Wetnotes 2016

[stuartv]

I did my first dives last weekend where I really needed to carry wetnotes. I have had a $6 wetnotes notebook from Dive Gear Express, which I haven't really used.

DGX Underwater Notepad | Dive Gear Express®

I like the DGX notepad because the pages are perforated, so you can tear them off cleanly. But, after diving with it, I realized that having something nicer would be better.

I searched around here and tried to figure out exactly what criteria I should be looking for and what brands. All the threads I found were years old, so I was hoping there might be something new out that wouldn't cost me $50 - 60. The criteria I came up with are:

Main priorities:

• clear pocket on the outside to store notes that can then be referred to without opening the notebook (e.g. a deco dive plan)
• pencil holder pockets on the inside that will work to hold a Croquis mechanical pencil

Additional priorities:

• Cordura cover
• bungee or elastic to hold it closed
• bungee or elastic to use as a bookmark for the pages on the inside, so I can open it directly to a clean page to write on, even if I'm wearing gloves.
• hard plastic panel(s) to make writing in the notebook easier without lumps from whatever is in the inside of the cover
• bungee loop for clipping it off to a D-ring or whatever. Big and stretchy enough to not necessarily have to unclip it to look at it
• bungee that holds it shut can also be used to hold it open

I looked at a bunch online. They included:

Halycon - Diver's Notebook - Halcyon Dive Systems
Saeko Dive (aka Innovative Scuba) - INNOVATIVE SCUBA CONCEPTS | SL1520 UNDERWATER NOTEBOOK
ScubaPro
Hollis
LIght Monkey - Light Monkey Wet Notes *Buy Light Monkey at DIVESEEKERS.COM 888-SCUBA-47
Dolphin Tech
EZ Divegears
Dive wRites - didn't like this one because of the velcro flap to hold it shut.
Piranha
Ritchie
OMS
DIR Zone
Divemarine

I couldn't find info online on the Oxycheq one, though people here on SB talked about it (years ago).

Then I went to my LDS and looked at what they had in stock. They had:

Light Monkey
Saeko Dive
Hollis (if I recall correctly)

A surprising number of the ones I looked at, including online, turn out to not have a clear plastic window/pocket on the outside. That ruled the Hollis out. Personally, I would think somebody would wise up and put a clear plastic pocket on the outside of the front and back. I mean, why not? (other than making it harder to put their logo on where people can see it - I suppose if I spent $60 for one with a big blue H on it, I might want that to be very visible to the people around me) But, I didn't find any like that.

I also did not find any with a bungee loop that would hold it open. Not sure why. Seems like that could be handy. The Dive wRites velcro flap could maybe hold the cover open, but it wouldn't keep the pages from flopping around. And it seems like the velcro flap would not hold it shut as reliably as a bungee loop will. Plus making it more bulky.

Comparing the Light Money and Saeko side by side, these are the things I noted:

• Light Monkey has a bungee loop on the top to clip it off. The Saeko has a hard plastic D-ring sewn into the bottom. I like the bungee loop better than the D-ring. But, I like it on the bottom, instead of the top. I suppose I could cut the D-ring off of the Saeko and thread a piece of bungee through the loop that currently holds the D-ring, if I really wanted to have the best of both worlds, so I guess I'd give the advantage to the Saeko on this.
• Both have a bungee that will hold it closed, but is sewn to the wrong side to use it to hold it open.
• The LM seems to be a bit heavier Cordura and the clear plastic outside pocket seems to be just slightly thicker than the one on the Saeko. But, I'd guess only 1 mil thicker or something like that. Advantage to LM on this, but not a big advantage, to me.
• The LM corners are rounded and the Saeko corners are square. I think rounded corners might be nicer, but I don't know that it really matters. The Halycon one has square corners like the Saeko.
• The edging/binding and sewing on the LM seemed inferior to the edge trim/binding and sewing on the Saeko. Yes, the LM was not as good on this aspect.
• The Saeko has pages that are bound the same way the pages in the Halcyon notepad are. I.e. individual mini zip ties. The LM pages are spiral bound. Neither are perforated. I think the Saeko pages would be cleaner when torn out. And you can add pages to the Saeko just by replacing the zip ties. When the LM gets low, you have to replace the whole pad, including any pages you might have wanted to keep. This definitely seems like an advantage to the Saeko. I'm thinking of using the first page or two for recording owner info and other (semi-) permanent info. Maybe emergency contact info. Etc..
• The Saeko also has 3 hard plastic panels. 2 on the front of the pages and 1 on the back. 2 of the panels tuck into the cover and 1 is there to be a hard surface to write on. The LM has no hard panels.
• The Saeko has a bungee to hold a pencil that is sewn into the bottom binding of the cover. The LM comes with a pencil and bungee that is loose and you tie it to the notepad's spiral binding, I guess. If you don't like the Saeko arrangement, you can always cut it out. But, you can't really sew a pencil leash into the LM, so I think this is another advantage for the Saeko.
• Both have an elastic strap that functions as a bookmark. On both, it is sewn into the binding of the back part of the cover, at the top near the spine. On both, the bookmark has some velcro on the end that hangs down to the bottom and mates to velcro sewn onto the binding at the bottom of the back cover.
• They both have a clear pocket on the inside of the back cover.
• The final important difference is that my LDS sells the LM for $45, which is cheaper than anywhere I saw it online. And they sell the Saeko for $18.55. The Saeko is all over eBay for $20.

I took the Saeko home.

The pencil pockets hold a Croquis pencil just fine. I kept the sewn-in pencil bungee but replaced the pencil with the one from the DGX notepad, which is definitely nicer - all graphite, I think. Not a normal wooden pencil. The sewn in bungee cap won't hold a Croquis and I'm pretty sure the bungee itself is too thick to fit through the hole in the Croquis cap. So, I used a separate leash, tied to the bottom ring of the notepad itself, to retain the Croquis and now I have two pencils in there. Or one, because two is one and one is none, right?

I hope this helps someone else who gets to looking for a wetnotes solution. I spent way too much time researching and shopping (and then writing this post...) to just benefit myself. LOL