I’ve been diving for years and have never once brought a drybag onto a boat with me. I just never saw the point. If I didn’t want something to get wet, then I didn’t bring it onto the boat. That’s pretty much been my motto for two decades.
But recently I had the pleasure of doing some cold-water dives in Tobermory, Canada. These were going to be some of the coldest dives I’d ever done and, for the first time, I found myself thinking…maybe I should bring some warm things along on the boat in a drybag. So, I did just that. After dropping to 100 feet (30 m) in 45 F (7.2 C) water, I started my surface interval by digging into my Cressi drybag to pull out anything and everything to help ward off the chill. Here’s everything I had in my drybag that day.
Gloves
Extremities chill quickly on a dive and tend to stay chilled, and my fingers and toes went numb quickly. Gloves are logical thing to toss in a drybag to help keep the feeling in your hands, and I was happy to have mine along.
Warm cap
My fleece-lined cap was a no-brainer to toss in there. With lake breezes gusting over cold water while on a moving boat, wind was going to be a serious issue. A warm hat can make a huge difference.
Sweater
I couldn’t put a huge sweater in my drybag, but I could easily fit a smaller, fleece sweater inside to put over my arms after I pulled my wetsuit down. A cold, damp wetsuit on the surface isn’t going to help keep you very warm without a lot of sunshine. And even with sunshine, peeling it down and putting on something dry and warm proved to be a much better idea.
For someone who doesn’t usually carry drybag, I couldn’t be happier that I did for these cold-water dives. And now that I know how easy it is to pop a few things into the bag (and how completely dry they’ll stay), I’ll probably start bringing one along more frequently. Do you take a drybag with you on your dives? What do you put inside?
