What Are Your Top Three Go-To's?

[Janie88]

Another way to go:

The Bang Wrangler (Purple)

I've tried something like this, does not work and pulls off

 

[laikabear]

1. Scopolamine patches for boat diving. One patch lasts 3 days. For a single day of diving, I cut the patches into 3rds. It says right on the package not to, but you can, and they work fine. Works a lot better than Bonine / meclizine IMO, but in the US it is a prescription. If you've ever been really seasick, it's not a feeling you want to repeat.
2. Lycra swim caps. I usually wear a hood, but I wear a lycra swim cap underneath to keep my hair "wrangled." TYR and Speedo make nice ones that seem to last forever. They don't pull your hair like latex swim caps do. In the rare cases I go without a hood, then I wear just the cap.
3. Water-based lube instead of talc for drysuit wrist / neck seals. Less messy and rinses right out. I just refill a travel shampoo bottle and keep it in a mask box with defog, sunscreen, and a few other items.
4. Someone already mentioned them, but a full-body Lycra rashguard for under wetsuits. Makes the wetsuit slide on a lot easier and provides some sun protection for when you have the wetsuit half-down or off after diving.
5. She-P - game changer for drysuit diving. If you dive in a drysuit and do long dives or more than 1 dive per day I highly encourage you to check it out. There's a Facebook group for advice / tips. It's so nice to drink coffee on the way to the dive site and then stay well-hydrated all day and not worry about having to try to deal with taking off your drysuit / undergarments in a small boat head. I even use it for shore dives where there are no facilities at the beach.

 

[Janie88]

1. Scopolamine patches for boat diving. One patch lasts 3 days. For a single day of diving, I cut the patches into 3rds. It says right on the package not to, but you can, and they work fine. Works a lot better than Bonine / meclizine IMO, but in the US it is a prescription. If you've ever been really seasick, it's not a feeling you want to repeat.
2. Lycra swim caps. I usually wear a hood, but I wear a lycra swim cap underneath to keep my hair "wrangled." TYR and Speedo make nice ones that seem to last forever. They don't pull your hair like latex swim caps do. In the rare cases I go without a hood, then I wear just the cap.
3. Water-based lube instead of talc for drysuit wrist / neck seals. Less messy and rinses right out. I just refill a travel shampoo bottle and keep it in a mask box with defog, sunscreen, and a few other items.
4. Someone already mentioned them, but a full-body Lycra rashguard for under wetsuits. Makes the wetsuit slide on a lot easier and provides some sun protection for when you have the wetsuit half-down or off after diving.
5. She-P - game changer for drysuit diving. If you dive in a drysuit and do long dives or more than 1 dive per day I highly encourage you to check it out. There's a Facebook group for advice / tips. It's so nice to drink coffee on the way to the dive site and then stay well-hydrated all day and not worry about having to try to deal with taking off your drysuit / undergarments in a small boat head. I even use it for shore dives where there are no facilities at the beach.

I have used Scopolamine patches for several liveaboard trips now, and I love them. As quoted above, they last 3 days. I've never had one come off in the water. My husband had one come off once. I used them the first time, was fine all week long of course, and then took it off before our last day and crossing back to Nassau in the Bahamas. A rough crossing and I ended up on the wrong side of the boat throwing up. Not an experience you ever want to repeat as stated above also!!

 

[lachica]

Another way to go:

The Bang Wrangler (Purple)

I had band wrangler when they were still a kickstarter if I remember correctly. I still lost it

So far for me the only thing that has been working is the Dive Buddy headband, and I got some from Etsy, and added the cord stoppers to them. That's really the magic adding that cord stopper keeps it on my head. Or I loop a ponytail or bun through it.

 

[Regulatrix]

This is more for shore/local diving, but we use those big blue IKEA shopping bags to dump all our wet gear into after diving. The bags fold down really small on the way to the dive. Afterward, the handles make the bag easily portable for moving the wet gear out of the vehicle for rinsing when we get home, and the bag keeps the SUV's way-back area basically dry. Has worked really well for us. Apparently, one can buy the IKEA bags from Amazon if you don't live near an IKEA store.

 

[Shvonne]

A buff or neck gaiter for my hair. I always use one, keeps it contained while diving. Also, pain free donning and doffing of my dry suit and hood.
Retractable gear clip for my computer/gauges
Spring straps for my fins, these are amazing!

 

[mermaid6601]

1. I braid my hair to prevent wrapping around the top of the tank and a buff. Stopped using products on my hair..just my choice.
2. Trolli’s…freaky weird commercial but get the juices flowing after having a reg in your mouth that long.
3. My cabana boy (aka my 34 year dive buddy) that brings me my after dive Skrewball.

 

[Kimela]

For the last two trips I have used hair clips to hold my headband on. (I was using a spandex cap and decided it doesn't pull my little hairs off my face well enough). Anyway, I use the clips facing toward my face and holding the back of the headband on. That way, when I jump into the water, if the headband starts to pull off my head backwards, the clips hold it firmly in place.

 

[Regulatrix]

I apply Stream to Sea's conditioner to my hair before the first dive, then a fresh water rinse, to protect my hair from salt water. Love being able to download my logs as soon as I'm done with the second dive using my Geo 4.0 computer (Oceanic) - though now I think I'll add the MacDive too! I love being able to have all the important info saved for my dives - weight, thermal protection, temp of water, what I saw. My dive buddy always says "it's not that important" but then will ask me "what was the temp for those dives?". Ha!

I tried putting Sea2Stream leave in conditioner to my hair on a couple of freshwater dives, and liked it enough that I took it with me to a recent week's worth of ocean boat diving. I dampened my hair with freshwater before the first dive and then ran the conditioner through my hair. Added more in between dives. I think it really helped with tangles and overall helped protect my hair. It's now a permanent part of my dive repertoire. Thanks so much for the tip!

 

[Regulatrix]

I have used Scopolamine patches for several liveaboard trips now, and I love them. As quoted above, they last 3 days. I've never had one come off in the water. My husband had one come off once. I used them the first time, was fine all week long of course, and then took it off before our last day and crossing back to Nassau in the Bahamas. A rough crossing and I ended up on the wrong side of the boat throwing up. Not an experience you ever want to repeat as stated above also!!

i really swear by Scopolamine patches. I get sea sick easily, and the patches have made a huge difference (the various Dramamine formulations are not enough by themselves). My last trip about 2 weeks ago (ocean boat diving), I tried an additional tweak mentioned by another diver here on SB, and it seemed to work even better for me than the patches alone: a patch plus a mezclinine tablet the night before. Obviously, consult your physician, but I felt much better wearing a scopolamine patch, and felt even better doing the patch plus the night-before mezclinine. YMMV.

I typically do not have a problem with losing the patches in the water, but it did happen to me once this last trip. My partner and dive buddy, who was also using scopolamine patches, for whatever reason had a much harder time keeping them on for some reason. We actually carried a spare patch for each of us on on each diving day and made a point to check whether the patch was still in place after each dive.