No, he means he has the PFD on, then puts a standard fishing vest on OVER it. Likely a fairly large size. That way, one would have access to everything one needs. In fact, I may try that out this spring!!

You can get PFDs with enough pocket space to keep essentials with you when you dump - one less piece of gear..

I prefer having my survival gear in the vest because I also spend a lot of time ashore exploring and don't want to transfer all my gear from the PFD pockets to some other container/pockets. I just remove the PFD from under the vest and I'm good to go poking around land.

-Blast

Thank you all for your advice so far. I appreciate the small tips learned over years of experience. Please keep those coming (I just washed out a gallon milk jug from the recycling bin for a bailer).

Paddle and PFD are definitely the first purchases. What do you use? What do you recommend?

I will need PFDs for me (XXL), DW, and one each for DD and DS, ages 2 and 7 respectively.

I will also want two paddles. Mine will do most of the work, but the other will be mostly used/carried by my son so I will want a fairly decent one and an inexpensive/cheap one.

Thanks for the help given and to come!

I'm a whitewater rather than flatwater kayaker, but some things still carry over! Werner makes great paddles. I'd recommend heading to a local kayaking store, and demoing paddles. There's no way to know what will be comfortable without trying it out. I use a 30-degree feather on my paddle, which is what I found most comfortable.

If you're going to be paddling anything class II or higher in difficulty, definitely buy and wear a sprayskirt and a helmet. Unconscious and underwater is a bad combination!

When you tether things to the boat, make sure to use short tethers. Long lengths of cord or rope in the water can lead to very bad situations. I also carry a knife clipped to the outside of my lifejacket, just in case a rope ends up tangled around me.

Have fun on the water!

I don't tether anything to my canoe except small items like the small stuff sack that carries my camera and phone. My philosophy is to pack in as few big, bulky items as possible. Emptying a canoe is much quicker if you don't have to untie your luggage first. The few big, bulky stuff sacks are easily spotted and retrieved by our paddling buddies.

To tether or not to tether... without paddling buddies I may decide to tether everything. Like AndrewC said, if you tether get it tight so it won't snag.

No experience with kayaking (well, tried it a few times - great fun!) but I gather storage space is rather limited - not only in volume but also in the shape that can be stuffed in there.

Waterproof bags... are not really that nescesarry, at least not all over all at once unless you have the money for it. Decent waterproof bags are rather expensive. Get something good waterproof bags/containers for your electronics and your spare clothes, sleeping bag and perhaps some other things you'd really like to stay really dry in a survival scenario. The rest of the gear (assuming you'll be packing camping gear) can tolerate a bit of water without being a treath to your existence. If you line ordinary bags with some heavy-duty garbage bags you've just made yourself some pretty water resistant bags that will float. That'll do it...

Something else that may be worth looking into is float bags. If you don't have sealed bulkheads, you can use an inflatable bag to take up volume inside the kayak. That way if you capsize, you have FAR less bailing to do!

i'm new to the sport - will be mostly open ocean, no surfing, in a sit-on-top.

oars - rental shops may let you try different paddles - in hopes you'll buy them there. for me, i second the werner line. didn't go with carbon fiber, but do like the unround shaft and ability to 'feather' the shaft.

pfd - researched on line for the style i wanted - number of pockets, zippers, lash tabs (those square things that one can attach things to semi-permanently like a knife (nrs copilot) on the front and strobe beacon on the back), etc. then went to different stores to try them. strangely, a women's kokatat fit me the best of all of the ones i tried! i'm just average build, so go figure.

re: pfds. i spent more than a lot of other pfds i saw. i figured my life was worth it.