Know before you go. Photo: Unsplash
Packing for travel is chock-full of cliches. We’ve all heard, “if you wish to travel far, travel light,” or “just in case is the curse of travel packing,” or my personal favorite, “packing is always a nightmare!” And while I’m all for packing light (and saving money at the airport, and getting your boardbag to fit in the plane, and, and…) you know what else is a nightmare? Having to evacuate early because you forgot the simple tube of neosporin and pack of bandaids and you kissed the reef first session. Or, even worse, getting an ear infection from seawater (not as uncommon as it sounds) but you thought rubbing alcohol and white vinegar would be readily available on a remote island in Indonesia. Surprise surprise, it’s not.
But it’s a bit of a catch-22. Say you bring the alcohol and the white vinegar and the band-aids and then you think, “Hey, why stop there?” Let’s add in water purification tablets, hydrocortisone cream, and the rest of the CDC-recommended list for wherever you’re jetting off to. Suddenly, you have a whole extra sack of medical supplies you may or may not use, and an overweight bag fee you definitely will be paying for.
There has to be a middle ground here. Surely there are things you’re most likely to use that also take up less space than packing an entire first-aid kit. And here we have defined the mission of this hypothetical: for each type of surf trip, what are the core pieces of medical equipment you are most likely to use and are the most important to have in an emergency?
Splitting surf trips into two categories, cold water and tropical/warm water trips, I’ll take the most common dangers for each location and pick out the most useful medical supplies for each one. For this game, let’s start with the path less travelled: cold water.
From Ireland to Tofino, rugged cold-water surf travel can be the most work, but it often comes with the best rewards. At the top of the danger list, the most obvious danger: hypothermia. Luckily, everything you need to treat hypothermia is probably already in your backpack: a Nalgene for hot water, a hat, and, if you’re camping: a camp stove and a sleeping bag.
The other threats when it comes to cold water surfing aren’t as obvious or common, but they’re still worth considering. Go to Canada or Alaska and you have more than locals to worry about: you have bears. Northern California has sharks and big waves. And, like everywhere else, these places have wind. But because the wind is cold, it can lead to surfer’s ear, which is really worth preventing (for more on that, check out author of Surf Survival Dr. Clay Everline’s interview).
But when choosing a top three items to pack, the chances of a bear or shark encounter turning dangerous are extremely small, so with those ruled out, you’re left with cold water, wind, and big waves. Interestingly, there’s more risk to cold water than just hypothermia: dehydration. In Surf Survival, the authors inform readers that “cold water is a diuretic” and “in cold climates, your metabolism is in high gear in an attempt to produce heat,” so warm, sugary beverages are a must. It doesn’t matter if it’s hot cocoa, tea with honey, or Gatorade, you have to stay hydrated if you want to avoid muscle cramps and hypothermia.
The other top two items would have to be earplugs and Vaseline or any sort of skin buffer. Wind is no joke, and if you’re surfing during the winter, be ready to battle some serious wind. Skiers know this as well, but once your skin is raw from frostbite and wind damage, it’s hard to get it back to normal and you suffer for many sessions after. Frostbite can also lead to serious complications, so best to avoid it using preventative techniques.
On the other end of the spectrum, your skin suffers for different reasons in tropical climates (and some non-tropical places with high UV rates like New Zealand and Peru). So many of the world’s most popular surf destinations like Indonesia, Hawaii, and Costa Rica are the same places many people get scorched.
Pack the right supplies for the locale. Photo: Marcus Paladino.
While the sun isn’t a danger in and of itself, sunburns can be catastrophic: extremely painful and damaging to your body’s largest organ. So, at the top of the list would have to be the treatment for sunburns: aloe vera and ibuprofen. Many tropical locations have aloe vera plants growing locally, which is even better than using aloe vera from a bottle.
Tropical surf trips are also full of dangers like crocodiles, sharks, deadly fish, sea snakes, coral reefs, malaria, big waves, and the list goes on. But again, encounters with harmful ocean life are somewhat unlikely, so supplies to deal with it are just not going to make a fantasy packing list.
What will make the list is the best solution for diarrhea (besides avoiding tap water and unpeeled vegetables and that kind of thing). Sadly, even with these tactics, diarrhea is almost guaranteed on any respectable surf trip. It’s the “most common illness among surfers traveling in underdeveloped countries,” according to Surf Survival. Luckily, there’s an easy solution. Imodium (Loperamide) is a lifesaver, you can buy it over the counter, and it (usually) works in under 24 hours.
If your symptoms aren’t treatable with Imodium and rehydration, that’s when it’s time to call in the prescription antibiotics which require a trip to a pharmacy and not just your backpack. On the bright side, many foreign countries prescribe antibiotics fairly easily and without a doctor’s visit.
Mosquitos are another small but incredibly deadly danger. Packing bug spray with a high percentage of DEET (and they sell 98 percent even at most drugstores) may seem like overkill, but it’s well worth it when you consider the alternative: Dengue fever, Zika virus, malaria… Most places in the tropics have bug nets over the beds, but it’s never a bad idea to bring an extra. It doesn’t make the list, but it’s a very honorable mention.
While it’s tempting to decide between rubbing alcohol, wound closure spray, pseudoephedrine, or a pair of tweezers, we all saw the final spot going to Neosporin (or whatever brand of Bacitracin Zinc, first-aid antibiotic ointment you prefer. Throw in as many tubes as you can. Stuff your whole board bag with it. You can’t have too much, and if you want to surf hollow waves, you’re probably making contact with reef – and potentially live reef – at least once during your trip. Neosporin is cheap, but it can be hard to come by depending on where you are.
So there you have it. Even if you’re going full backpacker mode and just bringing boards and a couple of tee-shirts, you can still fit this stuff in. And it’s definitely worth it: the space these take up means forfeiting maybe one bar of wax, and it could very well save you a trip to a faraway hospital. You can’t prepare for everything, but it doesn’t hurt to try.
