Ladies and gentlemen, what is going on? Welcome Scuba Diver Magazine. My name is James and
I am Scuba Diver Magazine's man in Miami. I'm a professional dive instructor and digital
content creator, and Scuba Diver Magazine have brought me over from my channel Divers,
Ready to make content with one simple goal in mind: To help make you a better scuba diver.
And today I'm super excited because I get to let my OCD freak flag fly. We are making
a video all about travel packing, and, oh boy, am I the right guy to make this video.
And coincidentally, my channel Divers, Ready is heading to Bahamas this week, so I'm going
to be packing for a trip anyway. This is me actually packing how I would pack to go on
a dive trip, and not just doing it for the sake of the video, so that's kind of nice
too. The trip we're going on, obviously, tropical
warm water. We're only going for the equivalent of a long weekend. You only to get see my
dive travel light, if you will. This isn't two weeks of expedition, cold water diving.
Obviously, when you're packing for your trip, you're going to want to consider the type
of diving you're going to be doing. And if you want to see our footage from our trip
to The Bahamas, I will put a link to that playlist in the description of this video
below, but for now, let's dive straight in with my do's and don'ts for how to pack for
a scuba trip. Starting with the do's. My first do for you
is, do lay all your gear out so you can visualize the amount of space you need and choose a
bag appropriate for the amount of equipment you need to bring with you. Don't go out and
buy the biggest dive gear bag you can find, and then just insist on filling it and cramming
it. That's not really an efficient way to travel. I like to think about the type of
diving I'm going to be doing, any specialist gear I'm going to need. Lay it all out, and
that way you can visualize exactly what you need to bring with you and then pick an appropriate
size piece of luggage. So for example, The Bahamas trip, we're going
to be doing recreational, shallow, warm water dives. I don't need a wetsuit. I'm going to
be using my travel fins, my travel BCD, and it's going to be a super lightweight trip.
If I'm going for like four weeks in Nova Scotia, it's going to be a completely different story.
So my next do is to use a packing checklist. Now, my friends make fun of me because I have
checklists to make sure that I've got all my my checklists in order, and they tell me
that I can take pills for that these days. But then when my friends on the dive trip
have forgotten an item, who have they got to come and see to borrow from? That's right.
Big J. Now, before you travel, do make sure that
you contact your operator to find out if they have DIN or yoke tanks available, and make
sure that your regulators are compatible, and check to see if you need to bring either
DIN inserts, if they'll work with their tanks, or if they have them there, or if you need
a yolk adapter, if you're diving a DIN regulator. Okay, so on to the packing. Do use your tougher
gear to protect your more fragile items. The first thing I like to pack are my fins, because
they're going to give rigidity to whichever bag I use, and then I can pack my more fragile
items around them. Nothing sucks more than showing up at a dive destination and your
favorite mask has got a broken lens. Then one thing I like to do whenever I dive
travel is to pack a mesh bag. They're lightweight. They fold up super small, but what I find
I can do then is when I get to my accommodation, I can decant all of my dive kit into the mesh
bag and use that to tote to and from the dive center.
Okay, let's move onto some don'ts. Now don't number one: Pack weights. Don't travel with
weights, seriously guys. It's 2019. But you'd be surprised. I shouldn't have to say this,
but when I was running a dive center in the Caribbean, we would see divers fly in from
Minnesota or Manchester, UK that were bringing lead with them. If your dive operator that
you've chosen to dive with on vacation can't supply you with lead, you probably shouldn't
be diving with them. The argument that these people would bring would be like, "Well, I
know the exact amount of lead that I need, and this is it." That's great. We also have
lead in that number and know how to count. My next don't, and this is one very close
to my heart so I apologize if I get a little teary eyed here is: Do not ever check your
regulators or your computer. I like to put my computer into my reg bag and then ... Look,
they don't even go in the overhead bin, all right. They're my carry on item, they're my
personal item, whatever you want to say. I don't let them out on my site. Forget about
it. Never check your regs or computers. I speak from bitter experience.
Another don't is: Don't bring too many tools. Here in South Florida, I'm diving into my
favorite dive centers, and in the back of my truck, I keep a fairly large toolbox, save
a dive kit, whatever you want to call it. When I'm going to go on vacation, I trust
that the operators I'm going to dive with will be able to lend me a wrench or a set
of Allen keys or hex keys to help me if I need to repair any gear. I don't feel the
need to pack up my entire work bench and travel with that. All I do is I take a very simple
stripped down version of a save a dive kit, and a few spare of rings.
The last don't I have for you, ladies and gentlemen, is: Don't forget your chargers.
Everyone packs their cameras and their torches and their computers, and then, "Oh no, I forgot
the chargers." And they go dead during the trip. Don't presume that you'll be able to
get those specialist items wherever you're traveling to. Make sure you pack them. I recommend
investing in a good cable organizer, because again, OCD. That way you can make sure you've
got all your chargers laid out for any electrical device, and also spare batteries for anything
that's user changeable. There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. I
hope you found this do's and don'ts video useful for your next dive travel trip. Let
me know in the comments of this video below if I missed one of your favorite packing hacks,
because I love to learn from you guys as well. Right over here, I'm going to put a playlist
to all our other content here on Scuba Diver Magazine, and just below that, I'll let the
YouTube algorithm pick the video that's next best for you. Until next time, my name is
James. This is Scuba Diver Magazine, dive safe, dive often.