No garage, no hose. I live in apartment. Caring for equipment?

[2airishuman]

New to diving, and wondering about how its going to look for me trying to care for my equipment post dive when I come home from a local dive to my garage-less, carpeted apartment. Any tips on this?

Local dive sites are all about 2-3 hours away... do you generally find a LDS near your site and wash equipment there before putting back in the car? Or wait and do the post dive maintenance once back home? If at home, any tips for how to deal with cleaning and storage when I don't have the convenience of a garage to work from?

 

[2airishuman]

For boat dives, in general, the dive op should provide some sort of rinsing facilities either on board or at the marina. Not necessarily thorough enough but you can get off the worst of the salt.

I usually use a bathtub back at the hotel when traveling. At home, I dive fresh water so it doesn't matter as much.

If you're shore diving a couple of hours from home you might want to bring some rinse water.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Along the lines of what @lowviz described, I installed two brackets on either side of my stall shower in the guest room of my condo. A wooden dowel that I can remove when I have guests or otherwise want to use the shower extends between the brackets. I soak regs in a plastic tub in the shower. I have an adapter that screws into the sink faucet and mates with a garden hose. So I use a short garden hose to fill the tub, rinse BCs, and rinse out the shower when I'm done. Wetsuits and BCs hang to dry on appropriate hangers on the dowel. Obviously prevents use of the shower when gear is hanging.

Before I got married a few years ago and my wife moved in, I used to leave beer fermenters in that shower, as spills were easy to clean up with said hose. Who knew a stall shower could be so versatile?

 

[DiverDownD3]

Wife gets on me all the time about soaking my gear in one of our spare bathrooms and storing the gear in one of our spare bathrooms. She wants to get an outdoor shower installed. Which I'm fine with. She asked if I could store my dive gear in the garage, I just gave her that look without having to saying anything....lol

 

[lowviz]

...//... She asked if I could store my dive gear in the garage, I just gave her that look ...

Oh, you need an excuse? Use this: Spec Boot For Mk-15

The fairly extensive repair cost me nothing. (Well, she did work me like a rented mule for a couple of days. )

 

[KDAD]

Lowviz correctly described the desiccant as rechargeable indicating. Desiccant is the little baggies that say do not eat when you get a new pair of shoes, electronics or other things that need to be kept dry whIle packaged. The important thing is that the desiccant changes its color from a blue to a white or pink after it has absorbed all the moisture that it can. At that point it can be placed in an oven to recharge drying it out and bringing it back to a blue color and then reused.

 

[ffdiver]

Get a rinsekit, and wash your gear at the dive site.

 

[lowviz]

Hey Danny!

Yeah, that too.

BTW, not to hijack this thread, but are you teaching at Dutch this July?

PM me. Oh crap, no more PM's. OK, "Conversation" me.

I just checked, we aren't friends. Oh Jeez, that is gone too! I have to follow you and you have to follow me. Stupid. Let's both do that and call it a friend request...

I'll start.

 

[lamarpaulski]

I bring a fairly large water cooler type plastic cooler, fill it with very warm water, secure the lid, and use it to rinse most everything off right after a beach dive..dipping gauges, lights, computer and regs in while still attached to tank..small stuff gets immersed..rinse the rest as best using a cup. Nice to pour it over your head and into wetsuit too. I hit it before salt forms. Does a pretty good job.

You need to secure it in vehicle..I use a seat belt.

Back at the ranch I will throw anything i'm not happy with in shower at home and shower off myself and whatever else is needed. Getting fresh water in BC sometimes is a bit of a pain but all else is simple. Drip dry in shower.

Others idea to have second shower pole sounds good too.

 

[diversteve]

Does your apt. complex have a place to wash cars? Mine did.

Or depending on where you're diving - many shops or boats have a freshwater hose also.
So then one of these flushes the BC internally. DeepSeaSupply - Product Detail

Or if it's a Zeagle - Zeagle Express - BX Inflator - this also works with any same diameter inflator hose afaik.

DSS's is better since it flushes thru the inflator - on the Zeagle design you remove it to attach the hose.