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, [...]]]>

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.

Related articles (on this website)

• #46 – Water, Water Everywhere (Admiral’s Angle column)
• Fitness Resources (lists several scuba diving resources)
• Gwen took her SCUBA passion cruising (Women and Cruising blog)
• Laurie’s epic journey to conquer her hear of water (Women and Cruising blog)

Other Resources

• PADI dive training and certification
• Divers Alert Network (DAN)

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. [...]]]> 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.

Related articles (on this website)

• Gwen took her SCUBA passion cruising (Women and Cruising blog)
• Laurie’s epic journey to conquer her hear of water (Women and Cruising blog)
• Should I quit my job and go cruising? Kathleen Watt responds (Women and Cruising blog)
• Fitness Resources (lists several scuba diving resources)

At issue at the time was taking my scuba instructor’s certification. An expensive, challenging, week-long course with a major practical test at the end, it was all daunting in [...]]]>

A philosophy I picked up twenty years ago from a significant mentor has guided the way I’ve approached most everything since. I call it my Toolbox Theory.

At issue at the time was taking my scuba instructor’s certification. An expensive, challenging, week-long course with a major practical test at the end, it was all daunting in its own right, but additionally it represented a huge step in responsibility for others I wasn’t sure I wanted to take.

My mentor – then the skipper of a popular dive liveaboard in the BVI – said to me: “It’s like this, Gwen. If you do it, it’s a piece of paper in your toolbox. Once it’s there, you can choose to use it or not, but if you don’t, you don’t have the option.”

This advice carried me forward when I might have weaseled out, and, in the end, changed my life. Not just because it turned out I was a good scuba instructor and loved teaching, but because the Toolbox Theory has since guided many subsequent learning opportunities, filling my toolbox with lots of pieces of paper that represent skills I have picked up, including my Coast Guard Captain’s license.

Whether they have thought of it the same way or not, most of the Admirals have a toolbox of their own they are proud of.

Some have pieces of paper to show from the Power Squadron, sailing schools, or the Coast Guard; others have ham licenses, scuba certificates, CPR or emergency medical training. Some have taken special workshops in sail repair, diesel engine mechanics, navigation or radar use.

And others have learned new languages, tackled electronic navigation, figured out radio email, studied weather analysis, mastered racing strategy or experimented with new cooking techniques.

Plus, to a greater or lesser extent, all have specific accomplishments achieved through the “school of hard knocks” for which there may be no paper to show, but which are tools in our toolbox none-the-less.

The debate over the value of diplomas, licenses, certifications and the like in an experience-based lifestyle like cruising is one that has raged ever since there have been diplomas, licenses, and certifications. I think we all know that having a piece of paper does not automatically indicate that the holder has any ability beyond the next guy on the dock, as any old salt will be quick to tell you.

But neither does it automatically indicate the opposite. For example, what a captain’s license DOES indicate is that that person has had a specific amount of documented sea time, that he/she has studied for and passed tough government exams on the International Rules of the Road, navigation, boat handling, and seamanship, and that he/she has demonstrated sufficient competency to be granted the right to do this FOR HIRE.

At virtually every Women & Cruising Seminar we do, someone asks the question about whether or not “we” need a captain’s license to go cruising. Sometimes the women are asking for themselves; sometimes they are asking whether it is something their husband needs to get.

About forty percent of the responding Admirals are licensed captains!

I didn’t get a clear count on the number of partners that have one. I got my captain’s license to be able to run my own boat in charter, and Judy of Ursa Minor got hers to be employable as a charter captain on other people’s boats. For many cruisers, the ability to get work as a captain along the way – whether it be for chartering, doing boat deliveries, or skippering a resort dive or fishing boat – is the prime reason to get a captain’s ticket.

On the other hand, working professionally was never the primary goal for Sherry of Soggy Paws, Bette Lee of Quantum Leap or Susan of Erie Spirit, who all hold captain’s licenses. “For me, personally, it would be very uncomfortable to do the traveling we do and not feel competent to sail and navigate the boat on my own. I wanted to be an equal partner,” says Bette Lee about their South Pacific cruise. Even after 37 years of sailing with her husband, “Getting the license increased my confidence.”

However, when working along the way isn’t a priority, you may find you can get more apropos training from sailing schools, especially ones that put an emphasis on cruising.

Yoga Aboard’s Kim Hess, who recently got her captain’s ticket, says, “Getting my Captain’s license was definitely a good thing for me. However, unless you have a desire to use it for professional reasons, I’d highly recommend ASA’s (American Sailing Association) certifications instead. The information is the same, but with an opportunity to apply the information in a practical setting (instead of just being tested on it). I am a true believer in experiential learning, which is something the Captains license courses (essentially prep classes for the exam) don’t offer.”

Many experienced cruisers would agree with Kim. Susan of Wooden Shoe took a live-aboard blue water sailing for women course to prepare for her voyage, and, Kathy of Hale Kai and Ellen of Cayenne III both added US Sailing’s Safety At Sea  programs to their experiential learning. Come to think of it, I took a week-long Women for Sail liveaboard course six months after getting my license in order to learn how it all applied to 40’ sailboats!

What it comes down to, I think, is a matter of how we each as individuals learn. Some of us flourish when stimulated by a formal structure on which to hang knowledge as we gain it, such as preparing for the captain’s license or taking a sequence of courses from a sailing school. And we are proud to have the papers to show for it.

Others – like Bev of Cloverleaf, Sheri of Procyon, Debbie of Illusions, and Julie of Tapestry – are completely satisfied that they have gotten the tools they need to know from their partners and experience.

However you acquire them, the Admirals mostly agree on some basic tools that are worth pursuing for your cruising toolbox: the fundamentals of sailing, piloting, navigation, and boat handling all available from the Power Squadron, the ASA, US Sailing or other sailing organizations or schools, plus Safety at Sea training, first aid/CPR and some emergency medical training for offshore situations.

Someone aboard needs to know the basics of diesel engines, refrigeration, electrical circuitry and plumbing; rigging, splicing and emergency sail repair; as well as weather analysis.

You can get a lot of this from books on your reference shelf, but seminars in these are often available at boat shows and at SSCA Gams. In fact, SSCA now offers a series of webinars called Seven Seas U that you can take online from the comfort of your own home!

Some other useful tools you might consider adding are a HAM radio license and SCUBA certification. Plus, several Admirals suggest a course in radar plotting to be at ease in assessing collision risk.

On womenandcruising.com we have assembled a detailed resource list that you could pretty much consider your tool “hardware store.” Start by adding one tool and see how empowering its weight in your toolbox makes you feel! The more tools you collect, the more you are liable to want, but on the other hand, don’t, as Ellen of Cayenne III advises, “let a lack of paperwork stop you from living the dream.”

“There are plenty of courses I might wish I had taken before going cruising,” says Ellen, “but, if I’d taken them all, I’d still be waiting to shove off! In the end, the most important tool one can have is confidence – in oneself, in one’s partner, and in one’s boat.”

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

Related articles (on this website)

• Peace of Mind – Emergency Skills (Admiral’s Angle column #4)
• Why Kim Hess Got Her Captain’s License (Women and Cruising blog)
• Women and Cruising’s Learning to Sail Resources (Resource List)