Wet Suit - Neccesary?

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Messages
4
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Location
Bali
# of dives
0 - 24
for those who dived in Phuket or Koh Samui,

is it neccesary to wear a long wet suit?

I only wear it for Plank - hate getting bitten and itchy....
 
Personal preference really, I don't wear one, just a rashy and shorts as temperature is mostly around 28C.

However plenty of friends wear them as they get cold after an hour.
 
It depends, i wear a 2mm or a shortie and could do as well without, some dive in rashguard and shorts, other think a 3mm is to cold.

It depends on how long time your dives will be and how you feel comfortable in 27-30 degrees water.
 
If I do a day trip, I don't wear a wetsuit. When I used to work on liveaboards, doing up to 4 dives per day, I did have a 3mm full suit.Water temperature does vary slightly during the year and a couple of times I recall some thermoclines with the temperature dropping a couple of degrees. Most dive shops use shorties. Our shop also has some long suits for people who know they get cold. Everyone's different!
 
Dove in Koh Tao before, very near to Koh Samui.
Rashguards and shorts should be enough unless just after a rain, or very early in the morning.
However, dive shops usually just provide shorties, no issues with using that as well, might even be recommended if doing multiple dives a day with short surface intervals
 
As has been pointed out it is really up to what your preference is and what your tolerance to cold is like. In the summer months I frequently dove just a sharkskin top and board shorts, even when diving 4 dives a day. Other pros I know dove a 5mm full suit.

But the water is generally pretty warm during the summer months.
 
I’ve been diving in Thailand since the 80s. I’ve worn a wetsuit exactly once. That was on a night dive in windy conditions. I was afraid I might get cold on the dinghy trip back to the boat. On the other hand, my wife, a Thai, wears a wetsuit on every dive.

IMHO, you don’t need one but you might find that you want one.
 
Thanks all for your feedback there!

Yea shops i've booked with only have shorties - but they say you can just use normal swim wear.

I was just wondering what the water's like over there cause in Bali - sometimes cold water from below swift upwards from up current - but im guessing it could be the same over there....
 
I just checked back through my dive log (Subsurface) and found that, over the last 240 dives (four years) the lowest water temperature recorded by my dive computer was 23ºC at a depth of 16.5 meters at Elephant Head Rock on 13/03/2016. the highest water temp was 33ºC at a depth of 5 meters at Hin Muang on 05/05/2016. I guess 2016 was a year for extremes. A quick scan of the file shows very few readings less than 28º and very few more than 31º.

I have no idea how accurate this is. It's just what my computer (D4i) recorded.
 
I dive a full 3.5mm suit in Thailand. Last time I was there (January this year) the temperature was 28 degrees C at the Similan islands, even at depth, and my suit was comfortable. On the same trip I also went to Koh Tao where the temperature was 26 degrees and I was shivering from cold and very uncomfortable at the safety stops after advanced wreck penetration dives to 30 m. I definitely needed more thermal protection for those dives.
 
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