Prepping for the "Portland to the Ocean Trashpedition"

We found this pic on Facebook and we felt it summed up our overwhelming gear list for this trip. Making a movie certainly adds to the load compared to a normal sea kayak trip, not to mention the fact we're towing a canoe full of the trash we find along the way.

We're busy testing our bridal tow system on the garbage canoe. Hooking our tow lines to a bridal that runs under the front of the canoe, as apposed to towing from the front deck, will create a little lift on the bow instead of downward pull. In theory this will keep it from plunging into wind-waves and filling with water.

We've also built a removable skeg to keep it from spinning out or "water-skiing" behind us in high winds. We're running two outriggers on the canoe as well which should help with tracking in winds, as well as provide increased stability in rough water.

We're mounting six GoPro HD2's to our sea kayaks as well as the garbage canoe, using a combo of Scotty deck mounts and Greenfish CPR mounts to give us an infinite amount of angles to shoot from, in addition to a couple of DSLR hand held cameras.

We've added battery backpacks to the GoPro's to give them a shooting time around four hours each, and we're using GoalZero's Sherpa 50 power pack and two Nomad 13.5 solar panels to keep them all charged up. The Sherpa power pack will also allow us to run a camera for up to 31 consecutive hours, perfect for time lapse capture.

Our goal is to produce a video that is appealing and entertaining, as well as emotionally and mentally stimulating in order to help promote our mission. We can't wait to get on the water in a few weeks to make it happen!