DIVING

How to Use a Dry Bag for Scuba Diving // Heavy vs. Light Dry Bags

On January 2, 2020
By Kimberly

Somehow, when I began diving, I had it completely backwards of what was the purpose for a dry bag for diving when you are traveling, so I wonder who else has it all wrong too. I thought that the dry bag was to keep your wet gear from dripping onto your dry clothes. Bwahahahaha! (I was so wrong!)

Turns out it is exactly the opposite; you put your dry clothes into the dry bag, and let your wet gear inhabit the rest of the bag! Who knew? You probably did!

Tough Dry Bags

My partner and I both started out with some pretty tough and durable dry bags for diving. Those were designed for carrying just a few items on a dive boat, like a shirt shorts and towel.

Bill chose a really great sturdy tough bright red one from Divers Alert Network – DAN. It’s got a distinctive logo on the side, side handle, and a great carrying strap.

Mine is from ScubaPro, and I think I won it in a dive club raffle! So, of course I love it – it was free!

We used these bags a couple times on dive cruises, and then realized that we wanted something a lot more compact, lightweight, and that takes up less space.

Lightweight Dry Bags

We were on a dive trip in key Largo, stopped at West Marine, and found the perfect solution, the Sea2Summit lightweight dry bag.

These bags weigh under one ounce – one ounce! They come in a variety of sizes, and you can even choose different colors and sizes. They come in black, apple green, Pacific blue, red, and yellow.

Sea2Summit bags are so compact that you can slip one anywhere in your dive bag and it doesn’t take up much more space than a piece of photo copy paper folded would take up.

Sectioned Dry Bag

Another interesting take on the dry bag is those that have two sections.

I wanted to find a mesh bag for when we travel. Let me back up. We travel with all of our gear in a rolling bag, and when we get when we are going, all the gear comes out and goes into the mesh bag. All of our clothes then go into the rolling bag so they are still portable and kept dry. Then we operate out of the mesh bags for the duration of the voyage. This is for road trips in the car, and cruises when we know we have shorter transits to the dive site.

I really really liked Bill‘s dive bag by Deep Outdoors, and we kept looking online to find one just like it. I particularly admired the huge D rings at either in that allow it to hang up and drop dry, or to help you pick it up from the sides. However, that exact bag is out of production. But!

Found It!

Eventually, we found a mesh and dry bag for diving manufactured by the same company on eBay, but it wasn’t quite exactly the same. It’s also made by Deep Outdoors, and it fantastic. All the best of both worlds!

It has less mesh, and it has flaps on the outside for storing something long like dive fins. The clasps for the straps run through these, and actually slip out of the straps every time I unclasp them. However, I can modify them and put in a few stitches to hold them in place.

Half the bag is dry bag, and half the bag is mesh bag. The inside sort of squishes one direction or the other, so same volume either side.

It’s an interesting concept; you aren’t locked into all-mesh or all-dry bag, and it’s completely adjustable to changing needs.

As we travel some more, I’ll figure out how best to use this awesome bag! If anyone has any experience with equally-divided wet/dry bags – let me know! What do you like about it? What aggravates you? What’s the best way to fully utilize the divided sections?

You Can’t Bring Toxic Sunscreen

But you can bring reef-safe Sunscreen and Mask Defog that’s safe for water, marine life, and for humans! Stream2Sea have the only reef-safe sunscreen tested on fish. Plus, it comes in biodegradable sugar cane resin containers, so it’s a double win for us and the environment.

No matter where you plan to dive, whatever you put on your body will eventually find its way into a waterway, river, lake, stream, or ocean.Paragraph

Here’s an easy way to do your part in saving our oceans. Do your research! Then order reef-safe mask defog, sunscreen and hair products at Stream2Sea.com, use my code “KimW” for 10% off. AD: affiliate links used.

To Extend the Vacay, Reduce Stress

Stay at an Airbnb at your port the night before! This is not the time for rushing around, possibly missing your boarding time due to a delay.

So, here are two Airbnb discount codes. Try either one! The offerings from Airbnb change every couple months, so use whichever gives you the best deal. You can only use a code one time, so compare, choose whichever gives you the best deal since they change periodically, and make it count!

As of today, this one, Airbnb says, “Kimberly gave you up to $55 off your first trip.”

Also today, this one, Airbnb says, “Deep gave you up to $415 off your first adventure. I’m ready to book from this one right now! I’m thinking it’s a computer glitch – so jump on it fast!

Today, this one from Uber: This link currently is for $2 off first 3 rides, however, this also can change – sometimes it’s $5 off your first ride.