Clay Ellis

Socialites and Martha Stewart devotees, take note: of all the gadgetry that Tori Murden carried on board her rowboat during her record-breaking transatlantic crossing last fall, one of the most important elements of gear was her luggage. But this was no ordinary luggage. Stashed inside the four-by-six-foot cabin of Murden's Kevlar-reinforced plywood rowboat was a set of waterproof containers by Otter Box ($10—$25 depending on size; 888-695-8820; www.otterbox.com), whose mission it was to shield her phone, video camera, digital still camera, and battery-charging equipment. A good thing she had it. "On my first attempt, I lost communication because of a wet phone," says Murden, who eventually made a successful crossing in 81 days. "The second time around, I kept my phone on deck in an Otter Box, and a monster wave came over the side and soaked everything. But the phone came out just fine."

If you're planning to float around the North Atlantic any time soon—or, for that matter, any place where your life may depend on preventing a drenching, bashing, or chomping of your equipment—you'll appreciate Otter's attention to protective details. The boxes boast closed-cell foam padding on the interior and a fiberglass-reinforced, crush-resistant plastic exterior. Watertight silicon O-rings and compression latches keep contents dry at depths of up to 100 feet. And while the containers are hardly as elegant as a set of Louis Vuitton, they do come in 13 eye-catching colors—including black, blue, yellow, and neon green. —STEPHANIE GREGORY

As dawn breaks over the south fork of Arizona's Cave Creek, one of North America's hottest bird-watching spots, a group of hard-core birders passes around a pair of binoculars and exchanges hushed exclamations. "Wow!" says a retired ornithologist from Cornell. "Awesome!" blurts a local guide. Their gushing isn't inspired by the sighting of a rare species—the elusive eared trogon, say—but by the binoculars, a pair of new EL 10x42's from Swarovski ($1,550; 800-426-3089; www.swarovskioptik.com). They are, quite simply, the lightest, sharpest, most color-correct full-size 10-power binoculars ever made. The EL 10x42's get their gossamer weight (27.5 ounces) courtesy of a magnesium-alloy housing, the same material used for airplane frames. The distortion-free image comes from special glass that has a neutral color-bias (most binoculars have a yellow bias, which makes everything look artificially warm). The Swarovskis focus to an amazingly close six feet, boast a 330-foot field of view at 1,000 yards, and offer an optional screw-in eyepiece, called a doubler ($277), which converts one barrel into a double-power spotting scope. Perfect for scouting a line up an unclimbed rock face, monitoring avalanche activity on that chute you're thinking of skiing, or, if you're so inclined, vicariously sharing the love life of a pair of golden bowerbirds. —ROSEANN HANSON

Roseann Hanson has been a professional natural history guide and a field-tester of outdoor optics for the past five years.