Dive ops handling wetsuits

[Dave Dillehay]

This is a very interesting thread for many reasons. Let me tell you why Aldora does not handle personal wet suits any more.

First is the sanitation issue, brought up here my many, but there is another reason. That is that all wet suits look alike! You may know that we at Aldora take care of our diver's gear from start to finish, and taking care of wet suits was no problem when we had just one boat and six divers. But now we have 9 boats and do a very good job of segregating them into groups with similar skills...that has its own advantages!

But when all the gear gets back to our shop for cleaning, it is just too easy to mix up wet suits as they are all black and have the same smell of urine. The bottom line is that it is not possible for us to clean all the gear and keep wet suits separate and under control. The BCs, Reg and other items have proven to be no problem, but the wet suits are not possible in an operation that has multiple boats with many different skill levels and dynamics.

Dave Dillehay
Aldora Divers

 

[Snips]

Some people not only pee in their wetsuits
View attachment 153058

but in Cozuel Mexico...'cause of the great cuise...they fart in them too!

View attachment 153057

Oh how this is funny in my world

Its a total thread hijack but it really made me laugh! Nice pics.

 

[Mossman]

But when all the gear gets back to our shop for cleaning, it is just too easy to mix up wet suits as they are all black and have the same smell of urine. The bottom line is that it is not possible for us to clean all the gear and keep wet suits separate and under control. The BCs, Reg and other items have proven to be no problem, but the wet suits are not possible in an operation that has multiple boats with many different skill levels and dynamics.

Now that makes more sense. Actually I was surprised you no longer handled wetsuits when I looked at your website recently as I thought I recalled differently - but that was back in 2001 and my memory is less than vivid. When trying to find other examples of shops that handled wetsuits, I looked up Liquid Blue since they had handled my wetsuit the last time I dove with them. But their website now states the same rationale as yours, that they're too easy to mix up. Clearly the urine issue doesn't bother you since, as you say, you used to handle them until you expanded operations.

That said, there are ways to tell identical-appearing wetsuits apart from one another. Maybe numbered clips that the crew could attach to each wetsuit before they leave the boats for overnight storage? It's a real pleasure to leave everything wet back on the boat for the next dive day - the less work the better for people on vacation AFAIC.

---------- Post added April 22nd, 2013 at 08:45 PM ----------

OK, since these posts were split off into a thread specifically about which dive ops will handle wetsuits, I'll start: Living Underwater handles wetsuits. Besides the most excellent DM skills of Jeremy, the fact that LU handles wetsuits and relieves me of the burden of dragging a dripping wet bundle through my hotel corridors makes them number one in my book.

Are there any divers who insist on retaining their wetsuits and don't want the dive op storing them overnight?

 

[mediumone]

---------- Post added April 22nd, 2013 at 08:45 PM ----------

Are there any divers who insist on retaining their wetsuits and don't want the dive op storing them overnight?

Nope, and that's one of the reasons that we like Opal's Dream.


And yes, Mossman, you're correct, urine is sterile, but in my frame of reference, it's really immaterial. I'm a Dad, having changed more piss soaked, poop filled diapers than I care to count, along with cleaning up kids, beds and floors of vomit in the middle of the night. A wetsuit with a faint smell of urine is on my radar?

 

[annlaur]

Mossman, while I agree with you regarding peeing in a wetsuit, I suspect you skipped basic anatomy classes in school.

Your analogy works better if the towel was soaked in sea water after soaking up the teaspoon of urine. I'd be surprised if too many bacteria used to the vaginal environment could handle soaking in 80 degree saline water and I wouldn't expect a female DM to handle the peed-in wetsuits by holding them between her legs while naked. But what will it hurt her to hold them in her hands, providing that she washes her hands after?

As a rule, urine does not go through the vagina (well, except maybe in the case of weird sexual practices, but that's beside the point). Urinary track infections take place in… the urinary track (kidneys, bladder, urethra, ureter&#8230. Probably the most common UTI is cystisis, caused by many factors, including bacteria going up the urinary track. However, these bacteria (oftentimes e. coli) are naturally present in the human body (namely in the digestive track and therefore around the butt area), and the issue is not the presence of bacteria near the intimate areas, it's their ability to travel upward through the urinary track and colonize it faster than the urinary track can flush them out : just like DCS, there are many factors involved in cystisis, including dehydration…
In the unlikely scenario you posted (a female DM holding a peed-in wetsuit in between her bare legs), there's no way that would cause her to get a UTI infection. Nor a vaginal one for that matter : to my knowledge bacterias causing STDs are not the same as the usual suspects in UTIs. Besides, a healthy woman's vagina is full of microorganisms and bacteria (Döderlein's bacillus) and self-cleaning, being in water for the length of a dive is more likely to disrupt the equilibrium of her vaginal microbiota than having external contact with a few diluted drops of pee.

If any doctor/gyno is reading this, please correct me if I'm wrong.

As for the point being made about smelly wetsuits. I regularly pee in mine but have never had an issue with smell. Here's how I was taught to flush it out underwater : pee upside down while putting air through the neck of the suit (with octopus or exhaling to save air). The air will flush the liquids out through your ankles (make sure you're not wearing your boots on top of the wetsuit). I also start taking my suit off at the surface to give it an extra rinse and I soak it inside out a few minutes in the ocean when we get to the beach before letting it dry out a bit during surface interval.

I personally wouldn't have any issue handling and washing somebody else's peed-in wetsuit. I actually believe it would be much less "gross" than cleaning up an infant or scrubbing the toilet, things many if not most people do around the world on a regular basis without getting ill or even thinking much about it.

 

[chillyinCanada]

I have no problem with rinsing out my wetsuit myself, but there's no way I want to be hauling it back to my hotel with me. I've never experienced having to do that anywhere in the world I've been diving to date, and it will henceforth be my practice to ensure that my chosen dive op stores my wetsuit overnight along with my bcd/regs/fins. Geez, how do you keep your clients find straight?

I too wondered how the boat coats are kept clean, when first I became aware of them being offered (which was not in this thread)

In any event, I don't pee in my wetsuit, so anyone should be able to handle mine.

 

[Oldbear]

I have no problem with rinsing out my wetsuit myself, but there's no way I want to be hauling it back to my hotel with me. I've never experienced having to do that anywhere in the world I've been diving to date, and it will henceforth be my practice to ensure that my chosen dive op stores my wetsuit overnight along with my bcd/regs/fins. Geez, how do you keep your clients find straight?

I too wondered how the boat coats are kept clean, when first I became aware of them being offered (which was not in this thread)

In any event, I don't pee in my wetsuit, so anyone should be able to handle mine.

Not only my wet suit, I prefer to wash and handle all my equipment after a dive (maybe that is the DM in me ). I know that some dive operators offer this service of cleaning all customer's gear as a courtesy to their cliental and that is great customer relations which I truly value. But my equipment will be maintained by me. This way I know that my 1st stage was not accidentally flooded, all sand has been removed, my gear was handled with care and the wet suit is clean, etc. After I neatly hang my equipment I have seen many Dive Operators put the equipment rack in safe storage over night for safe keeping, I am ok with this. I have yet dived with an operator, other than a Liveaboard, who will take my gear and have it ready on the boat, so I cannot speak to that practice yet.

 

[Ron Lee]

Like Oldbear, I keep my wetsuit, regulators/dive computer and mask. It is not hard to take a wetsuit back to the room.

 

[chillyinCanada]

It depends on where I'm diving. At my regularly chosen op in Belize, all I have to do is show up. No matter how busy they get or how many boat loads of customers they have going out that day, my gear is on the boat. If they see me taking care of my own gear someone will rush rIght up and take over for me. I used to try to look after everything myself but these guys are just too good at what they do in that regard. At the end of my dive trip, they rinse everything out with even more care and hang all to get some extra drying before I pick it up to pack it for home.

 

[kerrycorcoran]

Okay, for the sake of science, I have been sitting in a pee-riddled wet-suit at my house for 3 days. Now my wife won't talk to me.
What was the point of this again?
Whatever the point was, it worked - the wife is leaving me alone. Kidding. My poor wife.