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Welcome to the next episode of Szkoła partyzantów (Guerilla School).
In this episode I'll present a tarp called bivi bag by PAJAK.
As you can see, the tarp itself is pretty small.
After folding and tightening, it fits even in a side pocket of most kinds of backpacks.
Now we're gonna take out the tarp. The tarp is in a cover made of a waterproof fabric with rip-stop reinforcement, what is clearly seen here.
As you'll surely notice, the whole tarp is made of a waterproof fabric.
I've tested it – it is very waterproof, reinforced with so called rip-stop.
This is the top side.
At the moment our tarp – actually, it's more of a bag – is in the form a sleeping bag cover.
So that's the top. The bag is very, very long, almost two meters long.
Bivi bag is a kind of bag that can be slip over a sleeping bag in very difficult weather conditions, especially in case of rain, when it's wet.
And now it's prepared for sliding a sleeping bag into it.
Later we'll discuss what else we can do with it.
First let's talk over the bivi bag itself.
As you can see, we have a big capacious hood with a drawcord closure, so if we pull the cord hard, we'll have a very small opening or we can even close it completely.
I've even managed to put the hood inside a few times.
Then it's a full, waterproof closure and the water can't get inside.
What's next?
Our bivi bag has an open-ended zipper, so it can be opened completely.
Additionally it has a tuck with velcro strips to close it.
As you can see, the Velcro is pretty strong.
I'll open it, so everyone can see.
As you can see, the bag is almost two meters long, so it's pretty big.
If someone has a small backpack and they're not tall, they can even put the backpack inside their bivi bag and protect it.
As I said before, the zipper is open-ended. Why?
Because it can be opened completely.
Now we focus on the bottom part of our bivi bag.
And here we have another zipper, also protected with a tuck, also open-ended.
We unzip it, open it, and that's how we get a tarp, which can be used for example to cover a backpack
or, attention please, to make a temporary or survival shelter.
More about that in a moment.
One thing I'd like to highlight here is the fact that the fabric the whole bivi bag is made from is slippery on the outside, so it doesn't leak and water flows down the tarp.
Additionally, there's a strong waterproof layer inside.
It's slippery, so it's easy to slide in a sleeping bag, even when you're already inside your sleeping bag.
It doesn't require any amazing acrobatic skills.
As you'll notice, the tarp is big. I'd say the size is 2 x 1,6 meters.
Here, thanks to the open-ended zippers, we can take another tarp like this one, zip them together, and get, for example, a tent
for one, two or three people, depending on the number of tarps, because thanks to those zippers we can zip tarps together on the sides as well as at the back.
Therefore, we can extend the surface of the shelter.
Other things that allow us to make a tent out of it are these loops, which have been securely attached to the bivi bag by the manufacturers.
We have three such loops on each side.
One, two, three.
And we have exactly the same set on the other side.
One, two, three.
In order to set up a tent, we'll need some kind of pole or two trees and a paracord rope or any other kind of string, thanks to which we'll be able to attach the tarp to a tree.
It's good to have two or three tent hooks with you, so the sides of our temporary tent are pinned to the ground or to some other objects.
Thanks to that the water will easily flow down the tent, so it doesn't collect water.
The water flows down the tarp, also thanks to its waterproof quality.
No doubts that, thanks to its multifunctionality, bivi bag is a great accessory for every tourist,
especially in the mountains where the weather can change very fast.
As I know from experience, a storm can start in literally half an hour or 15 minutes.
Thanks to a bivi bag we are able to create our own shelter, survive the rain in more or less good conditions, and then take down the tarp.
Such tarp, as I've already said a few times, doesn't soak up water, so it's not necessary to dry it off.
We can reach a hostel or any other camp and dry it off there.
This is a huge and very cool thing.
I, personally, am going to take it with me on every trip, mostly because it's so light – it's mere several hundred grams.
Similar solutions are used by the German Bundeswehr in their waterproof tarps.
They're more like raincoats, just as the Polish Army has parkas.
The only difference between those two solutions is the fact that the military one is not a bivi bag. It is, as I mentioned before, a raincoat with a hood,
and there is a second option there – it can become a tent. It's gonna be a full tent with side walls, which we can't have here, because there are no sides to zip.
At the same time the military ones have a special place for a pole, which unfortunately can't be found here.
Nom I'm gonna show you how easy it is to fold it up.
We see that it's a nice big tarp.
Now we'll roll it up.
As you can see, it goes quickly and effectively.
There's no additional air inside.
W take the cover and put the bivi bag inside.
We need to push it a bit.
We don't use a machine, we do it with our hands.
A machine do it better and faster.
To sum up: a great thing - a tarp by PAJAK, more precisely a bivi bag. For two purposes: temporary survival shelter, protecting a sleeping bag from rain.
I recommend it to everyone.
I'd like to conclude this episode of Szkoła partyzantów with that.
I invite you to watch next episodes, click “I like it” on Facebook and link it.
Goodbye and see you later.