Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Scuba Diver Magazine. My name's James and I am Scuba Diver
Magazine's man in Miami. If you don't know me already, I have my own YouTube channel
called Divers Ready, we create digital content with a single goal in mind, to help make you
a better diver. And I'm very happy to welcome you to this, the first in the series, the
first in our new playlist, that we're calling Scuba Basics, brought to you by Aqua Lung.
Breaking down for you the basic components of a full scuba set up, piece by piece, for
you, my universal scuba buddies. And this episode, we are kicking things off with fins.
Get it? Kicking things off. Nevermind.
Later in this video, we're going to be giving away one pair of Aqua Lung Storm fins, courtesy
of Aqua Lung. And, as Aqua Lung were kind enough to send me a pair, I took them diving
yesterday, so I want to share with you my thoughts on who I think these fins are meant
for. But first, and as with every video in this series, we're going to go over the basic
components of a scuba fin. So, first and foremost, all fins need a contact surface through which
the power, that's applied by your leg kicking, is transferred to the blade of the fin and
that is the job of the foot pocket. Now, a well fitting foot pocket is absolutely essential.
Too loose and you'll lose efficiency in the kick, too tight and you'll get blisters and
sores, and it'll just chafe your feet to pieces.
Next up, we have the platform. The platform is basically the fin's version of a shoe's
sole, and just like the sole of a shoe, the design there is to give you grip. You want
to choose a platform that has enough grip so you don't slip over on a wet boat deck,
but not such a high profile grip that it creates drag because when you're finning, drag can
be a real, don't say it, drag.
Then, of course, we have the blade. The blade is basically the reason we buy fins because
what it does is extend your natural propulsion device, i.e. your feet, out into the water
column. The blade of the fin can be made up of any different number of proprietary materials,
these ones were injection molded monoprene, but you want to choose a blade that has the
least possible parts, because every time there's a join between two different materials, that's
a possible failure point.
Now, choosing the stiffness of a blade very much depends on your body type. If you are
a powerful or stocky kind of person, you're going to want a stiffer blade to give you
propulsion through the water. However, if you're slight of build, having a very thick
or very strong blade can cause leg and muscle cramps. So, choose a fin whose blade is flexible,
appropriate to your body type. For example, I'm a great big rugby player. If I choose
fins that are too flimsy, I'll kick and kick and kick for days and not go anywhere because
I won't be able to create enough thrust to propel my gorilla frame through the water.
So, I need fins that are fairly rigid.
Next up, you have the ribs, which are these rails that run the length of the fin and connect
the blade to the foot pocket. The ribs give their fin their rigidity and act kind of like
a skeleton. The thicker the ribs, the stronger the fin, but also the more power required
to kick.
Then last but not least, you have the heel of the fin. This is probably the most defining
characteristic when you're shopping for new fins as to whether you want an open heel design
fin like this, or a closed heel fin looking something like this. Each separate design
have their pros and cons, so I'll take you through them now, starting with the closed
heel fin, otherwise known as the full foot fin. Advantage of full foot fins, or closed
heel fins, traditionally, is that they are super light, super flexible, there's no need
to wear booties so they're normally great for travel, you can just throw them in. And
they're normally pretty simplistic in design, which normally makes them cheaper. Disadvantages
of a full foot fin are, it can be hard, you might have to shop around to find ones that
fit you well because these fins are based off of your shoe size and unlike shoes that
are fit size by size, sometimes even in half size increments, full foot fins tend to cover
a range of sizes.
So for example, these ones are five and a half to six and a half US, which means if
you've got a size five and a half foot, they may be slightly too big for you. Or if you
have a six and a half, they may be slightly too small. And if the fit is not good, that
can lead to either blisters or the actual fin coming off in the water, which is the
last thing you want to happen. Now, because these fins are designed to not be worn with
booties, they're not particularly good for any kind of cold water diving because your
feet won't be insulated and your feet won't be protected. Now, traditional open heel fins
like these are designed to be worn with booties, which means you can get a better fit because
you're going to size your foot to a bootie, which are sold in shoe sizes, and then pick
the closest equivalent open heel fin for your size.
And the advantage of that is then you can change booties depending on the water temperature
and the thickness of the insulation you want on your feet. And also, for shore diving,
if you need to walk over rough terrain, it's great to have booties on to protect your feet
and then don your fins in the water, and certainly, open heel fins are easier to do that. The
disadvantages of open heel fins are that they are heavier, they are bulkier, and they take
up more space in your luggage, because you need to take the fins and then you also need
to bring booties with you as well.
So, these fins, the Aqua Lung Storm, are a little different. They are open heel fins
that are designed to be worn without booties. So, I was very excited to receive these fins
and get them in the water and try them out, but I was also a little bit nervous because
the idea of putting a bare foot into an open heel fin, I didn't want to blister my foot
up and shred them to pieces. So, yesterday I drove the 45 minutes south from Miami to
Key Largo and took them on a test dive.
So, my first and overwhelming impression of these fins, as soon as I got them out of the
box, is just how super light they are. Oh, wow. Ooh, these are super light. So, that
immediately turns my mind towards travel, and that means I need to weigh them against
the fins I currently travel with, which are the Mares Avanti Quattros. And by weigh them
against, I mean, literally, I weighed them. 1.769 kilos versus over two kilos, but then
you add the booties in there and that's 2.796 kilos. So these fins, when you consider that
you don't need booties with them, by the time you've weighed them against my current Mares
Avanti Quattros with a pair of size 14 booties, I'm saving a kilo in luggage weight, 2.2 pounds.
That's huge, to be able to make one simple switch of gear and save 2.2 pounds of luggage
is fantastic. How did they fit? Well, I got the biggest size available, which is XXL US
size, men's 11.5 to 13.5 and I wear a size 14 shoe.
And I've got to say they fit really well. There was no toe squeeze at all. I feel they
were secure around the midfoot and the strap wasn't so tight that it was like smushing
my foot up into the fin. They were super comfortable. Now as a big guy, I am super skeptical when
I see a fin that is so light, because to me light means flimsy and flimsy means no propulsion.
Now, how do they stack up kicking against the Mares Avanti Quattros, did I get as much
thrust? No. Are they meant to give me a massive amount of thrust? No. They're travel fins,
they're for my vacation dives where I'm not going to be working hard because hey, I'm
on holiday. Did they give me enough thrust to complete two very easy recreational dives
in Key Largo? Absolutely. Did I try all the different kick styles? Yes, absolutely.
Flutter kick, frog kick, I did some helicopter turns and they were no problem at all. The
one issue I did have was backfinning. I found that because they were so light, when I was
backfinning, I was actually drawing myself up in kind of a sloping direction. But again,
on vacation, on recreational dive profiles, how often do I need to backfin? So, obviously
these entered the market to compete with Scubapro's GO fins, which are also a single piece of
monoprene construction with an open heel design to be worn without booties. So, how do they
stack up against those? Well, I can see that Aqua Lung has two clear advantages. Number
one, they have grip on the inside of the foot pocket, which the ScubaPro GO fins do not
have. And I actually was on the boat yesterday with a guy who had ScubaPro GO fins, and he
told me they were really slick and slippery, and when he wore socks on the inside of his
GO fins, even more so.
I didn't have any trouble slipping with my foot in the foot pocket whatsoever. The second
advantage that these fins have over the ScubaPro GO fins is that their bungee is a lot more
robust. So, this is a single piece of rubber bungee, as opposed to the ScubaPro GOs, which
have a threaded bungee wrapped in a nylon weave. As for the platform, yeah, I did ... The
first time I stood up in these, on a wet deck, I did nearly face plant. I slipped and I had
to grab myself, but I believe that's just because they need to be worn in a little bit
and that only happened once and I learned my lesson. As for donning and doffing, super
easy on the boat. They're on in less than a second. I took them off and put them on
in the water multiple times. Very, very easy.
So, who do I think that these fins are designed for? Well, for me, they are an excellent choice
for vacation divers, resort divers to tropical warm water destinations. Obviously, if you
need your foot insulated, these aren't the fins for you. And I would also say, if you're
going to do a lot of shore diving, I would probably choose a bootie style fit, but I'm
very happy to add these to my fin collection, and I can definitely see me using them on
tropical warm water shoots, just because they save me a kilo of luggage. That's already
a great enough reason. Now, as I said earlier, Scuba Diving Magazine is giving away one pair
of Aqua Lung Storm fins to one lucky viewer. And if you'd like to enter that contest, the
details can be found in the description of this video below. Ladies and gentlemen, don't
forget to subscribe to Scuba Diving Magazine's channel, just hit that little button down
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And that way you won't miss any of our awesome content, particularly this Scuba Basics series.
Thank you so much for watching this first episode in our Basics series, sponsored by
Aqua Lung. Let us know in the comments below what pieces of gear you'd like us to make
videos about next. Also, I'll put a link to the whole Basics playlist right here and just
below that will be a link to my channel. So, if you'd like to see more content from me,
you can check it out down there. Until next time, my name is James, Scuba Diver Magazine's
man in Miami. Dive safe, dive often.