Summer’s not over yet and there’s no better way to enjoy it than shore dives followed by beachy drinks and snacks while lazing with your toes in the sand. It’s time to gather your gear and your dive buddies and head out to the shore with our nine top picks for the perfect divers’ day at the beach.
Scuba gear dolly
Hauling dive gear can literally be a pain, but the Tank Dolly from Shark Bite Scuba easily ports your gear from the car to the beach. Made in the United States, you can get it with either all-terrain tires or sand tires. It will transport one or two tanks (or a set of doubles) along with your BCD, fins, weights, mask, booties, gloves, and more. Sturdy and compact, it also collapses for easy storage.
Ocean-friendly sunscreen
Slather on some sun protection, but make sure you aren’t hurting the waters in which you dive. Certain sunscreen ingredients last for a scarily long time in the ocean as toxins to coral and fish, but Stream2Sea’s founder (and fellow scuba diver) fashioned a list of sunscreen ingredients divers should avoid. Stream2Sea also offers an eco-friendly sunscreen with a neutral tint, sold in plastic-free tubes fashioned from sugarcane resins as well as bottles with 97 percent post-consumer recycled content. Sign up for our newsletter below and we’ll enter you in a raffle to win a special Day at the Beach Gift Bag from Stream2Sea. The winner will receive a Stream2Sea three-liter dry bag filled with products for divers:
- The Reef Sentinel Kit, which includes marine-friendly 1-oz sizes of their SPORT Sunscreen, SPORT Sunscreen for Face, Sun & Sting Gel, Leave-In Conditioner, Conditioning Shampoo and BodyWash, an EcoConscious Explorer Card, and a biodegradable Ingredients to Avoid Card
- Tinted SPORT Sunscreen
- Leave-In Hair Conditioner
- Sun Protect Safe Mineral Lip Balm
- After Sun Lip Balm
- Nourishing After-Sun Body Lotion
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Portable shower
Salt and sand don’t feel nice on your skin nor are they good for your gear. This portable shower from RinseKit can rinse both you and your dive gear off without pumping or batteries. The basic model will hold two gallons of fresh water for a six-minute shower while the Lux model will hold three gallons for a nine-minute shower. Fill the RinseKit with hot water from a faucet and it will remain warm in its insulated container. Fill it with cold water from a spigot and you can heat up the water at any time with a car adapter. The RinseKit will keep pressurized for at least a month. And best of all, if you remove the pressure chamber, the Lux model doubles as an insulated cooler for food and drinks.
Octopus beach blanket
When you’re done diving, keep the sand on the beach by resting on this hand silk-screened blanket in gauzy cotton or wrap it around your body as a sarong. It’s also machine-washable for quick clean-up.
Fishtastic beach chair
Kick back and relax on a fun, yet durable, beach chair decorated with fish or fish with turtles. You can adjust both of these lightweight, rust-proof aluminum chairs into five different positions including a flat position perfect for a quick nap. The Rio classic chair includes a towel bar and a padded carry strap while the backpack chair has a built-in cooler pouch, a towel bar, and two adjustable, padded shoulder straps.
Beautiful big-animal koozie
Keep your favorite canned beverage cool with one of these watercolor can coolers (aka koozies) from BlackStrawberry. The oceanic can cooler features orcas, dolphins, sperm whales, sharks, and blue whales on a light teal background while the monogram version features steel blue-colored sharks and jellyfish on a white background. Customize the latter with a single initial in stencil typography and your name written in script bordered by a navy-blue rope circle.
A tropical beer with a sculpin sting
Cool off with the ideal beach beer, which Ballast Point calls a Pineapple Sculpin. They added sweet, juicy pineapple to their gold-medal winning Sculpin, an IPA with hints of mango, apricot, peach, and lemon. The fruity flavors are refreshing while the hop intensity packs a bit of a sting like the sculpin fish for which the beer is named. Ballast Point sells this beer in bottles as well as cans making this tropical IPA beach-friendly. 7% ABV.
Fruit salad served in a watermelon fish bowl
Cutting or peeling fruit gets messy on the beach. Instead, serve up a delicious fruit salad in this watermelon fruit basket carved into a fish. It looks fancy, but the National Watermelon Promotional Board notes an easy trick with a melon baller that makes quick work of the decoration.
Cookies made just for divers
The sweetest of treats to end the day, these sugar cookies from Holly Fox Design will wow any scuba-loving crowd with their octopus, jellyfish, and bubble shapes. Choose a blue and aqua color palette, pink and purple, or your own unique color combo as this “color-loving, graphic-designing, sugar baker” will even match specific Pantone colors.
