Watch This Video Before Buying Your First Fins For Scuba Diving .

Welcome back to the next in our series of videos that we call Quick Tips. Today, I'm going to be breaking down the difference between open-heeled and closed-heeled fins. And I also have a third hybrid option to look at. So roll intro. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Divers Ready. My name's James. As always, so great to see your smiling faces. Now, if you've clicked on this video because you're shopping for your next pair of scuba fins, there are lots of designs and features out there to choose from. But probably the most significant designing factor is whether or not you want closed or open-heeled fins. So I'm going to make this video to help you choose between the two based on the type of diving that you do. And then I also have a third hybrid option to look at. So if you haven't done so already, make your next dive and ask subscribe button and I'll head over there to the workbench and break it down for you. So I've got here popular examples of the two different styles of foot pocket of fin, if you will. This is obviously the closed heel design and this is the open heel design. That's pretty obvious. Let's go through what type of diving and the advantages of each style mean. So let's start with the closed heel fin here, otherwise known as a full foot because your full foot is encapsulated by the fins foot pocket. That's not easy to say, trust me. This wasn't take one. Your foot is designed to go in the fin there bare, or you could possibly wear maybe a Lycra sock or something like that, but nothing thicker than that. Definitely no booties with this style of fin. These fins are ideal when you don't need foot protection and you don't need additional warmth on your feet, i.e. no neoprene. So basically warm water, tropical destinations, boat diving, or any kind of sand or beach entry where the ground underneath your bare feet is gonna be nice and soft and comfortable. The great thing about these fins is you can guarantee a very good fit because they're generally sold in shoe sizes. So you just buy the same size as you would for regular shoes and you're gonna get a very comfortable fit. And because you don't need booties, they're ideal for travel when you're heading down to the Caribbean or the Great Barrier Reef because you don't need to pack additional booties. This is everything you need to go on your bare foot. So very, very good for travel to warm water destinations. Now let's bring in the open heel fins. And obviously you can see you have a foot pocket there that your foot is designed to slide into and some kind of heel strap on the back. The heel strap actually comes in a few different designs. This is a rubber bungee. You can also get nylon bungee or you can get the spring strap style, which is the most durable. These spring straps last forever. I've never, ever broken one. Whereas these bungee style rubber bungees definitely are wear and tear and need replacing frequently. But I've had the rest of the fin has lasted me a very, very long time. So with these style fins, you are definitely designed to wear booties. If you put your bare foot into the foot pocket of these fins in particular, it will get very chafed and beaten up. So the nice thing is you can kind of adjust how much warmth and protection your feet have based on the style of booties that you wear. And we covered booties in the last Quick Tips video, number 40. So you can go back and check that out if you're shopping for booties as well. These open heel fins are typically sold in T-shirt sizes, small, medium, large, et cetera. And it is always a good idea to take the booties you're intending to wear with the fin into the store. Because for example, I have the same fin in a couple of different sizes based on whether I'm using a three mil, a five mil, a rock boot and so on. So they are different fits to what your shoe size would be. So take the boots with you, put the boots on, try the fin on in the store and make sure you get a really good snug fit. These fins are obviously ideal for any time you need to protect your feet from the cold or from the terrain. So cold water diving, where you're gonna be wearing wetsuit boots of some kind. Obviously, if you're diving dry suit, you're gonna need open heel fins because you're gonna be wearing boots of some kind. So any cold water activities, also any kind of shore diving where you have to walk over rough terrain. So your Bonaire, your Hawaii's volcanic rock and so on. If you're walking over rough terrain, you need to protect your feet before getting in and when you're getting out, then you're gonna wanna carry open heel fins and have a good pair of booties on. Now there is a third option that's come to the market relatively recently, which is applying the use of monoprene, a thermoelastic polymer, which is injection molded and provide some of the benefits of the open heel fin in terms of how easy it is to put on and take off. But they're soft and supple enough to not need booties. So you're gonna see more and more of these popping up because they have all the advantages of your open heel fins. You don't need booties with them. So for warm water travel destinations, these are ideal and they're also super lightweight. So great for traveling with and yet maintain a good amount of stiffness so they're not completely floppy. Always with fin design, you're trying to get the right balance between stiffness and weight. You don't want fins that are too stiff, which means they're gonna be very, very heavy. They're gonna cost you luggage and they're gonna keep your fins down in the water or your feet down in the water. And you don't want fins that are too light because if they're too light, they end up being floppy and then they don't give you any propulsion and then what's the point in wearing fins? So you're really looking for that good balance between stiffness and weight. And the monoprene is a great material for that. And we're seeing more and more of those type of fins hit the market. So this is what I would consider a hybrid. It's an open heel fin that you don't actually need to wear booties with. I'm a dive professional, but I actually don't do any gear retail. I don't sell any scuba equipment. So all of my opinions are completely unbiased. And this video was actually viewer suggested. Somebody was thinking about buying fins and they wanted to know the difference. And hey, presto, Quick Tips is here to help you. If you are contemplating your next scuba purchase, put it down in the comments below and hopefully I can make a video to help you make a more educated purchase. And that's gonna keep you in scuba diving for longer. I hope that's our goal with everything we do here at Divers Ready. Don't forget to subscribe to our channel if you haven't done so already. Give this video the old thumbs up if you learned something from it and share it with your dive buddies. I'll see you next week. Dive safe, dive often.