Field Report: Testing the Tactical Shorts in Egypt
Some gear you can judge from a spec sheet. Some you only really understand after a week of getting in and out of the water, sitting on a hot boat deck, and walking around a harbour in the same kit you dived in an hour earlier. That was the point of taking the Sharkskin Tactical Shorts on a recent Red Sea trip out of Egypt - not a lab test, just a normal week of diving, sun and boat life, and an honest look at how the shorts actually held up.
The setting
Red Sea day-boat diving is its own particular test. Blazing sun on deck between dives, warm water, wind picking up once the boat is moving, and a lot of time spent half in swimwear and half in dive kit because you are never quite sure if you are about to jump in again or sit down for lunch. It is not extreme conditions in the way a cold-water trip would be, but it quietly tests gear in a different way - sun exposure, repeated wetting and drying, and long hours where comfort either holds up or it does not.
Getting in and out of the water, over and over
The first thing that stood out was how little the shorts got in the way. On and off quickly between dives, no fighting with a tight waistband, no chafing after a full day of wear. That matters more than it sounds on a multi-dive day, when the last thing you want is gear that needs attention every time you gear up again.
They also dried fast. On a boat with a rotating list of people wanting deck space to dry kit, having something that was ready to wear again within an hour of the last dive was genuinely useful, rather than sitting in a wet pile in a bag until the next stop.
Sun and wind, not just water
What surprised us more was how much the shorts did outside the water. Egypt sun does not let up, and a lot of the day is spent on deck, not underwater. Having a layer that handled sun exposure without needing a constant reapply of sunscreen, and that stayed comfortable once the wind picked up on the way back to harbour, made the topside hours of the trip easier than expected. That is really the whole idea behind Sharkskin's approach - protection is not just about the twenty minutes you spend at depth, it is about the whole day around it.
Where they fit alongside the rest of the kit
Worn on their own for reef walks, harbour wandering and lounging on deck, the shorts did their job without a second thought. Paired with a Chillproof top for the dives themselves, the combination covered both ends of the day: warmth and coverage in the water, comfort and sun protection out of it. That is the pattern we would point most warm-water travellers toward - a versatile thermal top for the dives, something like the Tactical Shorts for everything around them, rather than packing separate kit for diving and for lounging on the boat.
If you are trying to work out whether you need a full wetsuit for a similar trip, our piece on how to stay warm while scuba diving is worth a read before you pack. And if you want the fuller comparison between thermal wear and neoprene, our Sharkskin vs neoprene wetsuit piece goes through it properly.
The honest verdict
Nothing about the week was a dramatic stress test, and that is sort of the point. Most real trips are not stress tests either - they are a lot of ordinary days stacked together, in and out of the water, sitting in the sun, packing and unpacking a bag. Gear that quietly does its job through all of that, without demanding attention, is exactly what you want on a trip like this. The Tactical Shorts did that.
If there is a lesson worth carrying forward, it is that gear worth trusting on a trip like this rarely announces itself. It just does not give you a reason to think about it - no chafing, no waiting around for it to dry, no reapplying sunscreen every hour because the fabric is not doing its share of the work. By the end of the week the shorts had become one of the least remarkable things in the bag, in the best possible sense.
Curious what else is in the range for a warm-water trip like this one? The full Sharkskin range is here.