Go on - lose some weight, travel lighter – it’s easy!

For an underwater photographer who likes to travel with his own dive gear, airline baggage allowances make travel rather challenging to say the least. If you are travelling with a non-diving partner or friend then it’s less of a problem as you can share the weight around.

Some airlines such as Malaysian Air Services or Singapore Airlines give economy-travelling divers an extra 10 kgs but that still only knocks it up to a grand total of 30kgs (unless you are going business or first). Some others, like Monarch, allow you to purchase more allowance. It’s always worth double checking with the airline as part of your travel planning and be sure to have your qualification card at check in as they do often check that you are a qualified diver before they actually give you the increased allowance.

When I got really serious with my underwater photography I really didn’t comprehend the sort of extra weight that would be involved with my DSLR/Subal system but I soon realised that a big part of getting the weight down was to reduce the weight of my baggage.

Regular dive bags are generally pretty heavy. After quite a bit of trial and error I found the JanSport 76cm light wheeled duffel. It weighs in at just 3.17 kgs which is 1 or 2kgs lighter than even a light dive bag. With a capacity of 92 litres it takes all of my dive gear – fins, BC, 3 or 5mm suit, regulator, mask, boots, weight belt, some photo gear, a few T shirts, swimming trunks, some of my photo gear and a few other bits and pieces. Gill and I have both made several long and medium haul trips using JanSport bags and so far the they are still in one piece.

As for my photo gear I started off by buying a tough Storm case. They certainly protect gear but they are heavy and also advertise ‘something valuable inside’. Again after a bit of trial and error I bought a Titan polycarbonate suitcase (you can’t now get the model I have but the closest is their Titan X2 67cm Trolley Case which offers 69 litres capacity and weighs 3.8 kgs). I’ve lined the case with camper’s bed roll material to add to the protection and then filled the suitcase with the ‘pluck and pull’ foam from my Storm case (which you can also buy separately). I then pack a range of lenses in Tupperware-type containers which, along with my strobes, are placed into the foam which provides a nice ‘protective nest’ for the contents.

For hand luggage I use a Claiborne Luggage Aero Lite 48cm rolling case, it’s durable and reasonably light at 3kgs which gives you between 2kgs and 7kgs for contents depending on your airline. At 50cm x 30cm x 28cm it’s designed to fit into the overhead compartments.

I tend to pack my wide angle gear into my hand luggage so the dome port and wide angle lenses along with my camera and housing go in.If the worst happens and the Titan gets lost, stolen or delayed I’ll still be able to do some wide angle, ambient light photography.

“But your hand luggage will be so heavy. It could be a problem at check in!” you might say and you would be right. So I have taken the advice of  underwater photography teacher, Martin Edge, and wear a photo vest. ‘They can’t weigh you’ he told me. So when checking in I fill the various pockets with lenses, my camera body – even my small laptop fits into one of the pockets. As soon as I’ve checked in I repack everything into my hand luggage and wander happily into security where I hope the profusion of electronic and ‘unusual’ photographic stuff in my case will not get them reaching for the alarm bells.

Overall I have probably reduced my total travel weight by 5 to 7 kgs thanks to cutting down on baggage weight.

Now I’m just letting you know what seems to work for me - you may well have a better approach (please do let me know). Everybody does it different and as long as your gear arrives in one piece and you can avoid paying exorbitant excess baggage rates then there’s no right or wrong way. But however we all pack our gear the worst can always happen so if you choose to follow how I do it and something goes wrong please remember that however you pack your own gear it’s at your own risk.

Having said that, when I first started off I wish that someone with the knowledge I have now could have given me some advice which could have cut out the expense and frustration of the trial and error that I went through.

So, if you are like I was then maybe this article will be helpful.

Happy travels!