Havahart Medium 1-Door Collapsible Easy Set Trap, Model 1090:

Justin:  Great product all-around.  Lightweight, foldable, and easy to set once you’ve learned how to do so.  It’s a solid unit that can take some hits and very rarely did the trap spring by itself.

Garmin Oregon 650 3-Inch Worldwide Handheld GPS with 8MP Digital Camera:

Justin:  Most reliable and intuitive GPS that I’ve ever used.  The touch screen and layout is user-friendly and easy to navigate.  I chose this unit based on reviews that claimed it’s its high-sensitivity, WAAS- and GLONASS-enabled GPS receiver and HotFix® satellite prediction would allow for reliable accuracy, even in deep forest in remote locations.  Sure enough, even under the most dense canopy cover, we were always able to quickly gain satellite reception and an accuracy of 30ft or better.  In less demanding environments, satellite precision was 5ft or less.  The ability to load satellite imagery onto the unit was a priceless feature, allowing us to ‘see’ what lied ahead of us on the trail.  The unit was comfortable and compact in my pocket, and despite extremely humid and rainy conditions, never showed signs of water damage.  I highly suggest using lithium batteries – they will give you nearly 48 hours of solid run time.

John: I never actually used the thing, but Justin seemed to enjoy tapping its screen all the time.

Seth: We had a GPS the whole trip? I thought Justin was just a master wilderness orienteer.

 

 

BirdsEye Satellite Imagery:

BirdsEye is a third party imagery provider for Garmin GPS units.  Unfortunately, a $30 per year subscription gives you access to imagery that is considerably inferior to that which anyone can access for free through GoogleEarth.  Much of the satellite imagery we downloaded of Jamaica via BirdsEye was shrouded with cloud cover (thus rendering the imagery completely useless) compared to the same regions being almost completely cloud-free on GoogleEarth imagery.  The BirdsEye imagery has to be downloaded in ‘pieces’ to Garmin’s interface software called BaseCamp.  A ‘piece’ of imagery on average equivalates to a 100 to 200 square mile region of your choice and takes about one full hour to download.  Therefore in order to have complete satellite imagery for the entire island of Jamaica, let’s say, one would spend an entire day downloading the imagery.

 

Bushnell 10×42 waterproof binoculars:

Seth: John and I had temporary ownership of these binos courtesy of IdeaWild, and found them to be very effective, delivering a crisp image and not fogging up inside at all. The cleaning cloth that comes with them, however, is absolute trash and should be treated as such immediately; it leaves little yellow threads on whatever it touches.

 

 

Allen binocular chest harness:

Also an IdeaWild contribution, these work perfectly and are comfortable even under a backpack. The little zip ties they provide to attach to your binoculars are weak, though; you’re better off simply attaching the small key rings they include directly to your binoculars and then to the harness clips.

 

 

Machete sheaths from Agway/True Value:

Garbage garbage garbage.

Justin: My machete literally cut through the sheath and hit the ground the first time I put it in.

John: There was only one thing this sheath did well, and that was strap onto my belt. Thing is, I have no use for a piece of trash strapped to my waist.

Seth: For a few minutes I actually thought I’d been given a sheath, but then I realized it was just a tube of waste in the shape of one.