Water and hearing aids don’t mix.  If you have ever dropped your Ipod in the bathtub or your cell phone in a cup of coffee,  you know that most modern electronic equipment has almost no tolerance to moisture.  Hearing aids, nestled daily in a dewy environment, are particularly vulnerable and particulary expensive to replace.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do things we want to do.  Go ahead and take that safari across Namibia’s Wild Skeleton Coast or that sea kayaking trip through Micronesia (or, for that matter, a trip down your local slip and slide).  Just protect your aids.  Here’s what you do:

Pack three things.

• a key chain pill fob
• a dry case
• a dry aid kit

Whenever I feel that my aids might get wet, I am sweating too much or if I am in an environment that is nasty (wind storm, mud slides, etc.), I take the batteries out of my aids, put it all in the pill fob, put the pill fob in the dry case and securely fasten the dry case to something stable.   At night, without exception, I put the aids in the dry-aid kit and the kit somewhere safe.  The next morning, I clean my hands throughly before handling my aids.

Take my recent trip with a group of friends down the Grande Rhonde in NE Oregon.  When the water wasn’t threatening, I kept my hearing aids in, the pill fob and the dry case close by and enjoyed participating in the conversations around me.  When I saw a rapid coming or when I was in the kayak (which placed me at almost water level), I made sure the aids where in the pill fob and the fob was in the dry case. I made double-sure that the whole thing was lashed to the boat. Then I enjoyed the ride. Once waters were calm again, out they would come.

I even had a chance to test out my system.  Midway through day three, the canoe I was in sank. Very unexpectedly, the keel caught a rock, swung sideways, swamped and sunk. I was flung down stream. My aids were in the pill fob, inside the dry case, clipped to a cross bar, three feet under a rushing current.  Our ragtag team of paddlers were skimming this way and that trying to catch the gear that was now rushing down stream. A few minutes later when everything was collected and my dry case was returned to me, my aids were dry and safe.  Had they gotten wet, I would have immediately put them in  my dry-aid kit, and crossed my fingers.  But thankfully, all I used it for was storage at night.