Yo-Han Cha considers the contents of his emergency scuba toolbox , and the events that led to their inclusion
YO-HANCHA
The Hairdryer Treatment
Yo-Han Cha considers the contents of his emergency scuba toolbox , and the events that led to their inclusion
“
Does anyone have a hairdryer I could borrow please ?”. You might find it hard to believe , but that ’ s not a sentence I use often . However , due to some poor camera housing maintenance , I ’ d had a small leak during my dive and after mopping up the water that definitely doesn ’ t belong on the inside of a camera housing , I was looking to speed up the drying process .
This , embarrassingly , was not the first time I ’ d had to borrow a hairdryer . So , this got me wondering if I needed to add small hairdryer to my motley collection of tools that I take on dive trips . It then had me reminiscing of when I was a new diver , and thought all dive kit just worked and never went wrong . I now take an increasingly heavy toolbox with me everywhere .
Before I started diving , the only tools I owned were a screwdriver and that thing you use to bleed radiators . B & Q felt like the kind of shop where I should only be when under my dad ’ s supervision . But the more I dived , the number of dives saved by friends and strangers with spare O-rings and Allen keys increased .
Eventually , I figured I should be able to save my own dive from any minor technical issues , and I started to build a motley collection of tools . My selections were usually borne out of necessity . There ’ s now an Allen key set , a set of spanners and then some more spanners as it turned out not all manufacturers use metric . As a somewhat clumsy photographer , I ’ ve got a set of dome polishing solutions . This all was getting unwieldy to carry around so I bought myself a proper toolbox , even though I didn ’ t feel mature enough to own one .
Rooting around in my toolbox now , I find a road map of past dive kit issues . A tube of superglue was pressed into service in an effort to my make my broken plastic drysuit zip last a bit longer . Cable ties are scattered throughout , because divers always need to tie things together and the world as we know it is held together with these ubiquitous fix-alls . Then a couple more bags of cable ties because when I really need some cable ties , I can ’ t find any and no-one sells them individually .
There are scissors that were mainly used for trimming trainees ’ cheap hoods to size . Insulation tape and WD40 for sticking or unsticking things . Masking tape from that time when divers kept mixing up the full and empty cylinders . More
“ This , embarrassingly , was not the first time I ’ d had to borrow a hairdryer ”
superglue - it must ’ ve been on offer . Allen keys from assembling flat pack furniture , but they could still come in handy . A spare mouthpiece , as I seem to bite through them regularly . More cable ties . Batteries for an adventure light that I may or may never use again .
Let ’ s dig deeper into my box of treasures and you will find : A tube of Black Witch , after that time I put my thumbnail through my neck seal . An old mask strap , just in case my current mask strap fails on me but is now the one that ’ s more likely to go . A set of micro screwdrivers I had to use recently to scrape some salt off some contacts of the damp sensor in my camera housing . Finally , there is a tub of silica gel for greasing O-rings , almost certainly for my underwater photography equipment . It doesn ’ t look like I ’ ve opened it in a while . Perhaps I should – then I wouldn ’ t be thinking about buying a hairdryer . �
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