When we got back from Dominica, I mentioned that we were going to re-evaluate our packing as our rollie bags, with dive gear, were getting too heavy. As I unpacked my bag, I made a list of items to look at. We are almost packed for our scuba dive trip to Kona and here is what we did to lightened our load. Now, keep in mind we are reducing by ounces, not pounds!
Dive Logs: Instead of taking the small binders that are our dive logs, we are only taking the correct number of pages for the number of dives we are doing. They are contained in a ziploc bag.
First Aid Kit and Liquids Bags: Kona is not a third world country, so there is a Safeway, Costco and Walmart. We can buy any bandaids or first aid items we may need. Our first aid kit is reduced to a few bandaids, alcohol wipes, laxative, Tylenol, Penicillin, Cipro and Canesten, eye drops, Otravin, Hydrocortisone Cream, and Polysporin. Stuff we may need a prescription for, even in the USA. This sounds like many items, but the first aid kit is much smaller than on previous trips and the liquids bags are also much smaller. I also scrutinized the liquids and reduced the duplicates or items we could buy in Kona, if we need them.
Dive Gear: We both carry a safety sausage, reel and whistle while we dive in case of emergencies. My reel is large and although it doesn’t weigh much, it takes up volume in my suitcase. We took the reel off and rigged up the sausage to be attached to my BCD with enough line on it to work properly at the surface. Unfortunately, we could not reduce the overall dive gear much.
Clothes: For me, instead of wearing pants on the airplane and packing a pair of shorts, I am leaving the pants at home and wearing the shorts on the plane. Mur is still wearing zip off pants on the plane, but they are doubling as his second pair of shorts on Kona. I also fine tuned my shirts and reduced by 2 from Dominica. Here is what I am taking for clothes to Kona:
- Sarong and Rash Guard shirt to wear on dive days
- Shorts and technical shirt to wear on non dive days
- Dressier shirt, worn with shorts, for evening
- Dress for evening
- Three pairs of undies (no bra, but that is another story)
- Three swimsuits – 2 one piece, 1 two piece (I could make do with 2, but 3 swimsuits is nice – my packing splurge)
- Boat shoes and dressier flip flops
- Ice breaker lightweight warm layer for airplane
- Compression socks for flight
- Sunhat
Clothes I am wearing for the flight to Kona
If I take off the list what I am wearing on the airplane, what is packed is reduced to the dressier shirt, dress, 2 undies, 3 swimsuits, flip flops and sunhat. Not much. One of the swimsuits is used for padding around my camera housing, so only 2 actually have to be packed.
Clothes being packed (flip flops and 2 swimsuits not shown)
We take liquid clothes detergent and do wash every few days. We usually wash what gets overly salty or smelly. And wash again at the end of a stay to make sure we are fresh smelling for the flight home.
The piles on the floor, ready to be packed, do not look very big. They are mostly dive gear and are critical to that sport. Once packed we will weigh our bags and hopefully they are a few ounces or maybe a pound or two lighter.