Wednesday 2 July 2014

Tuesday 1 July 2014

Nose clips

From left to right:
Apnea Academy, 3Diver.com and Trygons.

Which noseclip to choose??  There are basically only 3 key factors for me... will it hold, is it comfortable and cost.

The Trygons is thick aluminum and is like a pair of vice-grips for your nose... it definitely holds, it's uncomfortable and it is on the expensive side.

The Apnea Academy is made of plastic, super light, holds well while dry... but the deer-hide pad slips for me when wet and is a fair price, but shipping can be expensive, depending on your location.

The 3Diver.com noseclip is aluminum, comes in red, silver or blue and is much lighter than the Trygons.  It is comfortable, very reasonably priced and holds great wet or dry.

If I had to choose only one to buy for both dry training and wet (pool / depth) use, it would be the 3Diver.com noseclip.  It has no weaknesses.


What does the Appneaddict use?
Since I have bought all 3 of these, I use the Apnea Academy one solely for dry use.  It is lightweight and has large pads which spread out the load.  This allows me to leave it permanently in my "breathing room" and never have to worry about taking it to the water with me.

For wet use, I modified the Trygons before I got the 3Diver.com noseclip, because the pads that came with it kept coming off in the pool.


I put some Sugru silicone putty on the Trygons and let it cure.  I then lightly sanded it to remove the smooth surface and took a hacksaw blade and very lightly scored it to give it added traction / grip... like a tire tread to help displace water.

This is by far the most secure and comfortable noseclip, but it is a bit on the heavy side.  This is what I use in the pool and trust for competition use to prevent slipping.

Again - if I wanted to buy one noseclip that worked well / does it all... the 3Diver.com one would be my choice, knowing what I know now.  The Trygons, plus shipping, plus Sugru, plus labour is well over $100, if I was recreating it.