Pros and Cons of wearing gloves

[bowlofpetunias]

I always wear gloves. When I am hanging on the barnacle encrusted mooring line in heavy current on my safety stop I have a right to protect my hands!

I have dived where the "no glove rule' was in force.. but not enforced. I was told by the DM they had no problem with me wearing gloves because I do not touch the coral and I have good bouyancy control. I WAS pushed into the coral my last trip to the GBR when another diver who was overweighted and had no bouyancy control dropped on top of me.

 

[MichiganScott]

Yeah, while I don't like to wear them "I dive in warm water" I was surprised to find out how easily your hands get cut or scraped, so I see them as a necessary evil.

 

[AndrewA]

I don't like wearing gloves and only do so when forced to for thermal protection.

 

[carrielsal]

I wear gloves with the fingers cut off. I like to be able to feel my D rings and the ends of my snap bolts.
This winter the water temp got down to around 50 degrees. Initially my fingers were cold, but it was bearable. I lose some feeling in my fingers after a while, but not enough for me to consider dry gloves.
Last week in Hawaii my dive buddy convinced me to put on full fingered gloves for protection for where we were diving. I had them off and in my pocket within 5 minutes of starting the dive. I would much rather deal with cuts and punctures on my fingers, then not be able to have full feeling.

 

[miked]

Although I am a "warm water wimp", I wear gloves on all dives- thin, reef gloves that others have mentioned. Also, wearing the gloves does not make me touch the reef any more than I would without the gloves (which is, ideally NO touches).
Earlier in my dive "career" I would sometimes wear gloves. The 2 incidents that made me convert to always:
The diver who got his palm cut by a barnacle (?) shell while doing a SS on a mooring line; and the diver who was holding onto an ascent line was stung when she touched the detached tentacle (?) of a Portugese man of war, that somehow got wrapped around the line.

 

[GeneV]

I wear gloves for thermal protection when diving in cold water, and occasionally when wreck diving, if penatration is in the dive plan, other than that I hate gloves.

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

I always wear gloves. I'm a shore diver, and dive from rocky (lava) coastlines that require a bit of climbing using your hands to grip sharp rock at the entry/exit.

Maybe I've "softened" a bit in middle age, but I've found that water-softened skin combined with hauling my big self (6'5" / 260 lbs) plus gear up sharp lava rock can easily shred my fingers and palms.... good gloves prevent this.

For dexterity I've sometimes cut the tips off the glove's index finger and thumb.

Best wishes.

 

[Krenath]

I always wear gloves. For the above-mentioned "pruny-hands-on-anchor-lines/ladders" reason.

Despite wearing gloves, I'm very much rabid about DO NOT TOUCH the reef, the fish, the bottom, the wreck, or whatever else you find down there. Not with hands, not with knees, not with fins, not with anything.

I suppose I *might* consider touching the wreck in situations where pulling yourself along a wreck keeps you from flailing around with fins and silting it up, but my usual concern is that every time I grab part of a rusting wreck, I run the risk of breaking off yet another part of the dive site and making its inevitable deterioration that much faster. And because after a while, that wreck is covered in living growths that I shouldn't be touching. I've watched other divers on the U-352 in North Carolina end up with palm-sized chunks of the submarine's hull in their hands simply from trying to pull themselves along the 60+ year old wreck rather than swimming. You can't just glue that bit back on.

Just because I bring gloves does not mean I plan to touch things. Conversely, not wearing gloves cannot guarantee that I could not accidentally touch something.

 

[allistoy]

If I feel they will be benificial on a dive eg. 42 degree water then I wear them if I feel there will not be any benefit acheived from wearing them then I don't.

 

[Belmont]

Once I had to hold on to a buoy line covered with pain causing growth ??.
I pulled on my wet suit sleeve to cover my hand and held on without problem.