Rinsing regulators

[hnladue]

OK then you rinse your gear in fresh water?? You mean lake water?? That fish pee in??? So therefore you're washing you regs in fish pee.

 

[freediver]

OK, stop it! Urine big trouble if you continue to stream this nonsense. I refuse to "waste" my time.

 

[DBailey]

First, your second stage will not be sterile at any point during a realistic dive. I bet you jump in the water, take the second stage out of you mouth and let it dangle in the "oh so clean" ocean/lake/quarry water while waiting for everyone else to get in the water. Lets not forget that all the creatures in the ocean/lake/quarry are peeing and pooing in that very water. Not to mention the bacteria, germs, and what not that are in the water itself. I know many people here also test their alternates at depth; therefore, even if you keep your primary in your mouth the whole time at the surface, these people take it out to test the other while exposing it to the aforementioned water. Let's stop tossing the word "sterile" around in this conversation since during a dive your primary will not be sterile or "clean" for that matter.

Second, if I saw someone peeing in the rinse tank, I wouldn't rinse any of my gear in it. Knowing that water has some contaminates in it (pee, bacteria, etc.) doesn't bother me as much as salt encrusted gear. Some gear gets more throughly rinsed in water (that I hope) is cleaner than the rinse tank. Granted, I cannot attest to the cleanliness of the hotel room water in some of the countries I have visited. It may have more bacteria and germs in it than the "pee water".

Going back to the dishes conversation, would you fell comfortable in just dunking your dishes in the ocean then eating off them?

 

[Hank49]

Going back to the dishes conversation, would you fell comfortable in just dunking your dishes in the ocean then eating off them?

NO way. I'd wipe the seawater off with yesterday's T shirt, or someone else's clean one if they weren't looking.

 

[pilot fish]

I normally dunk my regs as I get off the boat and then wash the mouthpieces well when I get home or back to the hotel, rubbing with soap and warm water. I figure it's more important to get as much salt off as soon as possible.
Quite honestly I've smelled much higher concentrations of pee in my regs on those occasions when my regs stayed in my dive bag on the boat overnight and other people's bags were placed on top of mine, dripping the pure stuff.

The reason you smell it more when you leave your bag on the boat and other bags are piled on yours is that the pee percolates onto your reg. Percolated pee is stronger.

OK, let's be honest now fellow divers, now that this has been brought to your attention [ did you ever think about this question until now?] will you still dunk your reg in the pee drenched rinse tanks? Think about a crowded dive boat, and the boat that came in before it, and estimate how much pee that is, how many people that is. That's a lot of exposure to many different pee sources. And you want to share air with me????

 

[WJL]

jonnythan,

I admit that your thought experiment creates some unpleasant associations, but here's a real experiment for you: take a drop of water from the water you dive in and look at it under a microscope. You will see literally millions of little live and dead things inhabiting that drop. If you're real concerned about hygene you should worry more about the water in the ocean than in the rinse tank. And since we're all diving without dying of the plague right and left it just shows that there isn't much to worry about in that department. Your immune system can handle the load just fine.

But I still rinse off my regs again when I get them home. So I'm an inconsistent hypocrite.

 

[jonnythan]

jonnythan,

I admit that your thought experiment creates some unpleasant associations, but here's a real experiment for you: take a drop of water from the water you dive in and look at it under a microscope. You will see literally millions of little live and dead things inhabiting that drop. If you're real concerned about hygene you should worry more about the water in the ocean than in the rinse tank. And since we're all diving without dying of the plague right and left it just shows that there isn't much to worry about in that department. Your immune system can handle the load just fine.

But I still rinse off my regs again when I get them home. So I'm an inconsistent hypocrite.

I'm not concerned about hygeine.. but it does concern me that I could be rinsing my reg in a concentrated solution of urine and human filth

I don't see the point of rinsing it to begin with.

 

[OE2X]

Travel to any third world country and the drinking water will be worse than the rinse bucket.

 

[cmalinowski]

We're supposed to rince our gear? Uh oh.

 

[cmalinowski]

NO way. I'd wipe the seawater off with yesterday's T shirt, or someone else's clean one if they weren't looking.

That's it. I'm peeing on my dishes from now on.