OP
Fogest
Contributor
After going to the dive shop this is basically the same thing as they recommended. Except that they were suggesting a 7mm shorty. So it would be 2 7mm layers in the core. I'm sure with 14mm I should be good. Unless of course there is a reason I may want to get a 5mm vest/hood instead of the 7mm?
The 7mm full suit and 5mm hoody shorty is more expensive warmer than a farmer john, but also warmer and leaves you with lots of layering options. It's nice to have 2 suits: I have made a lot of summer snorkeling trips where I wore the fullsuit and a friend wore the shorty. With 2 suits you immedately have a warm weather or pool suit in the shorty, you can also use the fullsuit without hood, gloves or boots and be comfortable in pool temps, or add some or all of these and progess to being comforable in distinctly chilly waters. With the fullsuit + hooded shorty + boots & gloves, you might find you can enjoy 30-40 mins at even 3C or so (esp if you use 3-finger gloves).
Frequently you will find that you can be perfectly warm & more than happy underwater while diving wet, but it's the dressing and undressing that will be the dealbreaker. Drysuit divers just need to remove the outer suit, they can actually wear their Michelin-man undersuits all the way home. The wetsuit diver needs to strip to his bare, wet, skin and hope he doesn't have to do it in too much of a cold wind (cold rain is nice too).
And I also will likely get some nice gloves to wear
