Posted by Chris on June 30, 2003 at 19:17:19:
In Reply to: Best lobster gloves posted by Nate on June 30, 2003 at 15:45:58:
You will get many different opinions on what constitutes the best lobster glove, but like many equipment decisions, what works best is different for different people.
I prefer Stanley heavy duty leather work gloves, which I buy ay Lowes. Over the leather gloves I use an oversize neoprene gauntlet glove with the fingers cut out. The leather gloves had very good abrasion resistance, are resistant to punctures from sea urchins, and give me very good tactile feedback when have my hand up a hole and am trying to tell what is a lobster, and what is not. The neoprene gauntlet helps keep the leather glove in place, and provides abrasion protection for my wrists.
Since I have taken up underwater photography I find that I use the leather gloves for that as well because of their superior dexterity over neoprene.
I have been bitten by Morays two times since using leather gloves. Both times the eel shredded the glove, while my finger, although sore, was free of puncture wounds. However a big enough Moray will can probably bite through the leather as well.
One drawback of leather is that once it is wet, it must remain wet. Thus I must store my gloves in water between dives. Also I tend to go through about 5 to 6 pairs of gloves throughout bug season. However I think this is a small price to pay for the performance.
Shel, who is probably the best bug diver in California, prefers to use thin neoprene gloves that are covered with Kevlar, including the back side of the fingers. I believe he buys these at a dive shop in Santa Monica. I find that those gloves do not give me the tactile feedback that leather gloves do. I have also found that Kevlar is not a good barrier for urchin spines, because the spines tend to go in between the weave. However it is hard to argue with Shel’s results.