Cave Diving. Wet, or Dry. Pros/Cons

[helodriver87]

Yeah, the trick to drysuit diving in Florida in the summer is to find the shadiest spot you can as early in the day as you can, get all your gear built, checked, laid out, etc. As organized as humanly possible. Haul stages, etc to the water. Put it on a line if possible. When there's absolutely nothing left to do, get in your drysuit as fast as humanly possible and get in the water before heatstroke kills you. Then come back and gear up while you're cool. It's a fun game. Totally miserable, sometimes even 30 minutes into the dive, especially if you're swimming. But by hour 2 or 3 when you're looking at a decent chunk of deco, it's all worth it. Personally, I can't even handle an hour in 72 degree water in a 7mm. So I only dive dry.

 

[Boston Breakwater]

@Dominick Gheesling

In Florida, there is something else to consider. I did a set of late summer dives there one year--I usually only go in the winter. I wore my normal drysuit, of course. The outdoor temperature was just over 100° F, and it was humid. As I finished setup, water was pouring off of my face, and my undergarments were soaked with sweat.

Hello. Same thing happened to me just last August. I stripped out of everything for lesser apparel. I still have a high metabolism at my age, which is probably a disadvantage in this case.
Cheers.

 

[boulderjohn]

Yeah, the trick to drysuit diving in Florida in the summer is to find the shadiest spot you can...

I was actually doing an instructor internship at the time, and the Instructor Trainer with whom I was working said something about his unsuccessful efforts to get a pavilion built on that location to provide shade. (There was absolutely none available.) I told him that where I teach in Colorado and New Mexico, where we can get scorching temperatures and bright sun as well, the instructors and experienced students bring portable shades, essentially open tents. Apparently that is not acceptable in Florida for some reason.

 

[tursiops]

Apparently that is not acceptable in Florida for some reason.

I know of no regulation against it. But I suspect it would be considered to be wimpy....

 

[helodriver87]

I know of no regulation against it. But I suspect it would be considered to be wimpy....

Nah, we'll bring tents out to some permit sites when we do support for longer WKPP dives. The problem with doing that everywhere is that sometimes there isn't a great place to put one up and then there's the question of leaving it unattended in a public place. I suppose you could tear it down before getting in the water, but that's a lot of work in direct sunlight. In a drysuit. Juice just isn't worth the squeeze a lot of the time.

 

[boulderjohn]

I know of no regulation against it. But I suspect it would be considered to be wimpy....

I didn't think of an laws against it, but it sure does not seem to be in the culture. In Colorado and New Mexico in the summer you will see pop-ups all over the place at popular dive sites, soccer tournaments, etc.

 

[macado]

Florida Caves. I dive dry. In the summer I make every attempt to be as efficient as possible getting all my stuff down to the water before I put on a drysuit. In July-September it's pretty miserable. I try to dive as early in morning as possible or late at night; I try to avoid mid-day in the summer if at all possible. I did a lot of 530am or 10pm Ginnie dives to avoid the heat and crowds.

Everyone is different regarding thermal protection so your mileage may vary. Total runtime (dive time + deco) I even get pretty cold in a drysuit in Florida. I would be pretty miserable in a wetsuit. I wear a hood for 90% of my dives. It keeps me much warmer, offers some head protection and keeps my neck seal down preventing water going down my neck seal in high flow or scootering.

In some cases I've geared up in my air conditioned van. I did a couple really stupid dives this summer where I hiked through the woods with a full set of doubles + drysuit on some particularly hot and humid days. I thought I was going to die. I stripped out of my tanks, walked back to my van took my drysuit off and blasted the A/C for about 20 minutes until I cooled down.

If you're doing short dives with double AL80s or even LP85s then a wetsuit might suffice. I've known quite a few people who learned to cave dive in a wetsuit but quickly switched to dry. A few other people also mentioned the issue of being extremely negative with steel tanks in a wetsuit in the event of a wing failure so I won't go there.

TL;DR Most Florida cave divers are diving dry but some dive wet. No easy formula but wear what makes you comfortable.

 

[tursiops]

A few other people also mentioned the issue of being extremely negative with steel tanks in a wetsuit in the event of a wing failure so I won't go there.

Dual-bladder wings are readily available, in both back and side-mount configurations.

 

[macado]

Dual-bladder wings are readily available, in both back and side-mount configurations.

Yes they certainly are but I wasn't going to get into that argument or discussion. I have nothing inherently against them but I just don't use them. I'll defer that discussion to other people.

 

[tursiops]

I have nothing inherently against them but I just don't use them.

Well, of course you don't, if you dive dry. My point was that you don't need to dive dry to have some redundant buoyancy.