Hi, I live in the UK Midlands but mostly dive abroad, about 100 dives a year. This year I have been doing a bit of training with my OWSI at Red Sea Diving College in Sharm and my IANTD Intro Cave with Phil Short at Salgar in Menorca. In 2 weeks I am off to Asia Divers in Puerta Gallera to do 8 PADI instructor specialities and IANTD Advanced Recreational Trimix. Then over Xmas and New Year the wife and I are off for some nice relaxing shore diving in Bonaire.
Here are some tips that I have picked up over the years and which I also posted to a UK board, you may (or may not!) find some of them interesting:
1) Baby shampoo. A small bottle of this is cheap and it is perfect for cleaning the inside of a mask before diving. Just rub it in and rinse for perfect underwater vision.
2) Xylitol. A natural sugar with 5 carbon atoms instead of 6 (so your body doesn't digest it, handy for diabetics). It kills bacteria so sweet manufacturers are using it as a dental health booster. When you use a Smint or an Orbit chewing gum some of the Xylitol goes up your eustatian tubes where it forms a PTFE like coating which bacteria can't stick on. End result, less ear infections.
3) Elastic bands. Just put a couple round your forearm over your undersuit and under the cuff dump and you will dump (air!) far more easily.
4) Talc. A wonderful lubricant for putting on your wetsuit, however many brands have added starch as a drying agent. Unfortunately when mixed with water it becomes gum. Make sure yours is starch free.
5) Shaving. This makes thousands of micro cuts in your skin. These don't bleed, however they can make a nice home for all sorts of nasties that live in water. Simple solution is to shave in the evening when diving, the micro cuts heal overnight.
6) Nausea on boats. This is caused by the inner ear and the eyesight sending the brain conflicting information so most people know the fix of looking at the horizon so the brain gets matching information. Another fix is to eat Ginger (like pregnant women with morning sickness do). You can get it crystalised and in capsules from Holland and Barrett, though you may not want to buy from them as they also sell shark cartilage.
7) Keeping your buoyancy neutral on ascent. Just bring the deflate button on the corrugated inflator hose to around neck level and keep it depressed. It will act like a wetsuit autodump and keep buoyancy neutral. So I have read, not tried it yet.
8) Fins are ambidexterous. Keep one as a left fin and one as a right fin then only use the inside strap clip/adjuster, leave the outside one fixed. This makes it much easier to kit up on a rib in confined space and whilst standing on a bigger boat or in surf you just rest each heel on top of the oposite knee to tighten the strap.
9) A lot of us dive in the tropics yet our sport washes suntan lotion off. The trick is to use children's lotion. It is designed to be slapped on in the morning and to work through all the seaside/pool activities that kids do so it is much more waterproof and comes in high factors.
10) Race horses get flown round in planes a lot. Sometimes they get very ill or even die during or after flights. Lloyds of London often have to pay out so they did a big investigation. They found that the nearer the front of the plane the healthier the horse afterwards, the nearer the back the more the likelihood of an insurance claim. It's down to the way plane ventilation systems work, carrying all the bugs from the front to the back. So some bright spark rang up loads of long haul human passengers after their flights asking whether they had been ill since. You guessed it, the front was a lot healthier. So now you know where to sit when you fly out on a diving holiday.
11) Polythene supermarket bags. Everyone knows that these are good for getting your hands through drysuit wrist seals. Just put your hand in the bag, push it through then pull the bag through. What most people don't know is that it also works brilliantly for both hands and feet with wetsuits. For girlies on liveaboards this can be a lifesaver for that manicure.
12) Ears. The dreaded ear infections stop diving and can ruin a holiday. A few drops of olive oil in each ear before every dive gives a lot of protection, especially in manky swimming pools. Many liveaboards have micro showers near the dive platform, use these to rinse out the ears after every dive.
13) Decompression sickness. It is easy to get this even when diving within tables/computer if you are dehydrated. This has put a lot of people in the pot. This is especially pernicious in the tropics where you don't realise how much fluid you are losing. Unfortunately drinking lots of fluid can lead to embarassing moments underwater. The answer is to have a drink and a pee immediately before going in then a big drink immediately when you get out which will be processed during the surface interval.
14) Breathing. Belly breathing uses the alveolai from the lower lung which have 50% more blood vessels, this also flushes out CO2 which is the trigger for respiration rate. To get even more out of each lungfull breathe in for 4 seconds, pause for 2 seconds and breathe out for 4 seconds. When you get good at this try 6, 3 and 6 seconds. Never pause breathing while ascending.
15) If you are a novice or less experienced diver do not dive with a camera. You will enjoy the dive far less, your diving skills will be worse and the buddy system won't work. Far better to take a good torch (UK C4 minimum) on every dive. Even on a shallow reef in the tropics in the middle of the day. A torch will enhance your diving experience. Even experienced divers will enjoy dives far more with a torch than a camera.
16) Talking of torches, LED technology is taking over. Soon all underwater torches will be LED. The technology is getting more powerful every year. They are so efficient at making light from electricity that the burn times are amazing. My LED Lenser torches, for instance, give a 50 hour life from 4X AA batteries. The Tektite Searay 12 looks superb.
17) Polythene gloves, like they have at petrol filing stations. These are brilliant for wearing under dive gloves. They trap an extra layer of water so you get a double glazing effect keeping your hands much warmer. They also make getting the gloves on and off a lot easier.
18) Breathing under pressure exposes every tissue in our bodies to to problems involving oxygen. There is whole body oxygen toxicity and CNS toxic hits. You can reduce the bad effects of oxygen by what you eat. Certain foods have a powerful anti oxidant action, vitamin E and selenium for instance. However one of the most powerful anti oxidants is grapeseed extract which you can buy at Holland and Barratt (if your moral scruples allow you into this accessory to the destruction of sharks).
19) When you have your regulators serviced they should come back with a little bag of replaced parts. Keep these and take them with you when you travel. Reg technicians are easy to find, spare parts for your reg aren't and used parts are better than nothing for the technician to use if you have a problem.
Here are some tips that I have picked up over the years and which I also posted to a UK board, you may (or may not!) find some of them interesting:
1) Baby shampoo. A small bottle of this is cheap and it is perfect for cleaning the inside of a mask before diving. Just rub it in and rinse for perfect underwater vision.
2) Xylitol. A natural sugar with 5 carbon atoms instead of 6 (so your body doesn't digest it, handy for diabetics). It kills bacteria so sweet manufacturers are using it as a dental health booster. When you use a Smint or an Orbit chewing gum some of the Xylitol goes up your eustatian tubes where it forms a PTFE like coating which bacteria can't stick on. End result, less ear infections.
3) Elastic bands. Just put a couple round your forearm over your undersuit and under the cuff dump and you will dump (air!) far more easily.
4) Talc. A wonderful lubricant for putting on your wetsuit, however many brands have added starch as a drying agent. Unfortunately when mixed with water it becomes gum. Make sure yours is starch free.
5) Shaving. This makes thousands of micro cuts in your skin. These don't bleed, however they can make a nice home for all sorts of nasties that live in water. Simple solution is to shave in the evening when diving, the micro cuts heal overnight.
6) Nausea on boats. This is caused by the inner ear and the eyesight sending the brain conflicting information so most people know the fix of looking at the horizon so the brain gets matching information. Another fix is to eat Ginger (like pregnant women with morning sickness do). You can get it crystalised and in capsules from Holland and Barrett, though you may not want to buy from them as they also sell shark cartilage.
7) Keeping your buoyancy neutral on ascent. Just bring the deflate button on the corrugated inflator hose to around neck level and keep it depressed. It will act like a wetsuit autodump and keep buoyancy neutral. So I have read, not tried it yet.
8) Fins are ambidexterous. Keep one as a left fin and one as a right fin then only use the inside strap clip/adjuster, leave the outside one fixed. This makes it much easier to kit up on a rib in confined space and whilst standing on a bigger boat or in surf you just rest each heel on top of the oposite knee to tighten the strap.
9) A lot of us dive in the tropics yet our sport washes suntan lotion off. The trick is to use children's lotion. It is designed to be slapped on in the morning and to work through all the seaside/pool activities that kids do so it is much more waterproof and comes in high factors.
10) Race horses get flown round in planes a lot. Sometimes they get very ill or even die during or after flights. Lloyds of London often have to pay out so they did a big investigation. They found that the nearer the front of the plane the healthier the horse afterwards, the nearer the back the more the likelihood of an insurance claim. It's down to the way plane ventilation systems work, carrying all the bugs from the front to the back. So some bright spark rang up loads of long haul human passengers after their flights asking whether they had been ill since. You guessed it, the front was a lot healthier. So now you know where to sit when you fly out on a diving holiday.
11) Polythene supermarket bags. Everyone knows that these are good for getting your hands through drysuit wrist seals. Just put your hand in the bag, push it through then pull the bag through. What most people don't know is that it also works brilliantly for both hands and feet with wetsuits. For girlies on liveaboards this can be a lifesaver for that manicure.
12) Ears. The dreaded ear infections stop diving and can ruin a holiday. A few drops of olive oil in each ear before every dive gives a lot of protection, especially in manky swimming pools. Many liveaboards have micro showers near the dive platform, use these to rinse out the ears after every dive.
13) Decompression sickness. It is easy to get this even when diving within tables/computer if you are dehydrated. This has put a lot of people in the pot. This is especially pernicious in the tropics where you don't realise how much fluid you are losing. Unfortunately drinking lots of fluid can lead to embarassing moments underwater. The answer is to have a drink and a pee immediately before going in then a big drink immediately when you get out which will be processed during the surface interval.
14) Breathing. Belly breathing uses the alveolai from the lower lung which have 50% more blood vessels, this also flushes out CO2 which is the trigger for respiration rate. To get even more out of each lungfull breathe in for 4 seconds, pause for 2 seconds and breathe out for 4 seconds. When you get good at this try 6, 3 and 6 seconds. Never pause breathing while ascending.
15) If you are a novice or less experienced diver do not dive with a camera. You will enjoy the dive far less, your diving skills will be worse and the buddy system won't work. Far better to take a good torch (UK C4 minimum) on every dive. Even on a shallow reef in the tropics in the middle of the day. A torch will enhance your diving experience. Even experienced divers will enjoy dives far more with a torch than a camera.
16) Talking of torches, LED technology is taking over. Soon all underwater torches will be LED. The technology is getting more powerful every year. They are so efficient at making light from electricity that the burn times are amazing. My LED Lenser torches, for instance, give a 50 hour life from 4X AA batteries. The Tektite Searay 12 looks superb.
17) Polythene gloves, like they have at petrol filing stations. These are brilliant for wearing under dive gloves. They trap an extra layer of water so you get a double glazing effect keeping your hands much warmer. They also make getting the gloves on and off a lot easier.
18) Breathing under pressure exposes every tissue in our bodies to to problems involving oxygen. There is whole body oxygen toxicity and CNS toxic hits. You can reduce the bad effects of oxygen by what you eat. Certain foods have a powerful anti oxidant action, vitamin E and selenium for instance. However one of the most powerful anti oxidants is grapeseed extract which you can buy at Holland and Barratt (if your moral scruples allow you into this accessory to the destruction of sharks).
19) When you have your regulators serviced they should come back with a little bag of replaced parts. Keep these and take them with you when you travel. Reg technicians are easy to find, spare parts for your reg aren't and used parts are better than nothing for the technician to use if you have a problem.
