As one who has been searching for the perfect pair of water shoes for some time, when I recently read an article that some men were paying $250 for a pair of Hermès flip-flops, well I had to know more. The difference is apparently in the rubber, the problem is that they are still flip-flops, which I like to call slip-flops.
As a child who hung around the pool, slip-flops were standard issue. As a child who hung around the pool and who loved to run around outside the pool as much as inside the pool, also de riguer was the slip-flop injury.
The slip-flop injury is where you stub your toe and subsequently drive the toe strap between the webbing of your toes. It splits the webbing between your toes and it hurts. A lot. Because your feet are also dirty from running around in the dirt while wearing slip-flops, dirt will be driven deeply in the newly formed crack in your skin. Because of that, and because the next week you are likely to repeat the same injury, it is unlikely to completely heal for the rest of the summer. Luckily the chlorine in the pool staves off serious infection, but it does sting a bit coming and going from the water. It's annoying, but you get used to it, and by the first of October, the open wound will dissipate into scar tissue. Slip-flops are like tequila shots - they're fun, safe around the house, but to use them in public is to risk permannent injury.
The next major important invention in water sports footwear appeared to be the Teva sandal. Invented by white-water rafting dudes. Whoa! They must really know what they're doing. Over the years I've owned as many pairs of tevas as slip-flops and they've always disappointed. They're a fine sandal, as long as you just wear them around the house, don't get them wet, or try to do anything outdoors in them - kinda like house slippers.
Once, invited to go bass fishing on a secret farm pond by a co-worker I broke out my latest pair of Tevas. As any bass fisher knowns, the secret farm pond holds great promise of the lunker bass. Lunker bass who have never seen a Mepps spinner and who can't resist your action. This farm pond was everything it promised to be. Large enough to grow some big fish, plenty of cover around the edges, and shallow enough to wade so that you reach the entire pond with your cast.
It being a hot summer midwestern day, I opted for quick-drying shorts and Tevas. I scoffed when my co-worker donned his clunky, rubber chest waders on a 90 degree and 90 percent humidity day. We would be wet, but he would be bathed in his own sweat. We waded into the farm pond to better to cast back against the shore. Within minutes, the macrophytic growth was grabbing the straps of the tevas and pulling the velco off and the tevas with them. I stuggled all day to keep the tevas on my feet for to be without any sort of foot protection while walking around on the muddy bottom was asking for a trip to the emergency room to extract an ancient bottle shard or a rusty hook. Given my distraction, I only caught a couple of small bass and those I returned to the water so that someday they might enjoy lunker status. My co-worker, was sweating profusely, not from the waders, but from the exertion of pulling in 3-4 pound large mouth bass at nearly every cast. When asked at the end of the day how he did, he modestly pulled a stringer of 8-10 monster bass up and said " Here. You want ém, I only keep a few. My freezers already full of fish."
Teva's have also been advertised as a shoe that can go straight form the water to the trail. If you've every tried this, you know it's possible, but once on the trail, the lack of support is almost as large a problem as are the constant pebbles which fly up and lodge themselves beneath your heel thus inducing yelps of pain when you step down and create a stone bruise that won't heal for months.
This brings me to my latest attempt to find the perfect pair of water shoes. Once I read that the gay boys were spending $250 on rubber, I don't feel so bad about only spending $90 on my pair of Mion's. They appear to be made from recycled pop bottles. Once you get over the strange, clunky look about them, they are quite comfortable as they come with an removable insert that quickly molds to the shape of your foot. They also have only one lace, which you pull and then the whole shoe is brought snug around your foot. They have more support than most sandals, which I like and toe protection, which I also like. They also come with impregnated anti-microbial compounds - which I dislike since this stuff is becoming a ubiqutious environmental pollutant, in part due to its incorporation into seemingly everything sandals, toothpaste, cutting boards.
It does have some weird things on the toe box that my daughter thinks look like ipod speakers. Next year's model will likely allow you to wirelessly pipe your i-tunes through your sandals while you prowl the beach. One of the plastic retainer clips that holds the speed lace broke on the second day to be replaced by a small piece of twisted telephone wire. Walking a mile or so in the heat of the summer can cause blistering as your feet sweat and the plastic rubs your ankles. They do adhere well to your feet. If you bury your foot in river sand you can extract your foot along with the sandal, but expect also to dredge up a molded foot-bed's worth of sand and small pebbles to go with it. Also, silt-sized particles can get inside the plastic release button that allows you to free the laces making it difficult to push and remove the sandals for dumping out the water and sand.
So, the Mion's seem to be an improvement. They pass most, but not all of the tests. We are still looking for the perfect water shoe and am certain that shoe-makers are as well. Perhaps the perfect water shoe it just a heavily calloused foot. Unfortanately, moi is a tenderfoot.