by Mal Grey » Tue Feb 23, 2021 11:47 am
I bought an InReach for our wilder canoeing trips, both in Scotland and especially for those in Scandinavia. Unfortunately I've not been able to use it for long enough to really have experience, but it seems like an excellent bit of kit.
I'm on a flexi plan. This means that I only pay the registration/admin fee, then for each month during which I activate it. When I get back, I can suspend it and it costs nothing, and then turn it back on before the next trip. That was the key to me choosing the InReach.
My only test was on a 3 day solo canoe trip on Loch Shiel. It worked well, I could view my route easily through the Garmin software, and test e-mails & texts worked well. Whoever you've added as contacts can also view.
Sending a non-saved message is a bit of a faff (remember the days of texting using a number pad? Its like that, but slower as you scroll through the whole alphabet for each letter). Setting up the saved messages makes it nice and simple (as long as you remember which one is message 1, message 2 etc, as I couldn't see them once out there!
It also has a basic weather forecast feature on it, useful when there's no phone signal. This is not a detailed forecast, and I've not idea who provides it, but it was pretty accurate. Unfortunately it lacks wind as part of its standard text report, but you can get a Premium forecast that does include wind speed/direction. That costs a quid each time (!) but is free with a more expensive plan than I went for. As a paddler, wind is key, and if out of mobile signal, it will be worth the quid every couple of days going forwards.
A mate has a SPOT Gen3, which we've used in Sweden and Norway a few times. That was fine too, but more expensive because it was being used just two weeks in the year.
I always tell at tale of caution when discussing these type of devices. A couple of friends of mine, Fred and Ade were paddling on Loch Affric/Beinn a Mheadhoin, with a SPOT a few years back. Ade had given his wife Cara the tracking details. Meanwhile I was away with other mates in deepest Herefordshire.
At about 11.30 at night, I get a call from Cara, sounding worried. She'd spent the evening fretting about the track on her laptop. After a bit of messing about, I managed to get the track open on a hastily borrowed tablet, to see what she was talking about. On the google map, the track was going round in circles for a while. Then stopped. This was in the middle of a blue bit on the map, about 200m from the island they were expected to be on. Worrying.
Fortunately, before panic set in, I flipped the map to the aerial photo view. Which showed that actually they were on the island, and the going around in circles had all been whilst setting up camp, having forgotten to send the "OK in camp" message. It was the google map that wasn't accurate...
The moral, if there is one, being to make sure you don't forget your "ok" message and to ensure people understand how these things work before leaving.
