Admirals' Angle » Diving

#47 – Diving In: Preparations & Gear

Gwen Hamlin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 20:46:00 +0000

There are two basic reasons cruisers jump over the side: because they want to or because they have to.

The want-to department consists of snorkeling and scuba diving and hunting for seafood to spear or collect, but also cooling down, swimming a lap around the boat for exercise, or taking a salt-water bath.

The have-to department, however, is mostly boat chores: cleaning the waterline and the bottom, untangling monofilament or nets from the propeller, checking an anchor’s set, and sighting or actually moving an anchor or its rode to retrieve it when fouled. Oh, yeah, and retrieving important items – like prescription sunglasses (ahem!) – when dropped overboard.

People often ask me, when they learn I’m a dive instructor and used to run my boat in charter, how best to set up themselves up for diving.

Training

Well….It’s all got to start with training. Most people know you’re supposed to take a certification course to scuba dive, but I’ve often met uncertified cruisers with dive gear aboard “for emergencies.” Believe me: that can BE an emergency in itself.

Certification courses include a range of water skills (for snorkeling and skin diving as well as scuba) but also not-so-obvious academic knowledge which will keep you out of trouble, particularly when the unexpected happens.

Cruising divers in remote locations need more training not less. For the kind of diving cruisers seek, you should have at least Advanced Open Water certification. A good instructor can tailor many of the skills taught to cruisers’ particular needs, such as how to search for a lost stern anchor or use a lift bag to recover a dropped outboard.

Finally, when great gaps of time appear in our logbooks, we should never be too macho to take refresher courses or dive a few times with supervision. Rusty skills are almost scarier than no skills! Oh, the things I have seen!

Fortunately, refreshers are easily found at most resorts; it’s why so many Admirals like to mix diving with resort operations with diving on their own.

Snorkeling

And let’s look at snorkeling. Many people assume they don’t need training to snorkel.

Next time you snorkel with a group, compare how they handle themselves in the water – how they kick, surface dive, purge their snorkels or masks of water, and whether they keep their mask in place or are always pulling it off.

Nine times out ten the competent snorkelers will have had skin diver training in a scuba class. Even if you really don’t want to scuba dive, most dive shops will make skin diver training available if you ask.

Mask, snorkel, and fins

Regarding equipment, cruising divers need to think through the kind of diving they’ll actually do and where they’ll be doing it. Mask, snorkel, fins, suits and weight belts are personal gear, and most cruisers keep their own aboard.

Spend money on a good mask, properly fit to your face and with prescription lenses if you need them, plus a good snorkel. If you’re headed for warm water consider more comfortable full-foot scuba fins instead of traditional open-heel fins with booties, but avoid undersize snorkeling fins. Fins need to be stout enough to cope with currents, but not so big or stiff they become work or are awkward to stow.

Dive skins

Full-body dive skins, whether thin Lycra or thicker, lined versions, are another good investment. They will protect you from stinging things, coral abrasions and sunburn, plus they dry quickly and pack small. For more warmth, skip right over shortie wetsuits to jumpsuits. You’ll want it eventually, and in cooler waters (eg Baja, Galapagos or New Caledonia) we were glad we had neoprene hoods, gloves and socks on hand.

Vacationing divers rarely carry their own weight belts, but as cruisers we often keep two: one for diving in wetsuits and another lighter one for skin-diving. The easily-adjustable pocket-style belts also are easier on decks.

If you want to dive on your own or be prepared to cope with lost anchors and underwater boat chores, you will need to carry at least your own tanks, BCs and regulators.

Compressors

Gung-ho divers will want their own compressors to refill tanks wherever they might be.

We carried a Bauer 3.5cfm gas compressor in a deck box on our aft deck with four 80cu/ft tanks secured on each side.

Aboard the 37’ Lady Galadriel, they carry a comparable-size Rix compressor in their forward sail locker and strap four 65cu/ft tanks to side-deck fenderboards.

(Aluminum 80s or 65s are typical tanks found aboard cruising boats, the size chosen based on boat size, diver size and air consumption.)

The Soggy Paws crew, planning higher latitude sailing, stow both compressor and tanks below. This is safer and keeps weight lower but makes it a major endeavor to dig it all out to dive.

Having your own compressor is the ultimate luxury for scuba divers, but they’re expensive, bulky, heavy and require fuel.

A quite satisfactory compromise is the choice Procyon made, to carry four tanks (two apiece), and personal dive gear.

This arrangement leaves them prepared to dive some on their own (or with friends who have compressors!) as well as to deal with boat emergencies. Then they mix in dives with resort boats when they come into port for tank fills.

Hookah rig

Or you might consider a hookah rig. While a “hookah rig” can refer to a regulator with a single long hose like the one we slap on a tank on deck and hang over the side for bottom cleaning, it can also be a small independent gas or electric compressor like the Brownie Third Lung Zeelander has aboard. This provides compressed air via one or two long hoses enabling close-to-the-boat diving, but it can’t fill a tank.

Tanks aboard?

If you decide to have tanks aboard, each diver should have his/her own BC and regulator. Choose basic, easy-to-maintain, compact models, and make sure the BC fits properly. I hate seeing a small woman “swimming” in her husband’s gear!

If you don’t plan to carry your own tanks, there’s little reason to invest in your own BCs and regulators. The days of iffy rental equipment seem be to over. You give up, however, the option to dive on your own.

Emergency oxygen

Finally, independent divers should always carry an emergency O2 bottle available through your membership in Divers Alert Network (DAN) which you definitely don’t want to cruise without!

Setting up the boat

As for setting up the boat itself, criteria I sought when boat hunting were space on deck to handle scuba gear and space somewhere aboard to stow it. Catamarans have the space, but don’t like the weight; monohulls handle the weight, but make you work for the space.

Belatedly, after choosing a monohull with a high freeboard, I realized how important ease of getting in and out of the water was, not to mention loading gear into the dinghy.

Catamarans usually have nice stern boarding areas, but aft cockpit monohulls with boarding gates or sugar scoops can also work well.

I solved my challenges with a stout custom stern ladder and a fore-and-aft tether system to hold the dinghy alongside for loading and unloading. This actually works better than trying to load off the stern.

Dinghy & outboard

And speaking of the dinghy, there’s the issue of getting into IT from the water, not to mention of getting it up on a plane when loaded with people and gear.

Inflatable RIBs with flat floorboards, medium-size pontoons, and an outboard 15hp or better are ideal for carrying two divers and their gear.

Preparing your boat to be a practical platform for all the snorkeling and diving you want to do while cruising is best addressed well ahead of departure. Although opportunities for training and purchasing equipment do exist in most tropical destinations, choices may be more limited and more expensive.

This article was published in the June 2010 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

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#46 – Water, Water Everywhere

Gwen Hamlin — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 20:55:00 +0000

It’s an inescapable fact of cruising: we live surrounded by water.

Often deep water.

A landlubber might assume that everyone who chooses the cruising lifestyle has a natural affinity for water. But this is not automatically so.

Sure, there are plenty of us who plan for snorkeling and diving to be a big part of our experience. But there are others who look over the side with trepidation.

Sometimes, trepidation is a matter of unfamiliarity. If you were raised in an Iowa cornfield, around cold lakes or muddy ponds, the idea of immersing yourself in the vast, shifting, briny ocean may not come readily.

Sometimes trepidation is an heirloom of your ancestors: your grandmother didn’t swim, your mother didn’t swim, so you and water never were introduced. And sometimes trepidation results from a traumatic experience: a bully at the public pool, an all-too-vivid drowning story, a slip in the tub as a child.

Plus, we all saw Jaws.

The original novel by Peter Benchley and the blockbuster thriller by Steven Spielberg have given a whole generation nightmares of monsters from the deep.

Jaws probably did more to estrange people from the ocean than anything before or since.

Fortunately, there was also Jacques Cousteau, sons Philippe and Jean Michel, and now their children, to provide some balance.

Not only was Cousteau Sr. co-developer of the self-contained underwater breathing apparatus that enabled the whole sport of scuba diving, he was a founding father of marine conservation.

Many if not most of us who have pursued scuba certifications were motivated by a desire to experience for ourselves the real wonders that the Cousteau documentaries revealed.

Having been a scuba instructor for over twenty years – in pools in New York City, on a dive cruise ship, on my own charter boat, and on remote beaches while cruising, I have taught lots of different kinds of people to snorkel and dive.

To some it comes easily and naturally.

To others, bold and super-confident, the course hits them as a reality-check that scuba is not something you just pick up and do; there’s classroom stuff you need to know.

But most rewarding have been the students, timid by nature or fearful of water in particular, for whom certification has taken time and hand-holding. Making it happen for these people has usually added up to more than just going underwater and coming up without incident. Often, success has built a huge bridge over a constricting outlook on life.

With respect to water in particular, I have always thought that its surface from above seems a two dimensional barrier.

Rarely can you see much below it without getting in with a mask.

Recreational swimmers try to keep their heads above water, unknowingly starting a tiring battle between their heavy (in the air) head and their weightless (buoyed by water) body.

Without a mask and snorkel choppy water can splash in eyes and mouth, and without fins currents can overpower. This is how trouble starts. I’ve rarely jumped off the back of my boat without mask, snorkel and fins!

With them and with some basic skills in how to use them correctly, clumsy humans are transformed into competent marine visitors. For most of us the struggle against sinking stops when we relax with our faces immersed. The surface chop disappears, our legs stop pumping, and our breathing through the snorkel slows. It is truly miraculous!

Once relaxed with our face in the water, we realize we have permeated that surface barrier. We can see sunlight streaming through, the crud growing on our boat’s bottom, the fishing line wound around the prop shaft, a few fish darting past and, finally, below, the whole panorama of the underwater marine world.

If you’re in an area of tropical reefs, this is quite a kingdom, but personally I’ve been happily entertained by the doings on a plain sand bottom.

You quickly become more comfortable with marine critters when you watch them awhile and get a sense of their actual behaviors.

Snorkeling is the biggest step, and it fits well with our lifestyle choice of traveling and seeing how others live.

Free or breath-hold diving comes next, bringing closer looks and the gratifying ability to spearfish or collect shellfish. The addition of scuba gear to this merely allows us to get closer, watch longer, and move with less restriction in this third dimension, instead of being pinned to the underside of the surface barrier like an upside-down water bug!

Kathleen Watt, formerly of Renaissance, is a cruiser for whom scuba was a bridge over fear. “I was absolutely terrified of deep water, not a strong swimmer, didn’t know how to sail, and got seasick. But, Brian wanted to do this circumnavigation, and I wasn’t going to sit home because I was afraid.

So, I figured I would confront this problem like I do any other—by jumping into the deep end, so to speak: I took a scuba course. Guess it worked, because four years, 40,000 miles, and 37 countries later, we’ve dived in lots of wonderful places, including on an old military wreck 100 feet down in Vanuatu.”

Seven of my Admirals and their partners – Lisa and Dennis of Lady Galadriel (currently in British Columbia), Sherry and Dave of Soggy Paws (Easter Island), Robin and Rick of Endangered Species (Fiji), Bette Lee and Tom of Quantum Leap (New Zealand), and Rachel and Elizabeth of Ventana (Indonesia) – are, like us, active scuba divers with complete sets of gear aboard, tanks and even compressors.

Having your own compressor means you can dive in the remotest of locations where you feel like no one may have been before you. It’s a heady feeling!

Sheri and Randy of Procyon (Australia) and Suzanne and John of Zeelander (Curaçao) are also active divers, but don’t carry a compressor. This means they can only do as many dives on their own as they have tanks before looking for a shore-based fill station. But it’s a decent compromise, allowing them the freedom to make a few dives from their boat or dinghy plus the security of being able clean the bottom, change zincs, or unfoul an anchor from coral heads.

Others, like Kathy of Hale Kai are certified, but dive only occasionally with resort dive boats using rentals or with other cruisers who have spare equipment. These divers are typically cruising on smaller boats without space to stow tanks and gear, or their partner doesn’t dive leaving them without a buddy. Diving so rarely, they report, means they feel their skills grow rusty, so they would rather dive with supervision.

Even cruisers who have their own dive gear aboard and who like the option to dive on their own often choose to go with the pros. “When we’re somewhere dive trips are available,” says Sherry of Soggy Paws, “we’ll assess the risk/trouble/cost issue of how easy it is to visit the dive sites in our own dinghy. Sometimes it just makes sense to pay someone to take you there. Especially when it’s not too expensive.”

“We cannot imagine having done this trip without diving/snorkeling,” says Procyon’s Sheri. “It has greatly added to our enjoyment and was a good way to meet other people, both cruisers and locals.

Some of our best memories are of the fabulous dive sites we’ve been able to go to. The fish and coral through the South Pacific, the warm tropical water with great visibility, swimming with sharks and Manta rays… it’s all been just amazing!”

Many cruisers ask me what’s involved in preparing themselves and their boat for independent scuba diving. We’ll take a look this question in the next column.

This article was published in the May 2010 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.