Good Survival Gear is like Good Scuba Gear: Used!

So you have everything you could ever need to survive Armageddon. Great. Stuff is helpful, but it's just a tool. Just like any tool, you need to use your survival gear.

I'm a big scuba diver and I dive in some of the dirtiest, scariest waters there are: river wrecks. What does my gear look like? I can tell you this: it's not shiny, or pristine. My gear is faded from sun and chlorine, my wetsuit is patched several times over, and a lot of my rig set up is diy. I'm not saying it's dirt or broken. As a diver, every time you go under water you are depending on the gear, it's your life support system. Any gear that is standing between you and death needs to be lovingly mantained. Not just serviced yearly. You check it before you pack it in the car for the trip, you check it again when you set up, and you check on last time before you get in the water. To do this, you have to know your gear. I can set mine up blindfolded (yes, from the zipped dive bag as long as I don't have to carry the tank around blind, I like my toes.)


Survival gear should be treated the same way. You have to know it, you have to use it, and you have to have it. All three of those steps are vitally important. If you have a hatchet in your BOB but don't know how to split wood, are you going to figure it out as you make your way across country? I'm not saying don't put a hatchet in your BOB. I'm saying go buy a hatchet and learn to use it. When you're not using it, take care of it, then store it in your BOB.

Secondly, you have to have all the gear you need. If you have a reg and tank but no BC, you're not going diving. If you have a rifle and a handgun, but no boots, you're not going to make it across country.

Thirdly, with out a plan, even having and knowing how to use your gear, you'll still be in trouble. You can't just wander around, if you're using your BOB it's to get somewhere safe.

Preps as Gifts

My first introduction to any sort of emergency prepping was the BOB my dh's grandmother made him for Christmas one year, it was an excellent base to work from, and a lot of it is still in his BOB today. In fact, I wish she'd give us such useful things every year.

Preps as gifts can be as big or as little as you'd like. Car kits and BOBs are good medium size choices, especially if you throw in a book about prepping. Information is key. If you want to larger then that, make sure you pick something that suits the giftees needs and abilities. While everyone should eventually have a canner, it's not a good first prep gift for a non-cooker. If you want to go smaller,I gave my sister an emergency kit in a water bottle for her birthday. She's a college student and never without her backpack, so she shoved the water bottle in a pocket and I'm sure promptly forgot about it, but it'll be there when she needs it.

I used:
1 Lexan-type Wide Mouth water bottle (needs to be wide mouthed to get stuff into it!)
1 emergency space blanket
1 leatherman multi-tool thingie
1 mini-flashlight with extra batteries
1 poncho
1 powerbar
1 bag of electrolyte jelly beans (they looked cool)
1 tiny first aide kit
1 whistle
1 compass/signaling mirror
1 carabiner
1 mini-duct tape roll
and then I wrapped about 50ft of cord around the bottle in a turk's head.

Since I was mailing it, I didn't include matches, but I did tell her to go pick some up for it. It cost me about $30 as she is my sister and I got her both a nice multi-tool and solid compass. Both Eddie Bauer and someone else make commercial versions of the emergency kit in the bottle for about $10, though you'd want to beef them up.