Rinsing and storing gear on cruise ships

[Ayisha]

But your questions have given me an idea!

Wow! I figured you must be in the field, haha. Thanks so much for all your help!

 

[yle]

Shoot, maybe I shouldn't have ordered the 66 lb ones... or any. Does anyone know how large their static magnetic field would be?

I did some poking around online. There is a website that explains all this (I found it just by googling "can I erase my credit cards with a rare earth magnet.") It was very enlightening... credit card magnetic strips are fairly hardened, magnetically. It takes a mag field of about 4000 gauss to disrupt the magnetic strip of a credit card. But the cheaper strips on gift cards or hotel room key cards are much weaker and can be disrupted by a field of about 400 gauss.

To give a rough idea, the strength of Earth's mag field is roughly 1 gauss.

The mag field right near the surface of a decent rare earth magnet is about 4000 gauss, and gets weaker very quickly with distance. The website posted the results of some testing: they basically had to rub the credit card with the magnet in order to demagnetize it. So their conclusion was that it is very unlikely that this kind of magnet could accidentally demagnetize a credit card.

They also said to look at the color of the magnetic strip: the black ones, like on credit cards, are the harder ones and unlikely to be affected by magnets. The brownish strips are typically on gift cards and the life, and they are the weak ones... keep them away from magnets!

So basically... keep magnets away from your cards, but don't worry about it if they accidentally get close to each other.

 

[Janie88]

We have our first cruise booked for Symphony of the Seas Oasis class ship. and plan on diving Cozumel, Coco Maya,Roatan and the Bahamas. We will be booking all our own dive ops. Any advice from experienced cruise /diver goers would be appreciated. We are bringing our own gear and a question is do we have to haul our gear down to the deck and after diving bring it back to our room and rinse in the shower hang to dry on balcony? we will be on the 14 floor with a balcony unit.

My husband and I have been on a few cruises and went diving on almost all of them. Some I booked myself, some through the ship. We never bring all of our gear but leave the wetsuit, BCDs and fins at home. We always bring our own mask, regs and computers. Everything else is rentable and the reputable places have decent gear. I really don't mind renting a BCD and fins for just a few dives. Same with wetsuit (if I even wear one - we're usually in pretty warm waters like Caribbean cruises and for those, I can almost always be okay with just board shorts and rash guard-especially for minimal diving!).

The most important pieces to have with me at any time are reg, mask and computer. Nothing to really "dry out" either so much much easier - no big stuff to haul around either

 

[Janie88]

I have never brought my own BC, fins or wetsuit on a cruise. Can't imagine hauling that stuff around and the added issue of drying out etc.! But to each his own....

I always research research research good/reputable dive ops in each port, and typically book my own trips. A couple of times have gone through the ship excursions, one time worked out great another time it was the typical "cattle boat."

Since I always book through a reputable dive op, I am comfortable renting their gear. No, the BC may not fit as great as my own, the fins aren't great, but then again, I'm not doing a ton of diving, just a couple. It's a great way to see if you'd want to return to that area for a dedicated week of diving.

The one time I will always bring all my own equipment is a live aboard - and I love those! Just wish I had the $$ to do more of them.

 

[Ayisha]

...So basically... keep magnets away from your cards, but don't worry about it if they accidentally get close to each other.

Thank you for looking into that. That's very helpful. I received my 60 lb magnetic hooks yesterday (which say 17 lbs vertical), and I also did some googling. Some things that can be done are placing the magnets in a thicker metal container, which isn't practical, or layered metal containers or attracting the magnets to a metal sheet.

Video of 1 magnet attracting the metal box:


Strong magnetic attraction with magnets on the bottom:

No attraction except in the corners where the north ends are::

With a Canadian coin attracted to each north end of 2 opposing magnets (ex 2 coins in between), there is no magnetic attraction discerned outside of the box:


So it seems a pretty safe way to carry/store rare earth magnet hooks is to attach them to metal (like coins) inside a small metal box.

@Altamira started all this when he said he accidentally erased data...

 

[yle]

So it seems a pretty safe way to carry/store rare earth magnet hooks is to attach them to metal (like coins) inside a small metal box.

Nice idea... I just paired my six 40-lb magnets and all three pairs fit perfectly in an empty Altoids tin!