if you cant get a class in time get some pool time or shallow lake time and do a lot of water arobatics that would generate air bubble movement so you can get good at tuck and roll when needed. The tuck and roll is the most important skill of them all. If you cant do that then dont go deeper than a few meters. It will become second nature and fortunately you when you get used to the suit you will seldom need it.
Buy the drysuit or take the class first?
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DuboisP
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AfterDark
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If you can operate your BCD you can operate a dry suit, it ain't rocket science. The real advantage to a class is that you may get to try a few different types of suits. Just don't go feet up by accident!
i know plenty of people who didn't take a course. they learned from a mentor. i learned more about diving dry from a mentor than i did in the course i took.
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OP
Did my course dives today. Nice and toasty 45F (or 50 depending on who you ask) water. I was wearing one of the shop's rental Bare Trilam Tech Dry's with Trek boots. No major complaints about the suit itself other than that I have made a mental note not to get bottleneck shaped wrist seals when I buy my own suit; massive pain in the butt trying to get them on when I first tried on the suit, today getting them on wasn't bad, but getting them off after the dives was an ordeal. No issues with the neck seal once it was trimmed a bit (and I make no apologies to the next person who wants to use that suit if they have a smaller neck than i do 
).
Some of my observations and notes to self: If/when I get a drysuit, I'm going to need bigger fins, boo. Gives me an excuse to possibly get the new lime green Mares Quattros though, we'll see... (I was using slightly-too-big Jets today). I have to remember to double knot my boot laces; mentally crossing my fingers and using modified frog (or something close to it) in hopes of not kicking off both boots and fins is not something I want to repeat, though it is amusing after the fact. I also realised I needed more weight; 28lbs was enough to start, but getting towards an empty tank, almost any air in the suit was making me positively buoyant, so I was getting cold and floaty at the end of the first dive. Excess air in the feet is easy enough to fix but if you're paying any attention at all, it's just as easy (or easier) to avoid in the first place.
How I felt for the first few minutes: Well this is easy, but wow, my lips are already going numb. After that, I was having some off and on buoyancy control issues and occasionally felt like a brand new diver again. At one point between a couple of buoyancy swings, I decided I'd never been so comfortably uncomfortable on a dive (I don't really know how to explain that better).
As a side note, the instructor teaching the course was the shop owner and course director (aka my boss) so I've also now got an idea of how he expects the class to be run when I eventually become a drysuit instructor.
).Some of my observations and notes to self: If/when I get a drysuit, I'm going to need bigger fins, boo. Gives me an excuse to possibly get the new lime green Mares Quattros though, we'll see... (I was using slightly-too-big Jets today). I have to remember to double knot my boot laces; mentally crossing my fingers and using modified frog (or something close to it) in hopes of not kicking off both boots and fins is not something I want to repeat, though it is amusing after the fact. I also realised I needed more weight; 28lbs was enough to start, but getting towards an empty tank, almost any air in the suit was making me positively buoyant, so I was getting cold and floaty at the end of the first dive. Excess air in the feet is easy enough to fix but if you're paying any attention at all, it's just as easy (or easier) to avoid in the first place.
How I felt for the first few minutes: Well this is easy, but wow, my lips are already going numb. After that, I was having some off and on buoyancy control issues and occasionally felt like a brand new diver again. At one point between a couple of buoyancy swings, I decided I'd never been so comfortably uncomfortable on a dive (I don't really know how to explain that better).
As a side note, the instructor teaching the course was the shop owner and course director (aka my boss) so I've also now got an idea of how he expects the class to be run when I eventually become a drysuit instructor.
elmer fudd
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After 3 months of diving everyday in warm water this past fall, I've decided my days of only diving on vacation or in warm water are over (actually that decision was probably made when I decided to take the DM course, but I digress). I can't deal with the idea of only diving every few months, anymore, so I'm planning to go dry this year and dive locally as often as possible and preferably starting as soon as possible.
Any knowledge I have about drysuits is now a jumbled mess of information that I've picked up here. I have some ideas about what I would/wouldn't want in a suit, but not enough of an idea to say "I'd want one of those, if the sizing is right." At this point, I'm wondering if I should get advice from here and from the people at the shop to find the suit for me, buy it then take the class with it or take the class first and use one of their rental suits as a model to figure out what I do/don't like about it (and get a better idea of what I want to buy). The LDS gives the class free when you buy a suit, but I was told that if you buy a suit within a few months after taking the class, they'd discount the course price from the suit, so cost-wise works out about the same (still frighteningly high, though :shocked2.
I know I don't really HAVE to take the class, but if it works out free, I see no reason not to. So what should I do first, buy the suit or take the class?
There's nothing especially complicated about a drysuit. Get your undergarments, weight and trim figured out and be aware of how to avoid a feet first ascent. Take the class if you feel like it, or just find someone knowledgeable to help walk you through it on a few easy practice dives. After that it's just a matter of using it until it becomes second nature.
What you will find though is that the buoyancy difference between diving in warm water in a thin wetsuit and diving in cold water in a drysuit and heavy undergarments is just massive, especially in shallow water where just a few feet of vertical movement can require you to add or dump air.
Edit: Of course I posted this before reading to the end of the thread and seeing that you already took the class.
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Very different.
This is your one big choice. All the rest applies to either, pockets, undergarments, yada, yada...
(BTW semi-dry is pure bull.s.h.i.t)
Man, I empathize! My first dive on our recent trip to God's Pocket consisted of getting underwater and discovering that the fins I had didn't want to stay on my TurboSoles on my other Fusion. I spent the whole dive trying not to kick hard enough to lose them, which can be very interesting on a drift dive .
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