Yes, it does get most confusing. Fifty years ago, a major selling point of suits, whether wet or dry, was their versatility. I have a Lillywhites catalogue from the early 1960s featuring a dry suit - back then just a thin valveless coverall designed to keep water out - which was "designed not only for diving but also for swimming, water-skiing, yachting and even fishing, where only the trousers are worn". The manufacturer's catalogue lists this clientèle too, adding dinghy sailors and canoeists to the list of potential users.
Nowadays we are in the age of the specialist. A wet or dry suit is no longer billed as a multipurpose accessory for a variety of water sports, even though the differences between surfers' suits, swimmers' suits, scuba-divers' suits, freedivers' suits and canoeists' suits must often be subtle at best to a layman's mind. The pressure to design and market a specialist exposure suit for each aquatic pursuit has undoubtedly come from single-discipline watersportmen and watersportswomen themselves, people who are passionate about one water sport only. However, the trend towards specialisation has also been positively encouraged by the water sports equipment industry, which stands to benefit financially if a modern customer who surfs and scuba-dives purchases two exposure suits, one for surfing and another for scuba diving, while his parents or grandparents, half a century ago and with less money to spend, would have surfed and scuba-dived wearing the same exposure suit.
Choosing a wetsuit thickness is about balancing temperature and manoeuvrability. The thicker the material, the warmer you will be, but at the expense of your limbs' freedom to move in the water. You will find it easier to swim in a thinner wetsuit, but you will be colder. Aim for a "Goldilocks" equilibrium which is neither too hot nor too cold. How to achieve this is trial and error. One person may find thick wetsuits still too cold, another may overheat in the same garment.
Much more important is fit, because the idea of a wetsuit is to admit as little water as possible and for that stagnant water to be warmed up by the wearer's body to a comfortable temperature. If a wetsuit is a slack fit, at least a trickle of cold water will flow continuously through the suit as the wearer swims, chilling him or her. Sometimes getting a close enough fit means ordering a custom suit. We're all differently sized and getting a well-fitting wetsuit doesn't always come cheap.
The great thing about snorkelling is that just about any kind of fins will do, no matter what the watersports specialists claim. When I visited Southern California's La Jolla Cove, a snorkellers' Mecca, a few years ago, the snorkellers I saw wore full-foot rubber fins, open-heel composite fins, fixed-heel surfer-style fins, freedivers' long-bladed fins and Force Fins. The one thing they all had in common was their enjoyment of snorkelling, however they were shod. What does matter when it comes to fins is fit. Fin pockets come in a range of foot lengths, widths and arch heights, so it's important to try fins on, with any socks or bootees, before completing the purchase. Your own choice of full-foot fins for snorkelling in the UK is perfectly justified, the more so because I happily snorkel in the cold North Sea off the Northumberland coast with traditional all-rubber full-foot fins over my vintage drysuit's footed pants. I don't like open-heel fins and I don't understand why some people think that full-foot fins only belong in tropical resorts. Dare to be different.
