A word to the wise

Finally got around to doing something I should have done at the beginning of last year: buy a waterproof case for my cellphone. Hadn't thought much about it, but kept the phone reasonably secure in another case inside a nylon bag. And that might have worked, except of course I had to take it out to talk. Which I did, floating at the mouth of the harbor after a wonderful row until --SPLOOSH! -- a power boat went by, kicking up a wake that splashed the boat, me, and my beloved iPhone. Learned the hard way that Apple does not honor warranties if your phone gets wet -- and there's a little built-in moisture reader that will tell them so. (The phones apparently can even be sensitive to fog. ) The upside was I had an excuse to upgrade to the new 3G.

So I've just bought a Kwik Tek Dry Pak cellphone bag through Amazon. You might want to check them out. They're cheap ($14), and people claim they can even talk through the bag without opening them. (Not sure how the Apple touchscreen will work.) You can also get Dry Paks in other sizes --smaller, for credit cards and cash -- or bigger, to accommodate, oh, an Amazon Kindle, for when you want to read in the middle of the harbor. You can also get them with lanyards or belt clips. One caveat: in some conditions, you might get condensation inside the cases; some people apparently add little silica gel thingies to avoid that.

All that aside, I'm an advocate for handheld VHF radios on the water and always bring one with me. But then, I have room for all sorts of stuff in my Heritage.