Jay (00:02)
Welcome to the Dive Table. I'm Jay Gardner.
Sarah (00:05)
And I'm Sarah Miller. And today we're going to be talking about diving from your vehicles.
So funny story, Mr. J.
Jay (00:19)
Funny story, funny story or tragic story? I feel like I'm being set up here.
Sarah (00:24)
It's, well, it's funny now because everything went actually really well considering the situation. But for those of you who don't know, one of the reasons we're talking about this topic is because both of us, Jay and I, do a lot of shore diving. So we dive from our vehicle and we have two very different setups. Obviously, if you don't know, I live in my vehicle. So my van is my house and it is a Scuba van.
Like it has everything, if you're watching the video, this container right here behind me has two tanks, all of my side mount gear, a wetsuit, dry suit. I have a back plate and wing on the other side of the van. Like this van basically is full of scuba gear. So it's, and we'll talk about setup and how I have things working because it's a little chaotic.
to live in a SCUBA vehicle, especially a Ford Econoline. It's not a lot of space to work with, but this is my home and my work vehicle, basically. And I was staying with you, Jay. I was parked in your backyard and it was wonderful. And we got to do some really great dives together. And then I hit the road and I got to about Los Angeles. I was supposed to go to...
Jay (01:20)
Heheheheh
Sarah (01:49)
Catalina, but the weather was really bad. And so the dives got canceled and everything. So I was driving through and it was about 10 .30 at night and my van just died on the freeway. Yeah, on the freeway. So it was a little bit scary. Luckily I was able to pull over and got to a shoulder before it, cause there were like some
Jay (02:03)
Oh no. Oh, on the freeway, oof.
Sarah (02:18)
bigger spaces and then it got completely skinny towards, cause it was going off into an off ramp. I knew I wasn't going to be able to get up the hill from the off ramp. So I was like, okay, I got to get over into those little spaces cause this is like, I'm done. Right. And so I'm on the side of the freeway at night. People are zipping by me, you know, cause even if you have your, your flashers on the indicators or whatever.
Jay (02:23)
Mm -hmm.
flashers.
Sarah (02:47)
people don't slow down for that, you know? So I'm sitting there like, oh, okay, what's the situation? And I called AAA, they were gonna take an hour. And honestly, there wasn't that much space on the side to like get my van. I was just envisioning the whole process of trying to get my van onto some, you know, to get it towed. And I was like, there's no way this is gonna happen. This is so unsafe. And so luckily I popped the hood.
Jay (02:49)
No.
Sarah (03:17)
I looked at the situation, what was going on, and I had a leak in my radiator, so I was out of coolant. And I found out that night that my gauges for temperature, my temperature gauges, I don't think they work. I think they're just, she's an old girl, she's 96, she just thinks, I have the bare minimum here, okay?
Jay (03:32)
Mm -hmm.
Ha ha.
Sarah (03:45)
So I didn't know that it was overheating and luckily I have some coolant. So I threw some coolant in there with some water and like managed to get her started. And I got off the freeway, found a gas station and slept there that night.
Jay (04:03)
Wow. Wow, wow.
Sarah (04:05)
So this is what van life is sometimes. But I just thought I'd share that. I didn't tell you that before we started recording because sometimes that kind of stuff happens on dive days. And it's good to have everything that you need to have your vehicle function just as a vehicle versus all the other stuff we need for diving. If I didn't have that coolant, I mean, I guess I could have just thrown regular water in there, right? But.
I was just like, thank goodness, because I was a little nervous being on the side of the freeway. Like, it did not feel good. Yeah.
Jay (04:40)
Yeah, no kidding. That's a scary spot to be in. So did you end up getting it fixed or what was, did you find out what was wrong?
Sarah (04:51)
So it's funny because it's a brand new radiator and I've had nothing but problems since getting it in before Baja. I did have, shout out to AAA, love AAA, I did have a tow, like a long distance tow in my package for the year. So I did just get it towed to my dad's house. So I'm just like hanging out outside of my dad's house, which is nice.
and my brother's helping me figure out what's going on with the radiator. It's also some like mass air flow. I don't remember what that's called. It's like some kind of reader, you know, to like check how much air is getting into the system. So something's tripping the check engine light for that too. But yeah, it's been a whole thing. Luckily like.
It's been the best case, right? Like I was able to get off the freeway. I was able to sleep somewhere. It was a little sketchy, but nothing happened. So it was fine. And I was able to get a tow. So all good things. Highly recommend having AAA for your, you know, regular vehicle, your scuba vehicle, whatever it is. Like that has been so helpful. So yeah, that was my little adventure. Highly recommend.
Jay (05:54)
Ha ha.
Sarah (06:14)
being set up, you know, having the things that you need in case of breakdowns, jumper cables. I can't tell you the amount of times I've had to help people with that kind of stuff because they don't have cables in their car. So that's the little segue into our talk here. Yeah, yeah, because this kind of stuff happens all the time, you know, and especially if you're in a remote shore diving spot, like,
Jay (06:24)
Mm -hmm.
Diving out of your vehicle. Yeah, exactly.
Sarah (06:41)
having everything you need so that your car will function, like it's clutch.
Jay (06:46)
It is. It is. Yeah. No, and kudos to you for having the coolant. Like you say, having the things you need to be prepared, uh, is so critical. It's so critical for anything, right? Even if it's a new RV, cool. I had to add, uh, tow chains actually to mine, uh, to my setup because I've, I have a big diesel truck and you'd be surprised how many times I've gotten in a situation where someone needed to be pulled out of something and it wasn't me. It was someone else, you know? Yeah.
Sarah (07:01)
Oh, yeah.
Yes, you are the good friend to have for sure.
Jay (07:15)
Yeah, so there's things that you learn over time to just have in the truck or to have in the vehicle and coolant being one of them, a fix a flat. I always carry the little can of fix it flats in there.
Sarah (07:27)
Oh, smart. I just have a spare, but that's really smart.
Jay (07:31)
Spare is good too, but takes more time if you're in a hairy situation like you're in. You pop that fix -it flat on, it'll hold it to get to the next stop, and then you can get somewhere safe to do the tire changeover, is my strategy for that.
Sarah (07:34)
Right, yeah.
No.
Oh, cool. I'll have to look into that. Okay. What else do you, so let's, before we get into Scuba gear, what else do you carry? Cause I, like I said, I have cables, jumper cables that has been very, very helpful. Something I want to get for the van because I do live in it and I realized how probably reckless it is that I don't have this is a fire extinguisher.
Jay (07:54)
Yeah, cables check.
Yes. Yeah, that's a really good one to have. Yep. I have a little one in my, in my truck, um, as well. That's an important one, but you know, it's interesting. I bring that with me or I started putting it in the truck because I started carrying O2 in my truck for diving. So what it was, that was the connection to my mind. It wasn't, but of course it's great for everything. So having it there is good.
Sarah (08:11)
Yeah.
I need to get one. I think that's something I'm going to buy this week.
Okay, yeah. Yeah.
Everything, yeah, I've run into people who have had like major electrical fires and you have to have a special extinguisher for that, which I don't know that off the top of my head, but just in case anybody's looking for it, there's a special extinguisher for electrical fires.
Jay (08:42)
Correct. Correct.
Yes, actually there's a great story about that that, um, that I'll tell later about the different extinguishers, but it's a really good story. So remind me of that one. But yeah, so I bring, uh, yeah. So we talked about jumper cables, fix a flat, um, fire extinguisher, tow cables, uh, or, or, uh, uh, you know, towing, um, what do they call it? Well, it's not a cable, but it's basically a band. I forget what you call it, but it has the, yeah, the straps that has the hooks on one end. Um, I also have a little.
Sarah (08:54)
Oh, OK.
Okay.
straps or something.
Jay (09:21)
tackle box or I think they call it an ammo box that I got from, I don't know, uh, some outdoorsy place that was 10 bucks. And I put a bunch of, um, bungees and some tie down straps. And I found, uh, I even created a, uh, through like a metal wire, basically, you know, the metal, um, cable that you can on two ends of it, create loops. And then I use that on overnight stuff.
Sarah (09:34)
Mm.
Jay (09:50)
to run it through all the tanks and lock the tanks together in case I'm worried about the tanks getting stolen or something like that. So I keep that in there. I keep a gallon of water. I probably need to replace that more often, but I keep water in the truck just in case.
Sarah (09:53)
Oh smart.
Yeah.
I was gonna say, I always have water, cause I live in this, but that is a big one. Like I've run into a lot of people who have just needed water to put in like my situation.
Jay (10:15)
Yeah, mine always gets used for the girls. They're always like, I'm so thirsty. And then I ended up busting this water, but like I got nasty water, but that's all I got. And to stop the complaining, you're just like, here you go. And now I need to replace the water in the truck. So yeah, you know, that's the whole thing. And then, um,
Sarah (10:18)
Ehh
Yeah.
I have, you were talking about tow stuff. For those of us that are trying to be self -sufficient, I have the, you don't need to get the brand, actually don't recommend getting the brand name ones, but the Max Trax, you know, the grippy boards that you use to get, you know, to dig out when you're stuck in sand. Again, don't get the brand name ones, cause they're expensive and it says lifetime warranty.
There's a lot of caveats to that. I learned that from experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not worth it. Get the cheaper ones. But those have been a lifesaver when traveling around Baja and diving from weird places there.
Jay (11:04)
if it's Tuesday and it's sunny outside.
Yeah. Yeah. If I kind of what I mentioned, all that stuff's kind of just standard. But if you're going, cause I'm not, you know, in the same situation as you, I'm, I'm able to kind of come back to the house and load up things. I think my, I might need, but wheel chocks is another one. Um, I have a couple of sets of wheel chocks, a heavy and a light. Uh, and, um, the other thing that I like to bring with me, and it sounds silly, but, uh, is it's called, uh, Oh God, what is it called?
Sarah (11:24)
Yeah.
Mm.
Jay (11:49)
Gooby gone, I have to remember the name of it. It's a little bottle of this amazing smelling orange citrus hand wash. And it's got the grains in it. Like I think it's not sand, it's something else that's in it. And I'll tell you, when you go out and you're working on the truck or something goes wrong or whatever, your hands get full of grease and you don't want that to come into the truck. And so I have just a little squeeze bottle right next to me at all times in the truck. I can squeeze on my hands.
get all that grease off and then pour a little water over it and I'm fine to get back in the truck and keep driving. So it's a little itty bitty tricky thingy that I've stuck in the truck for a long time and it works really well. I've used it more times than not.
Sarah (12:29)
No, that's smart. Yeah, that's really smart. I have a sink, so I don't think about those things. But that's a really good tip. I like that. I like that.
Jay (12:34)
Yeah!
called fast orange, fast orange. I just had to look it up. Fast orange is the one that I really like.
Sarah (12:45)
Okay. The other thing that I think is clutch for now kind of leaning more into the dive items, I like having a cooler or like I actually have a fridge and just being able, I know I'm so bougie, but it's key. Cause then you have like, you know, fresh food, you have snacks or whatever. Like when we went diving, we did our dive meetup.
Jay (12:58)
So nice.
Sarah (13:14)
What was that a couple of weeks ago? You brought a cooler of drinks and that was lovely, you know Just to get back and have a little bubbly water. I liked it. This is non Car related as well, but I have one of these old -school Stan Lee's and I'll just like it's a giant thermos for anyone who's not watching the video I but I usually before Diving I'll just boil a ton of water so that I can have hot tea. I
after a cold, especially cold water dive, it's nice to just sort of pour it and have it be ready.
Jay (13:50)
You are bougie. You've got this all worked out. Look out.
Sarah (13:52)
So bougie, yeah. How about you try a day in a life here? You would recognize how not bougie this is. I just very much appreciate the small, like the little, what is it? Like comforts, right? Like I don't have a lot of comfort in my space, but like the few things that I appreciate, I make sure to have, you know? Hot drinks is one of them.
Jay (14:01)
hahahaha
Yes.
Yeah, absolutely. No, absolutely. No, I think that's amazing. Yeah. And for me, you know, my context has been more around expeditions. So it's kind of fun to take, you know, a couple of trucks, load them up with a bunch of gear and go out to an exploration site that you have no idea what you're getting into. So it's kind of interesting because you have the combination of kind of off -roading.
Sarah (14:25)
So, yeah.
Mm.
Jay (14:47)
Uh, in some ways and, and not full off -roading where like people are trying to climb rocks and things. That's not what I'm talking about. No, we've driven through crazy river beds and, you know, dirt roads for miles and this, that, and the other thing. And so you have to be prepared not only from the diving perspective, and there are ways to do that as well for some of the more bumpy roads and things like that for securing gear we could talk about. But also from a vehicle perspective and what can go wrong there. And so it's a good thing to think about. Um.
You know, I think I was joking with you about.
Sarah (15:17)
Well, you're talking about, yeah, you're talking about a situation where you're stuck in a river, right?
Jay (15:22)
Yeah, no, we were, we literally, the only place to park was in the river, in the river bed. And it was, you know, it wasn't overflowing the tires, probably about halfway up the tire. And, uh, if you haven't, but probably most people haven't seen my truck, my trucks, you know, uh, um, it's a big truck, but it's not the biggest it's the 1500, um, size of the GMC, but it's lifted. And the reason it's lifted is for two reasons. One is for that kind of stuff. And two is because.
Sarah (15:37)
It's beefy. Yeah.
Jay (15:51)
And this is totally bougie, but it, I have it perfectly lifted so that my set of doubles in a flat parking spot fits perfectly on the tailgate for me to get into my double. So it's, it's like, I had to play with it just in the right spot. Of course, for people of your stature, it's way too high. And for people that are taller than me, it's too low, but for me, it's perfect. So, um, exactly.
Sarah (16:04)
That's smart.
Well, that's all you need. I mean, you're the one diving out of it the most. So, no, that's cool. And your truck also, because of that experience in the river, you said that you guys got stuck for a little bit, right? And so you ended up getting this newer vehicle so that you would have four -wheel drive. Yeah.
Jay (16:31)
Yep. Yep. Four wheel drive. Yeah. Well that was around the boat. Not, we didn't get stuck in a river bed, but when I used to have a boat, we got stuck on the, on the ramp pulling the boat out because we had lots of heavy gear in it. And the ramp was, uh, you know, if you've ever seen kind of more remote ramps, they get covered in moss over time. Yeah. And my tires were just spinning and I mean, it was, it was a little scary, a little hairy to get out. Um, but yeah, you know, the,
Sarah (16:37)
Okay.
Eek!
Yes, they're super slick.
Jay (16:59)
The truck for me is the perfect diving platform, an open bed truck for me. I don't like the closed bed in terms of the shells and things, because you can stand, like literally I was talking about being in the river bed. That was the only place to park. And we could all get in three divers into the back of the truck and have plenty of room to gear up, get our dry seats on, get everything together and keep our street clothes dry. And then get into all our stuff and step down into the river bed.
Sarah (17:03)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Jay (17:29)
get our gear in and walk right into the dive site. It was amazing. But I always get ready in the back of my truck. You know, it keeps the sand out of everything as best you can. It's a great platform for me.
Sarah (17:37)
Yeah.
Yeah, no, if I didn't live in mine, like the truck is the way to go. Like when I lived in Playa del Carmen, that's what I had to do the caves and the caverns and stuff. It's just like, it's the best way to go. For me, like, I like that, but I also, I like the privacy that I have because,
you don't really have to think about these things. I feel like I talk about this more often than I maybe need to, but I just never hear anybody talking about this. Like I have a toilet in my van, right? So like when you go to those remote places, a lot of time there's no bathroom, right? And like, it's not such a big deal if it's actually like really remote.
right? And you can just like go into the woods and like do your business or whatever, just pee and whatever. But a lot of places that I was diving in the Pacific Northwest, it was like off of highway one, you know? So it's like, where am I supposed to do that? You know? So that's one thing that I do like about a covered, like enclosed area. But I think what you're talking about, like the open bed, it's wonderful for like team diving.
Jay (18:46)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Sarah (19:02)
and just having the space for everybody to hang out and like have their gear and keep it all really clean. Cause that's, that's a challenge in here.
Jay (19:12)
Yeah. Yeah. And to your point, I mean, I think bathrooms are always a concern. If even for men, if you have to do more than, you know, number one, let's say, you know, toilet paper is a good thing to throw in there. Trash bags are a good thing to throw in there. Soap is a good thing to throw in like, like antibacterial soap. Leave no trace. Exactly. So yeah, exactly. Environmentally friendly toilet paper is a nice thing to have, but, but certainly I think.
Sarah (19:29)
Yeah. Leave no trace. Leave no trace. Yeah.
Jay (19:41)
Yeah. So I totally get the whole idea of having, you know, the privacy, not only for, for changing and things like that. And like you mentioned the restroom and, and all that. And I think there's probably a little bit of that, you know, male female thing going on as well, because like, you know, I'll put on my little surfer ripoff and that was given to me by the, someday I'll get a real surfer, but I put on that and try to, uh, you know, but I'm okay at being in my underwear in the back of my truck, you know, like that's one of those things, but.
I'm okay with except for there's a thing to look out for. If you're, if you're hanging out with people and diving with people that like to do a lot of video production, you do, if you're hanging out with Sarah, let's just put it that way. And, and you go to put on your P -valve before you do that, you need to check the truck for GoPros and cameras hidden all around. So, uh, hopefully that footage never sees.
Sarah (00:56)
If you're hanging out with a YouTuber.
It was not okay.
defend myself, okay? It was not hidden. I put it out in plain sight. I was getting just some footage of us getting ready for the dive or whatever. I think you just, you were in your own little world trying to get yourself set up. And then I realized that I was basically filming you. Don't you worry, that will never see the light of day. But yeah, you got to watch out for that. YouTubers are always, always recording things.
Jay (01:39)
Yeah, you gotta look out.
You gotta, I guess you gotta be on the scan for hidden cameras and otherwise and drones and everything else when you're, with that it's a whole new step to the P -valve situation is step one, check for cameras. Step two, go about your business. All right, I've got it in my head now.
Sarah (01:59)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Oh man, good stuff. So shall we go from top to bottom and talk about how we set up our vehicles and how we go about diving out of the vehicles?
Jay (02:06)
Yeah.
Yeah, that sounds great.
Sarah (02:19)
Let's do it. I'll talk about mine. Again, my situation is very like unique. I don't think there's, I haven't met a lot of scuba divers that live in vans. Like I can count on one hand, how many of them. And I have seen one setup that was specifically created as like a diver mobile and they lived in it. It's a cool couple from the UK, I believe. I met them in Monterey.
and they had a whole, like one of those super heavy duty pullout trailer type things and had like all their side mount gear, their rebreathers, like everything. It was crazy. Like it was the coolest setup I've ever seen. But that is not my situation. So I bought this, it's a 96 40 conaline. Like I said, nothing fancy. It wasn't expensive. It did have a small build. So the wooden situation.
Jay (02:52)
Yep.
Sarah (03:16)
But it was not made for what I use it for. It was made for weekend trips, right? So I had to sort of figure out how to secure things and to transport tanks because obviously my tanks live with me and they travel with me everywhere. So like I was saying, this container behind me is actually just scuba gear. So I have my tanks laying down.
sort of, they're like at an angle and it's not the best setup. I prefer something that you can actually like strap in, especially if you could have them standing. I would prefer to have them standing upright, but I just don't have the like space for that. Just because it would be nice to have them like locked into the side of the van, you know. But what I do,
do to make them safe and secure is I stack them and then I use my wetsuit to wedge in the spaces so they don't rattle around, they do not move, they are fully pressed into the space. But that's one thing that you have to watch out for when taking tanks. You don't want them rocking all over the place because that...
Jay (04:24)
Mm -hmm.
Sarah (04:40)
could be really dangerous. It could also lead to tank valves opening, right? And if you're driving, you're just like, you know, throwing air or throwing nitrox or, you know, expensive gases out into the universe and not using them. But the main thing is that safety bit, right? You don't want, especially if you get into a car crash, you don't want those things flying out at you and like causing even more...
Jay (05:08)
Mm -hmm.
Sarah (05:09)
you know, damage to the accident. So having them in this kind of contained area, I'm pretty pleased with. It's not the best situation. It's not comfortable to get them in and out because I literally have to lift them up and then out. So like, it's not set up to be nice to my body as I'm getting ready for a dive. But that's like the main concern that I have when it comes to transporting tanks is that they don't move.
Jay (05:38)
Mm -hmm, yeah. Yeah, and when it comes to loading and securing gear, I think is that first step. Certainly tanks are a really important one and in a truck. So I have a GMC Sierra and with the flatbed in the back, no cover. And so, you know, I've tried lots of ways to be able to stand tanks up and secure them through bungees and things, and it just never works in the way I want to.
Sarah (06:03)
Yeah.
Jay (06:05)
So I lay my tanks down in the grooves of the bed. And one of the things that it's really simple to do and you don't have to go out and spend money really on it is I took a pool noodle. I think that's what you call it, a little pool noodle, an old one. And I cut it in three equal pieces and I drilled a couple holes on the outside of those. And I used a piece of rope and tied it, you know, about an equal distance of a, and it was, you know, $2 just stick it in those grooves and put bottles between that. Cause you want to keep them from rolling.
Sarah (06:17)
Yeah, yeah.
Jay (06:35)
in the tank, in the, in the bed of the truck is you take turns and things like that. And then one of the issues I always have is, is how many, how much gear can you actually load? And, and so again, you can stank, stank, you can stack tanks. It was a combination of stack and tanks. So stank tanks, uh, up, uh, on top of each other, as long as they're secure again. And I've had, you know, four sets of doubles and four stages and.
Sarah (06:44)
Mm -hmm.
Jay (07:04)
of Deco bottles and things all in the back of my truck. But you have to kind of play the Tetris to stack it in a way that again, you're not crushing anything. You're aware of the valve. You're aware of how they'll ride on each other as they hit bumps and you know, scrapes each other.
Sarah (07:19)
Yeah, things like clips. Like for mine, when we were traveling, I had my sidemount clips on there. So making sure that those aren't getting smashed and bounced on, right?
Jay (07:30)
Yep. Yeah. So you just have to be a little aware of how that works. And then usually if I have multiple tanks, I'll take a tie down strap over the whole thing and just kind of cinch it down real quick so that there isn't a lot of movement in the back. Um, so that's how I handled tanks most of the time. And it is, it's important to think about an accident. If you get rear ended, uh, which direction is that going to go? So which, you know, what's, what's more dangerous, the valve or the tank.
Sarah (07:40)
Yeah.
Yeah. Mm -hmm.
Jay (07:57)
Um, and so thinking about those things, uh, you know, I'm not going to give a safety advice on the podcast, but you need to think through those things. I think through them and have my tank stored in a certain way. Um, so that if something happens, it has the least possible, uh, you know, chance of, of hurting me and my passengers. Um, and then, yeah, when it comes to gear, so we've got a bunch of gear, you know, whether you leave your back plate and wing and on the tanks or you put it somewhere else, all that stuff.
I've just gotten in the habit. I bought the tubs from Costco. They're little, you know, tubs with a, with a red or a yellow top. I think they're 10 bucks or something like that. And I just give every diver one. And I say, here you go. Load all your gear in that and make sure it can close. If you need to, fine. Um, and then those are stackable. And so if you need to stack them, you can again, cinch them down and then everybody, I just took a piece of blue tape and put everybody's name on them. So we know who's, who's are who's.
Sarah (08:36)
They were great.
Jay (08:56)
And I'm able to get, you know, four divers, actually five divers worth of gear in those things plus tanks in my short bed truck, if you stack it in the right way. And what's nice about those is when you take all of the stuff out and get dressed, you know, get your dry suit on, get all your gear ready and all that stuff. All your clothes and things can go right back into the bin because it's not wet yet and right back into the truck and secured down again.
Sarah (09:05)
That's awesome. Yeah.
Jay (09:24)
Another little trick of that I'll say is, um, you remember I was mentioning that little wire cable, the cable that I made out of from Home Depot for 10 bucks that I can lock those Costco bins. And I think all the other bins that are like some of them that have the snap on tops have little, um, holes through both the lid and the, um, the container itself that you can loop that through overnight.
Sarah (09:30)
Mm -hmm.
Jay (09:51)
if you want to include that in kind of securing that now granted someone has a pair of channel locks that can cut it, but it's at least another deterrent from your stuff getting stolen.
Sarah (09:58)
Well, and yeah, I mean, it is. Ultimately, if somebody wants to get into those, it's just plastic, right? So they can bust through the box. Yeah, easy. But still, like for the person that's just going through and wanting to grab something easy, it's not going to be the easy solution, right? It's not going to be the easiest thing to grab. So that's smart. That's really smart.
Jay (10:07)
They can break the top exactly. Yeah.
Sarah (10:23)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I have all of my scuba gear kind of tucked away, like we were talking about to have things secure, safe, things aren't moving around, but I do like to go free diving and snorkeling. So I have like my mask, snorkel, free diving fins, rash guard, like things that I want more easily available tucked in other places in the van. And that way I'm able to just like grab and go explore whatever reef I've found.
Jay (01:43)
Yeah, that's a, that's a really good point there too of like, uh, again, I can kind of grab that stuff or not grab that stuff, depending on where I'm going. Since, uh, you know, the dive site isn't outside of my house unless it's called the pool, but I do think about packing those tubs in the reverse order of how I get ready. And that way it makes, it makes it easier to keep things kind of clean, you know, in your, in your station. Cause we kind of, you know, there, there can be three stations in the truck.
Sarah (02:02)
That's, yeah.
Jay (02:12)
of divers getting ready with their own stuff. And if there's five divers, then two people are just out of the truck. That's the way it goes. Or you take turns. And I like to kind of, so for example, one of the things, you know, fins are the last thing you're going to grab because you're not going to put them on until you're in the water, hopefully. Right. Hopefully you're not walking down the sidewalk in your fins. If you're doing that, stop like you're going to hurt yourself. So, uh, one of the last things to put on as well, once you have your dry suit on and your kit rigged up and everything done.
Sarah (02:26)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, right.
Jay (02:42)
is your gauge and your compass and your mask, my primary mask. So I stick my mask in the foot of my fins and I stick my compass and my dive computer in the other fin and pack it that way because I know that's the last thing I'm going to get out and I get it all out and then boom, boom on the wrist, put my mask over around my neck and now I'm kitted up and ready to go. So it's the last thing I'm going to do. So,
Thinking through the reverse order of things just helps you stay a little bit streamlined. And, um, and like I said, my whole goal in loading, unloading, how I pack, how I store things in the garage, all those sorts of things is to make it easy to go diving. If it's easy to go diving, I'm going to go do it. If it's hard and where's this and you feel disorganized and stuff's everywhere, all that, then not only does that impact, I think the.
Sarah (03:27)
Mm -hmm.
Jay (03:38)
you know, you mentally, it takes a toll before you get in the water, which is not good, but also just makes it hard to dive. It makes it uncomfortable. And if it's that way, then I'm not going to want to go do it. And so I try to make it as easy as possible. Are you laughing at me about this?
Sarah (03:54)
No, I'm laughing because of the state of my van on dive days. So I'm like, Jay would hate diving out of this van. Because like, I usually share behind the scenes on like Instagram, I'll post pictures of like the wreckage that is the van during dive days. But it's like a lot and you're totally right. Like for me, it's a mental load of like before the dive, it doesn't feel too bad. But when I'm dealing with all the wet gear and we'll get to that part after this, but like.
Jay (04:01)
Hahaha!
Sarah (04:23)
It's just, it's a lot. So it's good to stay organized when you can, but then there, sometimes you're dealing with such a small space. It's like, there's nothing you can do about it. One thing that I have and that I think is helpful for anyone who doesn't have a truck is to have a changing mat. So that's something, you know, we talked about having that space that you can like get ready and whatever, and it's maybe not so easy for me to get ready inside. I just put that changing mat outside and I can stay nice and clean.
and have all of my stuff kind of laid out there. And that's been a game changer. Cause I did, I think my first, I don't know, six months or something with the dry suit without a changing mat. And I was just like awkwardly, you know, like trying to put everything on without touching the ground and like trying to keep things clean. It was a mess. So that's another really important piece of equipment for like getting ready.
Jay (05:17)
Yeah. And to that point, um, you know, you certainly can go buy one and you want to make sure it's a non -slip. It's usually a piece of vinyl, right? Or you can use an old vinyl piece of vinyl as long as it's not slippery, you know, just throw it on the ground. But another little hack that you can use for there is carpet stores are constantly throwing out samples. Just, you know, new carpet comes out, I guess. I don't know the carpet industry, but they're, they're getting rid of samples or we're giveaway samples. And so you can have a couple samples for free.
from a carpet store from Home Depot or something, or even I've seen some of the fake grass stuff for people. You can go to Home Depot or to a carpet store or whatever and probably get all that stuff for free. You don't need to go spend money to get some of those things. And so that's a nice little hack. I like to have those little pieces of carpet actually in the truck as well, because it keeps the sand off and water off of your socks when you're putting them on. If you pull them out at the right time.
Sarah (05:53)
Yeah, surfers love the fake grass.
Mm.
Jay (06:16)
So it's a nice little hack that yes, certainly if you have the money, you can go buy one. I think even DUI includes them in their dry suit packages, which is pretty cool. I don't know if it's included or not, but maybe, maybe not. Some companies do, but a piece of vinyl works, an old carpet works, a welcome mat works. Any of that kind of things work as long as it's slip proof, because you certainly do not want it to be wet and slipping around when you're on there, but it's a really good call out. Yeah.
Sarah (06:28)
Yeah.
Yeah, that sounds unsafe. Yeah. So let's talk about getting like other things that we do to get ready to go. So like something that's really important for me talking about keeping things clean is setting up. So like, and I used to do this out, I used to dive out of a Toyota Corolla. Okay. So I've been dealing with like non -ideal dive vehicles my whole life. Right. So like,
setting things up so that once I'm in my suit or if it's after the dive, I can easily access everything I need. So I make sure that I have like a water bottle right next to the door. I have my hot water, my tea, my coffee mug like right next to the door. I have a little shower bag, you know, one of those gravity camping showers, right? It's just like a three gallon shower bag. I have that.
Jay (07:33)
Mm -hmm.
Sarah (07:37)
full of water so that if I'm in a place that doesn't have a shower where I can rinse my gear, like I can just rinse, I can open up the doors and rinse whatever I need to rinse. So all of that is, I think about that before I get all of my gear on so that it's there and available for me whenever I need it.
Jay (07:57)
Yeah, I think that's a really important one. Um, you know, thinking through again, I'm always thinking about, you just got done with an hour or two hour dive. You're walked up a bunch of steps in a set of doubles. You're tired. And all you want to do is, is get the weight off of your back in that moment. And so how do I have everything ready for me to do that when I'm done with a dive? But I want to back up for that because there's another little.
Sarah (08:18)
Mm -hmm.
Jay (08:27)
thing I also do. So there's some things like on the way to a dive. So once the trucks packed or the vans packed and you're driving to the dive site, um, one of the things I find myself doing quite a bit is I have a little converter, AC converter in the truck that I can plug in, you know, normal plugs, you know, uh, into. And I can't tell you how many times that saved my buns when it comes to charging my lights or charging my.
Sarah (08:55)
Yes.
Jay (08:57)
my camera batteries for the day. So it's a nice little thing if you get into a pinch or even just part of your, if it's an hour to the dive site, plug that thing in, stick your camera on, stick your lights on, stick some batteries on, whatever you might need, your vest batteries, whatever it might be need charging. It's certainly a little thing that can save you if you forgot the night before to put it on the charger or you're unsure how much is in it and stuff like that.
Sarah (09:23)
Well, and if you're going to do a couple of dives, you have power to charge things between dives, because I know I have like a really powerful video light, but and it can get through two dives as long as I'm not on like full power the entire time. But it's really nice to just plug it in after the first dive, get a little boost and go. One thing I'll say, because right now I have like a
proper electrical system in the van. So I have a 200 amp hour lithium battery. I have 200 watts of solar on the roof. I have an inverter, like all of that stuff. So I can pretty much function like a normal human being in here. I have to monitor a little bit because, you know, it's not unlimited electricity. But what I did for a long time was I just functioned entirely off of one of those Jackery portable batteries.
Jay (10:02)
Hehehehe
Sarah (10:17)
and that'll do it. Like you don't have to have your setup where it's like built into the truck. You can just buy one of those. I had like a, I think it's like a 240 or something. It's not a big one. I think it costs maybe like two or 300 bucks. Not cheap, but like it's not crazy. And you can just have that in your vehicle.
Jay (10:17)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, yeah, that's a good thing to have in general, backup battery, especially if you're doing more remote or expedition diving, access to power, the ability to charge things and multiple things becomes really important. And so I like that call out. How about on the way to the dive site? Do you have a favorite playlist or what are you listening to?
Sarah (10:45)
Mm -hmm.
Oh gosh, it always depends on the day, man. Like I've been really into, one of my favorite bands is called AJR. And they have just like, I think you would like them because you're like, you're a musician and they use a lot of different instruments. They're layering things in an interesting way. I'm gonna go see them in a couple of weeks as long as I can get the van fixed. They're playing in San Francisco. And so I think that would be on my.
my playlist right now just because I'm like pumped to go see them.
Jay (11:30)
Yeah, we should do an episode on like pre -dive playlist. Cause one of my, one of my really good friends, um, and who's been really a mentor to me, Ben Boss, it's like Metallica or nothing. Like that's his pre -dive for whatever reason, you know, he is all about Metallica. And so he like,
Sarah (11:41)
Oh God. I don't want to be in that car. No offense. Metallica is great, but that sounds like a lot.
Jay (11:51)
That's what works for him, right? For him, it's important to have a little Bluetooth speaker while we're all getting ready and bust out the Metallica or he has a couple of other playlists that he puts together. I tend, I'm so boring sometimes. I tend to like to catch up on my podcasts on the way to a dive site. It's just a focus time. But there are days again, where it's, you know, you pop on the Bob Marley or you're playing some of the old.
Sarah (11:58)
Okay.
Something chill.
Jay (12:18)
you know, I like Dave Matthews, say what you will, but I like Dave Matthews, the instrumentation of those things. Or, you know, sometimes like we were listening to, you know, the the black pumas and, and let some of that play. So I don't necessarily need the music to get me pumped up to go diving. I'm already pumped up. But I like to kind of use the music in the opposite way to kind of chill me out. And some people think I'm nuts, because I'll put it on like, you know, jazz, not slow jazz, like real jazz. And, um,
Sarah (12:35)
No.
No.
Jazz is great, what's wrong with that?
Jay (12:48)
Oh, people give me a sideways look. I'm like, Oh, I play this list. You know, students are looking at me like, who is this guy? You know, like, what a weirdo. But honestly, my Spotify has no idea what to do with me because my kids obviously don't have their own email accounts. And so they use whenever they play something, it's off of my account for whatever reason. Oh my gosh. Yeah. You know, yeah. By the way, that was Sarah, not me. So if you have hate email,
Sarah (13:06)
So you're like getting baby shark do do do do do baby. Sorry now everyone is gonna have that stuck in their head.
Ha ha.
Jay (13:16)
Sarah at the dive table, not Jay at the dive table because I didn't bring up baby shark. But yeah, no, it's like I get I mean, right now it's like, hey, you really love Taylor Swift. And I'm like, I'm down for Taylor, but like, not really. That's like because my kids, that's all they all they play or like, yeah. So I don't think Spotify knows what to do with me. But but yeah, so if I can't just hit play my favorite mixes, which would be cool.
Sarah (13:23)
I know, it gets stuck.
Do I?
Haha!
That's cute.
Jay (13:45)
Because who knows what's going to come up at that point? So that's a good one music. We should do a whole episode on music. That would be fun. All right
Sarah (13:47)
Yeah, that's funny. I've thought about doing like a public, cause I have my Spotify for a school unlimited as like public and I have a couple of playlists there. I've thought about doing one where I just collect everybody's like favorite song on my travels and like put it together as like the ultimate diver playlist. But anyway, I should do that. Yeah.
Jay (14:10)
Heck yeah, let's do it. That would be fun. That would be really fun.
Sarah (14:14)
Okay, so we've kind of talked already about like getting ready. Do we feel like that is covered? Can we talk about like storing things for while we're gone and kind of move through those things? Does that sound good? Okay. So I don't have a lot to share on this because I have an old school van with an old school key and literally the key just goes with me diving. Like it's not.
Jay (14:27)
Yes, yes, let's talk about that.
Sarah (14:42)
a challenge at all to deal with. But those of you who have real, you know, nice cars, newer cars, you can talk about what you do with your key.
Jay (14:53)
Yeah. So that's, it's a good one to think about. And there's a lot of different schools of thought. Um, you know, some people take a Ziploc bag and stick their keys in that and then stick it in their dry suit. Um, others just stick it in their dry suit and don't worry about it. And, you know, I, I guess I'm a little bit very hesitant. Um, you know, I've had seals break. I've had the suit flooded before, like that experience of like, not only are you soaking wet, uncomfortable, well, and you.
then your key doesn't work just sounds terrible. It's never happened to me, but that's just how it started to play off of my mind. So I'm not a big fan of bringing your keys with you on the dive. That's me. It doesn't mean that that's the wrong thing to do. It's just me. So I've done a lot of experimenting around this, everything from like leaving it in the gas, leaving my keys in the, which is not smart from what I've, what I've been told and understand.
Sarah (15:41)
Yeah, yeah.
Jay (15:47)
So what I've settled on is I have a little magnetic lock box and I won't tell you where I put it on the truck, but I put my keys, it fits my keys perfectly. That's a little lock box that has a combo on it. And I can stick my keys anywhere on the truck because it's magnet or as magnetic. So it sticks there. The lesson I've learned is to store it back towards the tailgate. And I won't tell you where, but back towards there, because when you come up from the dive with a set of doubles on,
and all that, you don't want to be crawling under the truck trying to find the key and all that, which you could do without the doubles. So I want to be able to come up to the truck, press the button and the tailgate comes down so I can get the doubles off. Then I can go chase down the keys and deal with the rest of it. My watch.
Sarah (16:20)
Right.
Wait, can you not pull the, sorry, what are the words? Can you not pull the tailgate down without the key? Stop it. I'm so behind the times. I don't understand. When I get in new cars, I have no idea how to drive them. Like, I really, truly don't. I don't have any experience with them. That's wild, okay.
Jay (16:39)
Tailgate, it's a button. It's a button with the key. Yeah, you cannot do it without the key. Yeah.
Hahaha.
Yeah, there's no handle anymore in the tailgate. It's a button. And in my case, I have two buttons because one button does the full tailgate and the other one does the, I don't remember what they call it, it's the second tailgate that folds down into a stair if you want it, which is cool.
Sarah (17:02)
That's crazy. Okay.
That was pretty cool. I liked that.
Jay (17:15)
It is cool. It's a nice little feature. Um, but yeah, so I, I always kind of keep my key near the tailgate so I can come back up, press the button comes down and then I can deal with everything else. And then in terms of like my watch, my wallet, my phone, other valuables and things that I have, um, I leave them in the truck because the truck automatically locks. Um, so I put them in the truck. I put them in a certain place that I know where they are. Um, and.
but it's not obvious, it's not just left on the seat so that someone's tempted to break in. Because you are gone for an hour, hour and a half, two hours where your car is not just there and it's vulnerable. So you have to think through those things. Unfortunately, not all people, not most people are wanting to get into your stuff, but you have to think about the few that do and protect yourself in that way.
Sarah (17:45)
Yeah.
It's vulnerable.
Yeah, totally. Cool. Okay. I think that's mostly the stuff. We've talked about rinsing, you know, after the dive, rinsing gear. How do you set up? Cause I've seen some people set up their trucks with like those really cool PVC, like pressurized showers. That's freaking bad -ass. Like those, those are neat. What, what do you do? Do you have anything?
Jay (18:27)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
No, there's quite elaborate setups that I've seen in both trucks and by the way in SUVs and I think the most popular car that I hear in terms of shore diving is they call it the Subaru because they call it the Scubaru. You know, it's the perfect size, I guess, for getting on your stuff kneeling down and enough space. And I've seen elaborate things built out of PVC that create shelves and storage. You know, it's really awesome what some folks will do. That's not me. For me, when it comes to rinsing, you know,
Sarah (18:47)
Adorable.
Cool. Yeah.
Jay (19:03)
Either, you know, hopefully you're at a dive site where there's freshwater showers. It's not always the case, but if there are, I'll go over there and rinse off real quick. Um, if not, um, I don't have, I've seen these really cool like rinse kits that they're selling now where it's like, uh, basically a pump and a shower head and it's meant for, you know, the beach and all that stuff. They're kind of pricey in my mind, like for what they are, I don't really need it. And I don't have a camp shower.
Sarah (19:28)
Yeah.
Jay (19:33)
So I just leave my gear the way it is with the saltwater on it until I get back to the house. And then what I do for cleaning is I pull the truck up. I have a little hill. It's kind of coming into my property, the opposite direction of how you normally would do it to get onto this little hill. But on that hill right next to it is the hose. And so I spray, I get in the back of the truck and I spray everything down. Then I start taking gear apart and spraying the gear in that way.
Sarah (19:48)
Mm -hmm.
Jay (20:02)
down and cleaning the crevices and stuff like that. Um, and the dry suit and all that. And then once everything's out and kind of on the drying racks where I want it, I go back to the bed of the truck or I put a little bit of detergent and I spray down the back of the truck because that salt will, you know, eventually create problems for your vehicle. Um, you know, eventually it will dry rod out pieces. Exactly.
Sarah (20:21)
Yeah, oh my gosh. Talk about rust. Yeah, I have a serious rust problem, let me tell you. So that is good that you're doing that because your truck is nice. You don't want that to get messed up because it's hard to treat.
Jay (20:38)
Yeah, exactly. So I'm kind of in a nice setup in the sense that I can just pull up on that little hill and or if you have a driveway or something like that and just spray it all out and you're kind of done. It makes it easy. Again, that's my goal is making things very, very easy to go diving and clean up and all that. But yeah, I mean, I don't use a lot of conditioners on my gear every once in a while. Or if I'm going to the dive shop like we did, we had that experience where we stopped by the dive shop to get fills.
after that and they happen to have a rinse tub and I'm like, heck yeah, I'm taking advantage of that right now. Throw everything in there and done.
Sarah (21:09)
Done. Yeah, I do that all the time. Like that's one of my favorite things. It's one of my hacks as a van lifer that I'm a scuba diver. So like water is usually a situation, right? Like you have to go, you have limited amount of water in the van. So you have to always go fill up. And like my sink water, I never have to pay for that because I go to dive shops and they're totally cool with me just filling up. It's only six gallons. It's not like I'm, you know, filling up my 25 gallon tank or whatever. So.
Jay (21:37)
Right, right.
Sarah (21:39)
I do that all the time. That's my favorite way to rinse gear. Because the camper shower, it's fine in a pinch, but it's not getting it nearly as clean as it needs to be. The other thing for those of you who have limited space, especially if you're living in an apartment or whatever, I have one of those collapsible buckets. And it's a decent size bucket. I can fit my dry suit in it if I needed to give it a dunk. I can fit my
side mount gear, whatever, you can fill that up with water and use it as like a transportable, you know, if somebody doesn't have like a bathtub or whatever. That's a great solution. And that I have literally just tucked under my sink here. And I use that when I don't like rinse everything, I'll use it as a catch. So like, I have to dry my gear in the van sometimes, right? So like I have one of those hangers, it's the accessory hanger, you know, that has like the long,
Jay (22:23)
Yeah.
Sarah (22:39)
prongs and that's the only scuba hanger that I have. So I'll hang my side mount harness on it and then put the feet of my dry suit over the shoulders of the harness. And then I'll have like my rags hanging from one of them. I'll have my gloves on there and then like the socks and whatever else like just it's a mess, but they're like strewn about and I'll...
Jay (22:40)
Yep.
Mm -hmm.
Jay (00:18)
Cause you have to dry stuff in the van. So you have one of those accessory hangers you hang your side mount gear on.
Sarah (00:22)
So I have one of those accessory hangers, you know, the ones with like the long prongs. That's the only scuba hanger.
I have, because again, I have to be very like minimalist about the stuff that I have in the van. But what I found is with that hanger, I can put my side mount harness on it, place the dry suit feet like over it and hang my dry suit. Obviously my dry suit is way too long to just like hang from my van, because sometimes I do have to dry my gear inside. That's just a necessity for me. So I take that collapsible bin.
and I put it directly under the gears so that it can drip and not make a total mess out of my van. And also I don't have the best setup, like don't judge me. Like all of my electrical stuff is right where all my stuff drives. Like it is not a good setup, but with the collapsible bin, it keeps everything in its place. So it works out actually really well. And then...
Jay (01:24)
smart.
Hahaha!
Yeah.
Sarah (01:47)
when like that'll happen, like I'll leave it overnight, it might still be a little bit damp and then I can get everything outside again earlier in the morning so that it's not getting like direct sunlight, because I try to protect my gear from direct sunlight as well, which is hard when you like live outside basically. But that's how I set it up. It works for me. It's a super compact kind of drying situation instead of having like, you know, a big setup in your...
Jay (02:04)
Right.
Sarah (02:17)
in your rig or in your house. Because I know a lot of people would struggle to do that. I've heard of people putting load -bearing bars in their bathroom, you know, like over their tub. Yeah, that's super smart.
Jay (02:28)
The shower, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Buddy of mine, um, rented a new apartment and he had two bathrooms. I mean, I don't, I, maybe it was purposeful or not, but one bathroom was just a scuba locker and he did the same thing. He put a little bar across and he'd hang everything up and just stick everything in there, which was smart. Um, I thought, yeah, I think with my gear, the, the drying of the, of the, uh, both the undergarments and the.
Sarah (02:43)
Nice.
That's super smart.
Jay (03:00)
Dry suit are the critical ones, right? And so sometimes you got to turn your dry suit inside out and I have hard boots on mine. So it's a thing, but you can do it. You can push the heel in, pull it through. If you need the inside dry overnight, you can do that. But yeah, the hangers make a big difference. The other thing you can use too is on travel. I think it's like 10 bucks on Amazon. You can get these nylon clippable gaiter hangers.
Sarah (03:02)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Mmm.
Jay (03:30)
And there are essentially these two loops of nylon that have clips and another piece of nylon that then has a hanger and it weighs nothing. It's not a hanger itself that's coming bulky in your gear, but it works really well for being able to hang your gear up in a hotel and in a pinch and things like that or outside. But typically I think, yeah, the turning it inside out is when I need it dry by the morning. And that seems to be a good idea.
But the other thing I've seen that I thought was really smart was actually at the overhead environment in Florida. Amazing place. Shout out to Dean and his crew there. Had a great time staying with them. But he had these little X fans that you could tip up. They're just little, they're meant for drying floors, but they're tippable without affecting anything. And he had them right in his dry suit drying station. And you could take them, flip on the fan, flip it up.
Sarah (04:24)
Mm.
Jay (04:27)
because in Florida, you know, it's, it's also very muggy. And so you could flip it up and into the inside from the floor, going up into your suit overnight, it would dry your suit like amazingly. And so I haven't bought one of those fans yet, but it was a nice little thing that he had. And, and I looked at them, you can't get them on, on the red, the red fans. I don't remember the exact name of them. Um, but it was, it was a really cool little hack. I thought.
Sarah (04:30)
Yeah.
Totally.
I think, yeah, I think having any kind of fan would be helpful in that if you're doing a lot of consecutive diving, like I have a permanent, and this is actually like what, oh, you can't see it, but it's a marine grade, like a lot of sailboats have this kind of fan where like you can tilt it and spin it, like it can literally hit any part of my van. And it's hooked into the electrical system and I will do that as well, where I'll just like turn it on and point it directly at my gear.
and that helps with the whole situation. As far as undergarments, I just hang that stuff wherever I can, even if it's like over the freaking steering wheel when I sleep at night. Yeah, because that's really key. But yeah, that's, I'm trying to think what else makes the day happen. I think that's most of it.
Jay (05:31)
Yep, exactly.
Yeah. The only other thing I'll mention is if you are doing kind of multiple days of diving with lots of divers, um, how you repack the van or sorry, not the van, the truck in my case, um, but the van in other people's cases, uh, with thinking through, we need to go get fills. And so again, that's a really important repacking situation. It's a little bit of the Tetris, but some fill stations are really like, are able to bring a, um,
Sarah (06:04)
Yeah, yeah.
Jay (06:15)
a whip out to the truck, which is awesome. That's like the best case scenario because you just pull up and boom and it's done. But if you need to take tanks in, yet you're diving in the morning, one of the little hacks is leave everything assembled and then just take the back plate and wing lift the whole thing off of off of the set and keep it like a taco and put it back in the truck. Take the tanks in, get them filled. Then when you put the
Sarah (06:18)
That's sick. Wow.
Jay (06:44)
doubles back in the truck, you just put the whole taco back on top and find the holes and secure back down. And that way you don't have to break down all of your gear and reassemble all of your gear every time. It saves you a lot of time in terms of how you again pack for the fills or pack for, you know, whatever the next day of diving might look like. So just another consideration. It's taken years to figure it out, but it's, it works well.
Sarah (07:06)
No, it's smart. No, it's a good point. It's a good point because I don't have a lot of experience with that because whenever I'm diving with other people, they bring their own vehicle, right? So like we're all kind of transporting our own tanks and that's smart. And like it's better if we can carpool places and like all dive together because it's not only gonna be better, you know, you're not having a bunch of extra fumes in the environment that we don't need.
But also it's going to save your life if you're going somewhere that's actually more popular and parking is a situation, right? Like if you guys all work together in carpool, then it's going to be a lot easier.
Jay (07:42)
Parking, exactly.
Yeah. Yeah. And the, and what's great about that too, the, the other things that I throw in the truck for those scenarios, I'll throw my little, I have a, in a Pelican case, my analyzer and my pressure gauge checker with a roll of tape and a Sharpie in there. Um,
Sarah (08:01)
Ah yeah, safety stuff too, your O2 kit. Yep, first aid.
Jay (08:05)
throw my O2 kit in there. I have a hard case for my save a dive kit, but it's got extra hoses and tools, all that. And then yeah, of course the first aid kit is part of my O2 kit as well. And then I always throw some clip bars and some snack stuff that's just kind of hidden around the truck that if we need it, it'll last the Armageddon. So, you know, someone really needs something I can reach into the glove box or a
Sarah (08:13)
Yeah. Tools. Yep.
next.
Jay (08:35)
and reach into the center console and here's a peanut butter cliff bar for you and no worries, it works out well. So.
Sarah (08:41)
It may not be that perfect nutritional meal like we talked about in a previous video, but it'll get the job done so that you don't go, you know, woozy.
Jay (08:49)
It'll get the job done. Yeah. Yeah. But you want to think about that stuff in your packing, especially if you're the one that's driving. You know, I like to really try to make sure my, my, my vehicle is a platform for diving. And so therefore I need to take responsibility over having those things in, in the truck, in the vehicle accessible. And then I also, you know, one other thing too, is I also, even if it's new people,
Sarah (09:13)
Totally.
Jay (09:18)
or old people I'm diving with, I always just give a little like briefing, like 30 seconds, like, Hey guys, the O2 is right here behind the driver's seat in the back and the fire extinguisher is here and the first aid kit is here and there's water here. So in case anyone needs something and the key is going to be here. Exactly. And that way everyone knows I've never had, thank God never had to use it in that way. But if something happens to me, I'm not going to be there to be able to tell people where things are.
Sarah (09:23)
Yeah.
and the key is gonna be here. Yeah, yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Right, yeah.
Jay (09:47)
So now at least it's been said and I also say, you know, 911 or whatever the local department is. And usually if I'm diving with someone like we were up in Laguna, he knew where the local chamber was so that we just have that information in our heads right before the dive, which is good.
Sarah (10:01)
Yeah, you share it. Yeah, it's good to have, even if it's not written out or whatever, kind of go through your emergency action plan, right? Like, what are the steps that need to happen? So that's a good point. That's great. Very exciting. I am finally, so I have not been a good example in shore diving and doing the things that I've been doing, because I've been so broke. But I'm not as broke anymore, and I am officially going to have emergency oxygen.
Jay (10:11)
Mm -hmm.
Sarah (10:31)
in my van, which is like a really big deal because I've been very, very careful. Like if anybody has watched my videos, like the Dive Dry Road Trip, I was so conservative and nervous about doing a lot of those dives and I kept them really shallow and like checked all the conditions, made sure that it was gonna be good because I didn't have, I didn't have that stuff. And that's not a good idea. Anyone that is doing shore diving, like definitely have.
Jay (10:32)
Oooooh!
Sarah (10:59)
emergency oxygen, first aid, like those are key pieces. And I'm not proud of the fact that I wasn't doing those things, but like, you know, I share it because I'm sure other people don't. Like I know a lot of people that don't go shore diving with oxygen, like tons. I mean, I've even seen when I was in Playa del Carmen, people going out to the caverns and stuff and they wouldn't have O2. Of course, somebody in the parking lot probably does.
Jay (11:15)
Mm -hmm.
Sarah (11:27)
right, because there's a lot of people, but it's like, my goodness, you know, like we all need to have that stuff in case, like we never want to think about being in an accident, but it happens. So it's an exciting time. I'm stepping into more safe practices and I'm very pleased.
Jay (11:28)
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Good, no, good, exactly. I mean, because O2 is a treatment for whatever DCS it is, whether it's lung over expansion or bubbles or any of those things. And so, you know, the ways that, again, if you're not CPR O2 provider trained yet, I'd encourage you to do that. But if you're not, they're really easy and they're really informative. I can do that as well or work through Dan. Dan has an incredible course, really enjoyed the thoroughness of.
Sarah (12:05)
Yeah, they're easy.
Mm -hmm.
Jay (12:17)
of their courses, why I became a Dan instructor, because of how amazing I thought their course was. But the other thing that, um, that some people do is, is, you know, a deco bottle. Um, so if you've got a 40 of O2, if you're tech trained, um, and you, you happen to have that thrown in the truck, if you don't happen to have a, an O2 provider kit, even breathing off of that rag without the mask and all that stuff is going to be better than nothing. Um, so that's another way to throw it in.
Sarah (12:22)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
As long as the person can breathe from it, yeah. No, totally.
Jay (12:44)
Exactly. As long as they can breathe from it. Right. Sometimes that's not the case. Yeah. So having that, that backup safety gear is, is I feel important if you're going to turn your vehicle into a, you know, platform for diving. Yeah. Just think of yourself as a mobile dive center, right? Like our mobile dive boat, but you don't need the, uh, the emergency, uh, you know, in case we sink, this raft will automatically deploy. You don't need that. Uh, you know, you don't need the, uh, the, the locator beacon in the middle of the ocean. That's all good, but.
Sarah (12:53)
100%.
100%. Totally. Yeah.
Jay (13:14)
but everything else you kind of do.
Sarah (13:14)
You might need a flag though. That is one thing that we didn't talk about because we haven't been using them. I don't think they're regulated like you don't need them in California or at least in the parts where we've been. But like in the Puget Sound, there are certain areas where you need to have a dive flag. So having some sort of float with a flag is also good to have in your vehicle gear. But I think that's kind of it. I think that was pretty thorough, different.
Jay (13:41)
Yeah.
Sarah (13:42)
viewpoints and experience, you know, the setups that we have. Because I think a lot of what you said and what I said can be, you know, transformed into people diving from Subarus and like my Toyota Corolla, that was my Scuba Mobile first. You know, so it's, I think that's cool. And I hope more people are going to get out and do this kind of stuff because it's cheaper and it's a lot of fun. It becomes an adventure.
Jay (14:12)
It does ensure diving. I mean, look, don't get me wrong. I love all forms of diving, but the only thing I haven't done, and we talked about this before, I have not done a liver board yet, surprisingly, um, which I will have to plan for it. They are, they're pricey. I, I, Hey, liver boards that want us to come and podcast from your, uh, uh, give us a shout out, but no, I haven't done that, but all sorts of diving. I love boats, love shore. I love, um, you know, going off of a, of a dock or whatever it might be, but I will say it's, it's nice when you can load everything up.
Sarah (14:22)
They're pricey. Yeah. Yeah.
Hahaha!
Jay (14:43)
and really think it through and use your vehicle as that platform. It just makes the diving, whether you're on an expedition dive or you're somewhere remote, or you're just going to, you know, La Jolla shores where there's a nice parking lot and showers and bathrooms and everything else. I kind of approach it all the same, unless there's a specific thing I need to just, this is my platform, I get ready the same, I get in the routines the same, and it makes it easy to go and dive, which is the whole point of going to do it.
Sarah (15:00)
Yeah.
Well, and it's, yeah, and it becomes like the day adventure and activity and you can have your home base, which is always nice. So cool. I would love to hear what other people are diving from, using to do these adventures, what kinds of things like tools they use. Maybe we can link some of the items that we mentioned in the podcast description. We can talk to Daniel about that and see if we can work some magic.
Jay (15:37)
producer Daniel. You gotta earn your paycheck buddy.
Sarah (15:38)
Yeah. Yeah. But we'll see if we can do that. But I would love to hear from people on, you know, what they're using and what they think is like non -negotiable, like they have to have it, you know. So you can reach out to us on the Facebook group. We're being more active there. So DiveTable Facebook group. You can also email us, Sarah with an H at thedivetable .com or JJAY at the DiveTable.
Jay (16:06)
Yeah. And if you have one of those cool like PVC setups you've built in the back of your SUV or scuba roost, send us a photo. I want to see it. I mean, I've seen some cool, elaborate setups with trays that pull out and all this kind of stuff. I think all that stuff's really cool. And other people can, can benefit from your engineering of it in their own vehicle or in their own situation. So since post the videos up on Facebook, um, have a good discussion about how you put yours together and why you have it the way it is. And I just love walking around the parking lot.
Sarah (16:12)
Send us a photo. Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Jay (16:36)
of a dive site and seeing how everybody kind of does their thing. And that's where you'd steal a little bit of this and steal a little bit of that for your own. And that's how you kind of figure it out as you go. So send us some photos on the Facebook group and looking forward to that conversation.
Sarah (16:39)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Totally.
Cool. Thanks. Talk to you later.
Jay (16:52)
Yeah, see you on the next episode of the Dive Table.
