- Hi, esteemed fans, and welcome back.
In this video,
I'm going to do a little add-on to my series
on cleaning and looking after your core equipment.
After routine cleaning for regulators and BCDs,
we did drysuits,
and so following on from that,
I'll be offering some hints
on the best ways to store your drysuit,
and while I'm at it, your wetsuits as well.
For those here for the first time, my name's Mark.
I'm the editor-in-chief of the "Scuba Diver" media brand,
and welcome to the "Scuba Diver" YouTube channel.
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Now, let's dive into that video.
(upbeat instrumental music)
So, when I'm ready to pack up my drysuit,
I will lay it out like this,
and then I start at the feet end
and I'll just very lightly roll it.
So, I don't feel too tight.
I'll just gently roll it.
I do it with zip done up.
Now, I know some people will leave the zips open,
but I've always done it regardless of
whether it's a plastic zip or whatever it is a metal zip,
I will always do it zipped up.
I just think it makes them stronger,
but everyone to their own, but that's my way of doing it.
So, keep rolling.
So, you get into a nice loose ball like that,
and then I put the arms in
so you got a nice little parcel,
then if you're putting it into its bag,
you're all good
just to slot it in like that.
Now, what I tend to do is
if I am putting it into its bag to store,
which is how it normally is, to be fair,
is I will leave it like that
with the bag just slightly open,
let a little bit of air circulate.
Now, it's fully dry before I put it in there
but I always just find that leaving it open,
if there's any residual damp or anything,
I just find it better.
Now, if you've got the space,
then you're better off, actually,
instead of just putting into a bag, hanging it up.
Now, we've said before these type of hangers,
which are the ones where you slide the boots in
and then it hangs,
so if you've got space
and you can hang it off from one of them, fantastic.
If you haven't got room to use that
but you've got a normal hanger,
then you can get,
if you can get the largest normal hanger that you can get
and wrap a towel around it so that it makes it
around about this sort of thick across shoulders
and then put your drysuit in as you'd hang up
a normal jacket or something,
you won't get any marks into the shoulders then,
but you can hang it up safely.
But again, you need the space.
Not everyone's got that room in their garage,
so I will always pack it into here,
and I've never had any problems.
Right, so that's drysuits.
Let's move on to wetsuits.
I've got my wife's wetsuit here, her five-mil,
but this is the same technique I use
regardless of whether it's a three-mil,
a five-mil, a seven-mil, semi-dry whatever.
So, very similar to the drysuit in that I will not fold it,
because if you fold it, you can sometimes,
if you fold it like this,
you can sometimes get areas of neoprene that get crushed
and then you will get lines of cold
across where the neoprene's become too crushed.
So, what I tend to do, again,
is just very loosely roll it.
And again, arm's over at the end,
so then you end up with like a nice little parcel,
and then I have one hold I keep all our wetsuits in.
So, they all just basically, I'll just pile into there,
and then depending on where we're going
and what temperature we're going to be in,
we can take our three-mils or our five-mils.
Again, if you've got room, hang them up.
Again a padded hanger is a good idea,
so just, again, get an old hanger,
wrap a towel around or something,
and then you can hang it up as normal,
then it will not cause any problem
under the shoulders and stuff here.
But depends on how much room you've got.
I've folded mine up the entire time I've been diving
and I've never had a problem where I've got them in storage.
Main thing is make sure to fully dry
before you put them away.
What are some of your hints and advice
for storing your drysuit and wetsuit?
Any neat tricks to pass on to your fellow divers?
Leave your comments below,
and if you have a question, fire away,
'cause if we can't answer it,
maybe someone in our community will be able to.
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As always, stay safe,
and if you're heading out on a dive, enjoy.