My name is Sean Couvreux, but most people know me by the nickname Doogie. I am a co-founder of Guzzle H2O. Tyler Bech (who doesn’t have a nickname that we know about) and I started this company a few years ago to provide drinking water for professional sailing teams who were trying to cut down on using single-use plastic water bottles for each event. Our products quickly evolved into a few different options but one of the most popular and versatile products we have built is called the Stream. It can filter water from a river or lake using its built-in pump and battery. But it can also filter water from an ordinary faucet such as those found at many campgrounds around the world. This is huge because a lot of times the water out of a campground faucet has an unpleasant taste.
So now that we created this quick and easy way to fill our water bottles and tanks, we were impatient to use it on our many adventures. When Tyler and I design and build something, we want a strong and well-thought-out product with a good user experience.
First, we took our unit to local campgrounds, filling our water jugs from local river sources. The UV treatment the water receives gives us confidence that we are drinking safe water, no matter what kind of animal is bathing upstream of us. Our confidence with the system grew and we began taking trips without planning on taking gallons and gallons of water with us. Instead, we started relying on natural water sources or filtering water from gas stations to fill our tanks.
Since I still race sailboats professionally, I frequently get to travel to different parts of the world. One of my recent destinations was Cape Town, South Africa. Never having spent much time there before, we planned a family camping/overlanding trip through South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana. For our adventure, we rented a Toyota Hilux in Cape Town. The truck came outfitted with almost all the camping necessities. All we brought was our clothing and one duffle bag with extra headlamps and camping gear that we don't like to camp without. Of course, that included our trusty Stream which removed any anxiety we had about having enough clean water for our family of four.
And then, off we went. We drove north and worked our way to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. The camping options in that part of the world are plentiful and easy to find. Most nights that we camped we had access to a water faucet, which was convenient, but this far from home we wanted the extra assurance that the water would not make us sick. So every evening, after dinner, I would head over to the faucet, connect our Stream and fill all the water bottles and water jugs for the next day.
From there, we worked our way into Namibia and up to Etosha National Park in the northern part of Namibia. Eventually, the reality of COVID caught up to us and we had to get back into South Africa quickly. We missed out on Botswana due to the change of plans but kept visiting South Africa until it was time to take the last plane out of South Africa back to the US.
We were proud that during our whole camping expedition, we never had to purchase any water for over 2 weeks. And we never got sick!
Once we returned to the US, we hunkered down for the next few months, as did the rest of the world. But, as camping slowly started reopening on the west coast of the US and we quickly took advantage. We went on a few more local trips, always using our same Stream to fill our water jugs. Then, in the middle of summer, we decided to drive to Michigan to visit family. We camped and biked along the way and back. For the Fall, we did another biking trip to the Gooseberry Mesa area, just outside of St. George, Utah.
Once again, we used the same Stream we took to Africa. All we did was occasionally change the carbon block filter and charge the battery. It has had a rough life. It lives in the back of my truck most of the time. Because it is a sturdy case, it often finds itself at the bottom of the stack in the truck. It's always squeezed between boxes and bikes jumbling around. I have a very “eager to help” son. He enjoys being part of the camp setup process and anything mechanical. So when it’s time to Guzzle our water, he’s always willing to help or to do it himself. That means that it has endured the life of an item being used by an 8-year-old boy.
We are proud of how our unit has endured the use and abuse we have thrown at it for the last year. It has become a staple in our camping gear setup and often finds itself being used by a friend to fill up their camper or water bottles. Water anxiety when going on short or long trips is no longer an issue for us and we enjoy the freedom it offers of not having to purchase water.
So now that we created this quick and easy way to fill our water bottles and tanks, we were impatient to use it on our many adventures. When Tyler and I design and build something, we want a strong and well-thought-out product with a good user experience.
First, we took our unit to local campgrounds, filling our water jugs from local river sources. The UV treatment the water receives gives us confidence that we are drinking safe water, no matter what kind of animal is bathing upstream of us. Our confidence with the system grew and we began taking trips without planning on taking gallons and gallons of water with us. Instead, we started relying on natural water sources or filtering water from gas stations to fill our tanks.
Since I still race sailboats professionally, I frequently get to travel to different parts of the world. One of my recent destinations was Cape Town, South Africa. Never having spent much time there before, we planned a family camping/overlanding trip through South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana. For our adventure, we rented a Toyota Hilux in Cape Town. The truck came outfitted with almost all the camping necessities. All we brought was our clothing and one duffle bag with extra headlamps and camping gear that we don't like to camp without. Of course, that included our trusty Stream which removed any anxiety we had about having enough clean water for our family of four.
And then, off we went. We drove north and worked our way to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. The camping options in that part of the world are plentiful and easy to find. Most nights that we camped we had access to a water faucet, which was convenient, but this far from home we wanted the extra assurance that the water would not make us sick. So every evening, after dinner, I would head over to the faucet, connect our Stream and fill all the water bottles and water jugs for the next day.
From there, we worked our way into Namibia and up to Etosha National Park in the northern part of Namibia. Eventually, the reality of COVID caught up to us and we had to get back into South Africa quickly. We missed out on Botswana due to the change of plans but kept visiting South Africa until it was time to take the last plane out of South Africa back to the US.
We were proud that during our whole camping expedition, we never had to purchase any water for over 2 weeks. And we never got sick!
Once we returned to the US, we hunkered down for the next few months, as did the rest of the world. But, as camping slowly started reopening on the west coast of the US and we quickly took advantage. We went on a few more local trips, always using our same Stream to fill our water jugs. Then, in the middle of summer, we decided to drive to Michigan to visit family. We camped and biked along the way and back. For the Fall, we did another biking trip to the Gooseberry Mesa area, just outside of St. George, Utah.
Once again, we used the same Stream we took to Africa. All we did was occasionally change the carbon block filter and charge the battery. It has had a rough life. It lives in the back of my truck most of the time. Because it is a sturdy case, it often finds itself at the bottom of the stack in the truck. It's always squeezed between boxes and bikes jumbling around. I have a very “eager to help” son. He enjoys being part of the camp setup process and anything mechanical. So when it’s time to Guzzle our water, he’s always willing to help or to do it himself. That means that it has endured the life of an item being used by an 8-year-old boy.
We are proud of how our unit has endured the use and abuse we have thrown at it for the last year. It has become a staple in our camping gear setup and often finds itself being used by a friend to fill up their camper or water bottles. Water anxiety when going on short or long trips is no longer an issue for us and we enjoy the freedom it offers of not having to purchase water.