On my last trip to Palau I spent 10 days on a sail boat and used a plastic bucket to more or less rinse my camera. When I got back to the USA I decided to look for my own personal rinse bucket. A few folks had mentioned AO Coolers and while at the Outdoor Retailer Show I got to pick one up. Initially I got a 36 pack cooler but it was a bit big for my P&S system. I swapped it out for a 24 pack cooler which was perfect. After spending week on St Croix day tripping the cooler was absolutely great.
Even though the boat had a rinse bucket it was often crowded with other cameras so my camera stayed in the cooler which I placed on the general use table on the boat. Even when there was room in the rinse bucket I still took my camera out and put it back in the cooler so that there was no chance of damage - especially while the boat was bouncing around. The other part that I found interesting was that my rig seemed to get a lot of respect by the crew perhaps because of the cooler or because it was and all metal housing. not sure which.
Being a cooler obviously the inside holds water so each night I would fill it with water and rinse the camera. The cooler would hold its shape and held plenty of water for rinsing. In fact, at the end of my trip I used it to rinse the rest of my gear rather than trying to rinse it at the dive shop.
The other part that I found nice is that it was easy to transport the camera from our cabana, to the car, to the shop, the boat, etc. without worrying about my rig as the padding on the cooler is substantial. The outer material is cordura (boat version) or vinyl (fishing version - 1000 denier vinyl and UV protective) a so it is plenty tough. There is a zippered pocket which I could put a few things in but not much as it was a flat pocket.
For our trip I just folded the cooler down and used it as padding for my dive gear.
Overall I am quite please with the cooler. And for $50-$75 depending on the size it is a cheap insurance and sure makes life easy.
Sizing reccomendations:
24 Pack - P&S System w/strobes.
36 Pack - Small DSLR System w/strobes.
48 Pack - Typical DSLR System w/strobes.
www.aocoolers.com
