Rinsing and storing gear on cruise ships
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Cruises are pretty notorious for being hotbeds of norovirus, even among non-divers. Just one more reason to avoid them.
Ayisha
Contributor
Great idea about the magnetic hooks. I might just get some. Some of the cruise ship cabin showers that I've seen had a retractable clothes line running diagonally across them.
After rinsing everything really well with the (often handheld) showerhead, I hung the wetsuit and swimsuits on the line. I stood the bp/wing up, leaned the boots upside down on the shower floor, etc. Once in a while, I moved them to a different spot/angle so the bottom could dry. I tried to time it for after our showers, otherwise well before our showers till they're not dripping. When the gear dried reasonably, I put it in a corner of our cabin on a towel.
It requires a little juggling for space in a cabin, but it's doable. Magnetic hooks will help especially the heavier stuff dry a lot faster.
After rinsing everything really well with the (often handheld) showerhead, I hung the wetsuit and swimsuits on the line. I stood the bp/wing up, leaned the boots upside down on the shower floor, etc. Once in a while, I moved them to a different spot/angle so the bottom could dry. I tried to time it for after our showers, otherwise well before our showers till they're not dripping. When the gear dried reasonably, I put it in a corner of our cabin on a towel.
It requires a little juggling for space in a cabin, but it's doable. Magnetic hooks will help especially the heavier stuff dry a lot faster.
Ayisha
Contributor
I'm just wondering, would those old lead-lined film bags (for airport x-rays) be a good way to store the magnet hooks to avoid the magnets erasing anything? I still have one from decades ago. Maybe the lead bag is considered a health risk, I'm not sure.
For anyone using these magnet hooks, just keep them out of reach of children. Earth magnets in general have caused serious injury or death in children not only when swallowed, but by placing them on both sides of the body/vital organs. Some schools banned earth magnets around 7 or 8 years ago when they became popular.
The lead bags were designed to keep x-rays, which are a form of light, from affecting your photographic film, which is sensitive to light. Lead does not have any effect on magnetic fields, which is this issue with the strong magnets.
The lead bags would only be a health risk if you eat them, or if you expose the lead lining and rub it on your skin.
Magnetic fields decrease in strength fairly quickly with distance. Which is why the best remedy for keeping strong magnets from wreaking havoc on things like magnetic strips of credit cards is to just keep the magnets a decent distance from the cards.
That's kind of like saying commercial flights are pretty notorious for crashing. The "notoriety" you're suggesting comes from the fact that you only hear about the cruises for which norovirus causes a problem.
You'll never hear a news story about how many tens of thousands of cruise passengers had no health problems this week. (Incidentally, when was the last "norovirus" cruise story, and how many people have taken cruises since then?)
Don't we, as scuba divers, constantly deal with the same lack of perspective from the general public... when talking about sharks? You have to admit, there are plenty of people that will never go in the ocean because they're convinced the sharks will eat them. Why? Because the news never reports how many millions of people went in the ocean this year and came out alive. The news only reports the few people that had an unfortunate encounter with a shark. So people lacking perspective are left to believe that kind of encounter is typical.
Perspective is important. And to be clear, I'm not arguing for or against cruises. I'm arguing for critical thinking.
Ayisha
Contributor
Well, yeah... the problem is the lining would have to be made of a magnetic material, which is pretty much iron (or steel.) There are a few other metals that are magnetic, but they're more expensive. And a lining thick enough to be effective would be impractically heavy (especially for putting in your luggage.)
You have to figure, considering how common these rare earth magnets are, if there was an easy way to shield these powerful magnets it would also be common knowledge. (A quick search on Amazon for "magnet shield" yields nothing useful...)
Protective cases are typically made from very thin metal, of any kind, and are designed to protect against electromagnetic fields, which are oscillating electric and magnetic fields... i.e. "radio frequency", or RF. Any thin, conductive metal can shield your cards from EM fields, which are used to read the data from an RF chip in a lot of modern stuff (like credit cards, passports, etc... the RF signal is a radio signal, and the chip is a tiny antenna than then sends back its own radio signal with the data.) But the static (i.e. constant) magnetic field from a strong rare earth magnet is a different issue.
Ayisha
Contributor
LOL... I got the 40 pound ones, but I have six of them. There are three of us (me, my brother, my mom) diving on our next trip.
But your questions have given me an idea! I have equipment at work for measuring magnetic fields and I'll be there on Tuesday. I'll bring some of my 40 lb magnets with me and take some measurements. I'll post results here.
I'm not sure how strong a magnetic field has to be to wipe out a mag strip on a credit card, but we should be able to look it up. We can then get a ballpark idea of how far the magnets will need to stay away from credit cards.
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