Greetings,
I am back from my diving vacation in the Phil. I am a relative newbie with just 62 dives and I have never used the open heel adjustable kind of fins they use here in the Phil before this. All my earlier dives have been with closed full foot fins till date which have only resulting in the normal minor blistering one can get from any bad shoe.
I got the low height booties to wear at every dive shop and unfortunately the straps of these fins dug into my achilles tendon area above the heel so much, the skin peeled off in a coin sized oval on both feet, on the first day itself. I kept diving over the two weeks of my vacation every few days and this meant the wounds on both feet soon no longer looked like a superficial friction blister - coupled with the fact that I was in the water about 3 hours a day and then showering 3-4 times a day regularly, the wounds began looking like deep flesh wounds (although probably not really in medical terminology - maybe one step short). The one time I got some perverse pleasure from it was when my Filipina girlfriend recoiled in utter horror when I opened the band-aids and showed her the wounds while dressing them with a fresh set (even I went ugh! when I saw their state :shocked2
. Otherwise I am in no mood to suffer this misery again on my next trip. Today when I opened the band-aids they were smelling ..
What did I do wrong when wearing these type of fins? I am sure I did not tighten them too much because my toes got bent in the booties everytime I tried that. The DM on my last day of diving commented that I either needed taller height booties or I was wearing the straps too high. So I did get tall booties on the last day of my diving but it was already too late. But I thought the curve above the back of the heel was the natural location to adjust and tighten the strap.
Anyone else suffer this problem? Is it common, or am I doing something plain wrong in the way I wear them?
Thank you.
--Pearlman
I am back from my diving vacation in the Phil. I am a relative newbie with just 62 dives and I have never used the open heel adjustable kind of fins they use here in the Phil before this. All my earlier dives have been with closed full foot fins till date which have only resulting in the normal minor blistering one can get from any bad shoe.
I got the low height booties to wear at every dive shop and unfortunately the straps of these fins dug into my achilles tendon area above the heel so much, the skin peeled off in a coin sized oval on both feet, on the first day itself. I kept diving over the two weeks of my vacation every few days and this meant the wounds on both feet soon no longer looked like a superficial friction blister - coupled with the fact that I was in the water about 3 hours a day and then showering 3-4 times a day regularly, the wounds began looking like deep flesh wounds (although probably not really in medical terminology - maybe one step short). The one time I got some perverse pleasure from it was when my Filipina girlfriend recoiled in utter horror when I opened the band-aids and showed her the wounds while dressing them with a fresh set (even I went ugh! when I saw their state :shocked2
. Otherwise I am in no mood to suffer this misery again on my next trip. Today when I opened the band-aids they were smelling .. What did I do wrong when wearing these type of fins? I am sure I did not tighten them too much because my toes got bent in the booties everytime I tried that. The DM on my last day of diving commented that I either needed taller height booties or I was wearing the straps too high. So I did get tall booties on the last day of my diving but it was already too late. But I thought the curve above the back of the heel was the natural location to adjust and tighten the strap.
Anyone else suffer this problem? Is it common, or am I doing something plain wrong in the way I wear them?
Thank you.
--Pearlman
