfect for the adventurer. Sure, it tells time, set manually or automatically to your cellular network. We use its combination of buttons and touchscreen controls to toggle it between functions such as marine navigation or orienteering with its built-in compass. Trail-based mapping on land plus nearly all of Garmin’s mapping systems, including fishing maps, can be downloaded. Mark, save, and navigate to waypoints on land and sea. Many Garmin GPS displays, autopilots and Fusion audio systems can be controlled by the Quatix 7 Pro. Tides, weather, best solunar fishing periods, and health stats—including sports, heart rate, and sleep and stress monitoring—keep you informed of how adventure affects your health. $999.99; garmin.com
Gerber Compleat
A spoon, spork and spatula with a silicone surface nest securely into each other for compact transport. Snap the spork into the groves in the spatula, and you get tongs for flipping dogs or burgers on the grill. A fourth tool has a peeler, can opener, bottle opener, and serrated package opener (in case you get a FedEx delivery campside). The entire Compleat kit weighs 2.5 ounces and can slip into a hip or shirt pocket. Keep one in the glove box of your boat or car. $35; Amazon.com
Worx Cooler
This 20-volt lithium-powered cooler chills to 32 degrees in a few minutes and can run an average of 10 hours on two charged batteries in the battery box. It also runs on 120- and 12-volt power, charging the batteries and a mobile phone while it does. The interior of the rolling cooler is brightly lit with an LED when the lid is lifted, and the temperature can be set from the teens to 50 degrees F. We’ve tested the cooler on road trips, using it for a long-term ice machine, and it keeps the contents frozen overnight without power. $499; worx.com
Thermacell E55 Rechargeable Mosquito Repellent
These things work as advertised. It feels like sitting under an invisible, bug-free dome of protection. On calm nights, set it in the midst of your team. On windy nights, place it upwind so that the protection of the allethrin repellent blows over you. It has proved to our team that it repels mosquitoes, no-see-ums, and black flies in notoriously buggy destinations such as Florida, Wisconsin, and Minnesota (no offense, folks). Its 5.5-hour (rechargeable) battery life provides a 20-foot area of protection. It’s packaged with a 12-hour repellent cartridge. A 36-hour or 120-hour replacement cost is $18 and $55, respectively. $40; thermacell.com
Thermacell MR450 Portable Mosquito Repellent
This personal version of the Thermacell bug repellents creates a safe zone of 15 feet. The allethrin repellent is disbursed by heat from a butane-cartridge-powered heating element and an allethrin-enriched wafer. The redesigned heating element expands the protection zone from the original 10 feet to now 15 feet. You can carry it on a belt pack, lay it on the camp table, keep it at the entrance of your tent, or have it on board your boat. It includes a cartridge and wafers to provide 12 hours of coverage. Refill kits for 12 to 300 hours run $8 to $100. $35; thermacell.com
Maven CS1A 14-45×65 Spotting Scope
We liked Maven’s CS1A spotting scope for its crisp, clear optics suitable to scout a wilderness path or observe wildlife, or at 45 power magnification in an unlighted wilderness setting, see the rings of Saturn and other heavenly bodies. The CS1A is capable of all that, plus it’s the ideal bench companion for the target range. The watertight nitrogen-filled case is rugged and armored in rubber, so it can take the knocks of boating and camping. The zoom ring adjustment at the eyepiece and focus ring on the barrel are dampened to adjust precisely and stay in that way. The 1/4-by-20 tripod-mounted ring rotates, so we could turn the eyepiece up or to the side—the latter being an ideal position for tabletop use. $800; mavenoptics.com
Wiley X Ovation Rose Gold Sunglasses
Wiley X offers a series of lenses called Captivate, with a variety of lens colors designed to optimize visibility based on where the glasses will be worn and what the conditions might be. Using Wiley’s online simulator, we chose rose gold in Ovation frames and blue mirror in Glory frames. The rose gold has a midrange 13 percent light transmission, and it does not shift colors of water or woods. The blue mirror Captivate lenses transmit 11 percent of the light and offer higher contrast on water and in woods. In real life, light transmission was exactly as simulated. They meet EN 166 standards for clarity, eliminating distortion and offering superior peripheral vision. They also meet ANSI Z87.1+ standards for safety and impact resistance. Wiley X lenses are battle-tested and ensure that your eyes are safe from sinkers and hooks snapping back on the fishing line. From $190; wileyx.com
Magma Cabo Gas Grill
This grill runs on a 1-pound camp-stove propane bottle and heats quickly to cook and grill thoroughly. It’s safe to use on board the boat, especially when accessorized with rail-mounted systems, or set it on the camp table or ground for making easy work of burgers, brats and dogs. Ours nested safely in a floor locker, and its polished stainless-steel construction protected it from saltwater corrosion. In our tests, a 1-pound fuel bottle lasts for five or six grilling sessions, so bring an extra fuel bottle, just in case. $229; West Marine
Skeleton Optics Outlaw Sunglasses
Zeiss optics are the backbone of Skeleton Optic’s superior sunglasses. Frames are stylish, with plenty of options and materials, including tortoise shell, black and clear. We liked the Outlaw frames for their full eye coverage, and the (did we mention this?) Zeiss optics delivered on its reputation for premium clarity. Add Skeleton’s Tri-Pel coatings, which include optimal mirror finish with predictably beneficial color shift for woods, water or streets, and hydrophobic oleo repellent coatings keep lenses clear and easy to clean. $219; skeletonoptics.com
Bajio Wet Wade Performance Backpack
Watertight zippers enclose a huge cargo compartment to keep gear dry, whether it be fishing tackle or beachgoing necessities. Padded shoulder straps are contoured like a mule-driver yoke for comfortable carriage. Two small, zippered watertight compartments hold phones or fire-starting tinder. Cargo loops and straps allow the camper or hiker to fasten small gear such as water bottles, utensils and hand sanitizer. $150; bajiosunglasses.com
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SIONYX Aurora Night-Vision Camera
Our team has the first-gen Aurora, and we’re stunned to see how well it illuminated the night. We could transmit the image to a smart device via Wi-Fi to keep an eye on our course, spotting pilings, rocks and flotsam before they became a problem. Now the new Aurora provides even crisper, higher-resolution night vision; it’s so brilliant that law enforcement agencies use it. It can take video and snapshots, and save them to an SD card. Rechargeable lithium batteries are changeable, so long vigils at night are enabled. $399; sionyx.com and Amazon.com
Toadfish Stowaway Lantern
Light the camp with this super-bright light in its watertight, shockproof, floating aluminum case. There are four ways to set and direct the light. A magnetic bottom, a suction cup, and a kickstand hoop that doubles as a hanging hook offer plenty of options. Set the light to run full in white or, for saving night vision, red. Have it flash for a roadside emergency signal. It gets 15 hours of run time from a single charge using its USB-C charge port, and even that port is watertight. $55; toadfish.com
