That means I’ve been thinking a lot about two things this week: the weather and staying dry.

Weather-wise, Saturday’s forecast for the Salt Lake City area says it’s going to be partly sunny with a high of 54 degrees. Sounds dry. Sounds like a great day to be outside, right? Well, the weather forecast has changed dramatically each day I’ve checked it since last Friday, so who knows what it’s really going to be like on Saturday. It’s completely out of my control so there’s really little sense in worrying about it. The weather is what it is. End of story.

Staying dry, on the other hand, is something I can worry about and have some control over. I’m not talking about keeping myself dry either. I’m talking about the “stuff” I haul around with me all the time. At various times I’ve jokingly referred to this “stuff” as my “peripherals,” my “vital external organs,” my “diabetes IV”, my “artificial pancreas wannabes”, but whatever the name, it’s the equipment I carry with me for caring for diabetes and, well, to be perfectly honest, to keep me alive. It’s equipment like my blood glucose monitor, continuous glucose monitor, and insulin pump. When the manufacturer of this stuff says it needs to stay dry, I pay attention.

My plan to keep this stuff dry is to package it all individually in dry bags like this one:

Since they’re clear, I should be able to operate the electronics (mostly) without opening the bag and risking exposure to water. These units also have the advantage of coming with a lanyard so I can secure the bag to me, or if that’s not convenient, to the boat. That will reduce the likelihood of the other kind of “oops” that would turn a pleasant day of sailing into an expensive disaster, if not a crisis. That is, in a moment of pure clumsiness, dropping one of these devices into the lake.

We’ll see how well this works. More on the subject of sailing and staying dry next week. I promise there will be photos too.