All I can say is I hate drysuits!

[doole]

I find myself compelled to point out, yet again, that rock boots solve all of those problems - as well as some others.

 

[JButla]

Rock boots won't work though where your boot is attached, will it, or am I off on something?

 

[mickytwo]

Like the title states, I hate drysuits. Got mine today and I wore it for the first and last time! The most uncomfortable, bouyant, irratating, thing I have ever tried to swim in. And I mean tried. Wasn't much swimming to it. Just alot of floating around with my damn feet straight up over my head with air pockets in the feet so big they knock my fins off.

On a different note, anyone interested in buying a like new drysuit. I'll make you a sweet deal.

Keep at it here in the uk we dive all the time in drysuit some times in semidrys , but it takes time to master.
I was learnt to dive abroad in a wet suit came home crossed over to bsac and dry suit dived from then on.
regards mickytwo

 

[doole]

Rock boots won't work though where your boot is attached, will it, or am I off on something?

No, you're not. Dui would want you to send them your suit so they could remove the clodhoppers and install their neoprene socks.

 

[limeyx]

Get some felt insoles to put in your boots. That is a great way to take up excess room in your boots. This also helps to get a bit more life out of your boots. If they are still loose after the insoles are in try a second pair of socks. You can also try the fin keepers I posted about earlier in this thread.

used the thicker socks myself this weekend and it helped a lot (as did putting less air in d/suit which was really the key). Socks also helped keep the skin on my left ankle

 

[WreckedDiver]

My take on ankle wieghts is it depends on the suit. I dove Bare C7 with the molded on boots and needed ankle wieghts, either of my shell suits required no ankle wieghts as they had molded on socks and I wore wetsuit boots over top. The best training for drysuit diving is in a pool with an instructor then in the ocean. In the pool try spreading out your arms doing the arplane and feel the air move around and feel how it affects you in the water. Next do the emegency feet first inflation where you grab onto the bottom grate either inflate you suit yourself of have an instructor "buddy" do it then let go and try to deflate your drysuit by curling up in a ball and doing an underwater summersault then vent excess air through your suit vent. Drysuit diving can be excellent and addictive especially if you get into ice or just darn cold water diving. Keep at it!

 

[Don Burke]

The only problem is there are not many people near me that dive and those that do have very little experience. BTW, I am in the eastern panhandle of WV if anyone reading this is close enough, maybe we could get together for some diving/practice/training.

This looks like a job for Mount Storm Lake.

 

[doole]

...Next do the emegency feet first inflation where you grab onto the bottom grate either inflate you suit yourself of have an instructor "buddy" do it then let go and try to deflate your drysuit by curling up in a ball and doing an underwater summersault then vent excess air through your suit vent...

Here's something I'd like to hear views on:

My problem with all the theories about doing somersaults, flaring, venting throught the neck seal etc. is just that: they're just theories, and not very good ones at that.

Once, as a fairly rank newbie, I got bitten by my drysuit in about 40 ft of lake water. I had donned the foul thing on a sandy beach and I guess I managed to get some sand in the dump valve, so it jammed.

I did all the right things. You all would have been proud of me. I somersaulted into an upright position and attempted to vent through the valve. No joy. Got my glove strap undone in an effort to vent through the wrist seal. No joy.

Pulled out my knife and started to eye various spots on my forearm. ('Where is it baggiest, so I don't end up committing suicide?')

All of this while flaring my arms and legs out in a horizontal position like a good little corporal.

And then, guess what?

Right - I'm at the surface, already. I might just as well have not bothered with any of it. (With the exception that the flaring slowed me down - I guess...)

 

[SubMariner]

Once, as a fairly rank newbie, I got bitten by my drysuit in about 40 ft of lake water. I had donned the foul thing on a sandy beach and I guess I managed to get some sand in the dump valve, so it jammed.

And this is the suit's fault HOW?

If you mistreat ANY piece of equipment, it will "bite you"; a drysuit is no exception. The same thing could have happened with sand & your BC LPI.

No offense, but a tarp or similar ground cover goes a long way to solving many similar shore diving hazards.

As for the sommersaults, various venting techniques, etc., only PRACTICE makes them useful. In the end you were probably saved by the one you have the most distain for: the flare. It slowed you down enough so that you didn't embolize (or worse).

Drysuits RULE!!!

 

[String]

I am not an instructor - but I know I would have appreciated it if my instructor had taken the time to show proper bouyancy skills while doing simple things like mask drills and regulator retrievals. I know it can be done now - so why isn't it demonstrated? Is it just laziness?

Sadly, it's this kind of OW instruction which makes for a lot of angry rants about the state of Scuba Instruction today.

You have to break down a skill for new students. You dont put a student in and immediately demonstrate full mask removal whilst neutral 4ft off the bottom in one go.

Its progressive - doing one thing at a time. First theyre kneeling (to remove the task loading and everything else) and doing 1/4 flood, half flood then full flood then removal. Once they can do all those you can only then progress onto doing it while not kneeling and onto maskless swimming.
Throwing them in at the deepend as such doesnt really work - progressive builup with each step adding something new is the best way to get them through it.
Certainly mask removal while neutral IS taught but not before its taught kneeling and in stages like above.