Dive ops handling wetsuits

[Pullmyfinger]

People rent wet suits?

On handling of gear: I prefer to take care of my own gear, including when I am on vacation.

 

[silvernotch]

I wear my wetsuit down around my waist until I get back to the room after standing under the shower for a minute or so. I hang it out on the rack until the next morning when it and I are ready to go again. It's not any trouble. DSFDF and YMMV.

I do the same thing, wear it back to the room and hop right in the shower with it. Makes things a lot easier.

 

[Ron Lee]

People rent wet suits?

There are plenty of people just starting diving who have not bought a wetsuit yet..in addition to other gear.

 

[Pullmyfinger]

It's typically the first thing people buy, after experiencing using the rental ones that are provided in Open water classes.........before going on dive vacations. ;-)

 

[PhilaDallas]

I have not purchased one, and am hoping that the I can handle the water temperature when I do my check out dives and first dives in Cozumel in May. I do have a short sleeve rashguard and swim trunks. I plan on peeing in those.

 

[scubadivingsteve]

I bet OSHA has a regulation covering it, and I know they recommend protection for workers who handle anything human waste touches.

 

[Mossman]

1. - FYI - Jeremy is from Minnesota - he may have inherited a little Mexican accent, but he was born and bred in Minnesota!
2. Where does it say that you are paying a dive op to handle your wetsuit??? What about all of the shops that don't handle any gear at all?
3. You are welcome to choose whichever dive op you like based on what they provide, etc. - but to "badmouth" and claim that handling wetsuits is a STANDARD duty is wrong and just shows your disrespect for other people.
4. AS I said in a much earlier post, the hygiene reason is just part of the reason - but my primary reason is again, a matter of RESPECT. If you want to piss in your wetsuit, fine - it's yours - but it doesn't mean that anyone is obligated or should be expected to handle it for you.
5. Yes, we live in paradise and get to dive all day everyday - HAHAHAHAHA - you're one of those people that has a very false sense of reality where that is concerned.
6. AS far as dripping your wet suit through the lobby - they see that everyday I am sure - I maintain that MOST shops here do not handle wetsuits!

1. I never said he was Mexican. I do believe, however, that he currently lives in Mexico. I also believe that he has a Mexican wife. When in Rome...
2. True, some shops don't handle any gear. But when a dive op does store dive gear, well, isn't a wetsuit part of the gear?
3. For dive ops that handle dive gear, handling wetsuits is a standard duty. Why only handle 80% of the dive gear and make the customer handle the other 20% that tends to drip the most water? As for badmouthing, really? Me thinks some people are too sensitive, especially when they take advantage of free advertising on a quasi-public BBS. Please complain to the moderator if you feel I badmouthed you and I'm sure I'll be moderated appropriately.
4. I don't expect just anyone to handle my wetsuit for me. After all, they're not getting paid to do it. Respect would be flushing one's used toilet paper instead of sticking it in a trash can next to the toilet for someone else to have to empty.
5. If you think my sense of your reality is false, you can always move back to Texas. Why stay in Cozumel if your work is so awful?
6. So you'd rather let the hotel maid deal with the problem? What happened to your sense of respect? In any case, it's good to see that you've now qualified your blanket statement and limited it to Cozumel. ("but there is a very valid and SOLID reason that MOST dive shops do not handle wet suits. It's simply disgusting!") With the possible exception of Cozumel, I'll continue to maintain that most dive shops around the world that do handle dive gear also handle wetsuits. Disgusting or not, that's the way it is.

---------- Post added April 24th, 2013 at 08:39 AM ----------

I bet OSHA has a regulation covering it, and I know they recommend protection for workers who handle anything human waste touches.

I bet OSHA doesn't make much difference in Mexico. I also know of at least one American dive shop that handles peed-in wetsuits (Ed Robinson's in Maui, from personal experience) and I don't recall them donning hazmat suits or even using gloves - how brave of them! Not to mention a gazillion dive shops that rent out wetsuits and take them back without requiring that the customer wash them.

29 CFR 1910.1030 deals with blood-borne pathogens, but I don't see any sections dealing with human waste. Also, 1941(c)(1)(iii), part of the section mandating toilet facilities, says "The sewage disposal method shall not endanger the health of employees."

But it's not like urine is exactly "human waste" any more than any other byproduct of humanity. The sweat on the fleece linings of those nice parkas provided by some dive shops, for instance. Vomit by seasick passengers. Saliva. Snot.

AFAIK, it's only blood-borne pathogens. Of course people occasionally bleed on dive boats too. How should a dive boat, especially one covered by America's OSHA regulations, respond to that threat? Good you asked. When J's hand was partially devoured by a moray while diving off Lanai, the helpful boat captain actually seemed more concerned about sanitizing the boat and himself than her wounds. He made sure to don gloves before treating her and was very careful to hose down all specks of blood off the deck, followed by sanitizer. Some here would decry her lack of respect for bleeding all over the boat and expecting first aid by the crew, but I swear she didn't mean to get her hand partially chewed off by one of Hawaii's meaner denizens.

In any case, look at all the jobs that require some level of dealing with human waste. Any job that includes cleaning toilets, or emptying those trash cans next to the toilet that Mexicans love to fill with their used TP. Any job dealing with porta-potties, whether cleaning them or sucking the waste out of them. Any job dealing with infants and their diapers. Any job dealing with old folks and their diapers. Nurses, doctors, babysitters. Plenty of people have to deal with urine on a daily basis. Is it so disrespectful to assume that the guy charged with schlepping tanks, hosing down the boat, and cutting up mangos might also be able to handle peed-in wetsuits?

---------- Post added April 24th, 2013 at 09:10 AM ----------

People rent wet suits?

On handling of gear: I prefer to take care of my own gear, including when I am on vacation.

Of course people rent wetsuits. For instance, I rented one on Puerto Vallarta the year before last when on a cruise. I had brought a 3mm suit but that wouldn't have been warm enough for the frigid waters (upper 60s IIRC) and it wasn't practical to lug my own 7mm suit in addition to the 3mm, especially because I don't even own a 7mm suit.

I also used a rental 7mm suit from my local dive shop when my drysuit was in for repairs and the water was in the 50s. It had pink trim.

That's good that you handle your own gear when others are perfectly willing to do it for you. Can I assume you also cook your own meals and make your own drinks? Not me. When I'm on vacation, I prefer to do as little work as possible. I stay in accommodations with daily maid service so I don't have to clean my own toilet or even make my own bed. I let chefs cook for me, bartenders mix my drinks, and cab drivers drive me around. And I definitely let dive ops handle all my dive gear, including wetsuit. There's nothing better than lugging my 40 lbs of camera gear to the boat to find my gear is already set up and my wetsuit is waiting for me to don it. All that's left is getting in the water and diving.

(If only I could find someone willing to deal with my camera too. Besides liveaboards, the only dive op that ever provided that level of service was Wakatobi.)

 

[cvchief]

It is kinda of interesting. My op doesn't valet your wetsuit.

On the other hand, almost all the time there is someone on the boat renting a wetsuit. It would tend to make me think most ops will handled 'used' wet suits, but it seems just their rentals, not yours.....

 

[chillyinCanada]

It's not that big a deal. No one is peeling off my suit but me. I dump it in a tank. Sometimes I take it out myself and hang it up to dry on the provided hangers at the provided area. Sometimes a staff member fishes my suit out of the tank and hangs it for me. They keep it overnight. If it is concierge service, my suit is waiting for me on my boat in the a.m., sometimes even in my preferred seating position. Other places I dive, even without concierge service, have a rinse tank, hanging area and stores it overnight. Next morning, I just pull it out myself. No biggie either way. But why would I have to haul it or wear it back to my room . . .this makes no sense to me until my trip has ended. Been racking my brain but can't recall one place in the world other than Cozumel, where I've had to for this.

 

[Pullmyfinger]

Of course people rent wetsuits. For instance, I rented one on Puerto Vallarta the year before last when on a cruise. I had brought a 3mm suit but that wouldn't have been warm enough for the frigid waters (upper 60s IIRC) and it wasn't practical to lug my own 7mm suit in addition to the 3mm, especially because I don't even own a 7mm suit.

I also used a rental 7mm suit from my local dive shop when my drysuit was in for repairs and the water was in the 50s. It had pink trim.

That's good that you handle your own gear when others are perfectly willing to do it for you. Can I assume you also cook your own meals and make your own drinks? Not me. When I'm on vacation, I prefer to do as little work as possible. I stay in accommodations with daily maid service so I don't have to clean my own toilet or even make my own bed. I let chefs cook for me, bartenders mix my drinks, and cab drivers drive me around. And I definitely let dive ops handle all my dive gear, including wetsuit. There's nothing better than lugging my 40 lbs of camera gear to the boat to find my gear is already set up and my wetsuit is waiting for me to don it. All that's left is getting in the water and diving.

(If only I could find someone willing to deal with my camera too. Besides liveaboards, the only dive op that ever provided that level of service was Wakatobi.)

That's quite a rant over a wet suit rental.

I'm not diving with my meals, drinks, maids, bar tenders, taxi drivers, chefs.
I am diving with my gear.....so I will handle that myself. It's not much of a big deal; it's not too heavy, so I can quickly and easily take care of my personal dive gear at the end of the day.

I'm not a Princess.

Cheers,
Mitch