Cold water diving is a PITA
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Chilly_Dipper
Contributor
Cold water diving is more demanding, but that's part of the reason I love diving. This thread is replete with some classic beliefs about diving dry that are simply not true:
1. Drysuits are restricting- Cause of this is poorly fitted dry suits
2. Needing more weight - I dropped 10lbs off the belt when I went to a tri-lam drysuit from a wetsuit and using a neoprene I require the same as my wet suit. Most often the added weight is due to people over inflating their suit/wing/bcd or simply not being able to get all the air out of them.
3. Cumbersome to don and doft - Think back to the first time you put all your gear on when you were learning to dive. I bet you thought all that was cumbersome at the time, but with time you got used to it and learned to feel natural with all that extra stuff hanging off you and even feel graceful now.
4. Sweating the sun- don't button the suit up until you (and the rest of the group) are ready to get in the water
I wouldn't sit in a car on a hot sunny day with the windows rolled up if I was waiting for friends to get dressed either for the record.
As for low vis in cold water environments that's a greater indicator of how much life there is to be found up here
1. Drysuits are restricting- Cause of this is poorly fitted dry suits
2. Needing more weight - I dropped 10lbs off the belt when I went to a tri-lam drysuit from a wetsuit and using a neoprene I require the same as my wet suit. Most often the added weight is due to people over inflating their suit/wing/bcd or simply not being able to get all the air out of them.
3. Cumbersome to don and doft - Think back to the first time you put all your gear on when you were learning to dive. I bet you thought all that was cumbersome at the time, but with time you got used to it and learned to feel natural with all that extra stuff hanging off you and even feel graceful now.
4. Sweating the sun- don't button the suit up until you (and the rest of the group) are ready to get in the water
I wouldn't sit in a car on a hot sunny day with the windows rolled up if I was waiting for friends to get dressed either for the record. As for low vis in cold water environments that's a greater indicator of how much life there is to be found up here
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Wow -- my worst uncontrolled ascent was only from 70', but that was scary enough! Yes, you do need to know how to avoid feet-first ascents, but my point was simply to say that there is no position you CAN'T assume in a dry suit -- you just have to know how to manage the air in the suit. There is a learning curve.
OP
billt4sf
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Good Lord! Nice to know that there is someone (who was) worse than me!
Couple comments here from your friendly OP:
We have dived dry about 12 dives (~6 occasions). We use rentals and get mostly the same thing every time -- there's not much choice in DS rentals. Hepcat pointed out to me that the Whites Fusions we rent are kind of like big trash bags with an outside skin. One of the problems I have is a fairly large air pocket mostly around my middle. Every time I roll, this big air pocket ZINGS to a new position. I am tall (so I need a XXL) but not that fat, so there is extra air space. And there's alot of air being vented from the thing, seems like continuously unless I keep my left arm down which is another PITA.
The surf was indeed low that day, March 2. We fell anyway, partly due to the unexpected incline in the sand, partly due to not getting our fins off in time, and partly due to the surf. And alot of it due to carrying, what 60 lbs of weight? That's never easy for us, even for me, and my regular exercise is carrying a 35 - 45 lbs. backpack up and down 2,000 stairs. I was never a super-strong guy, and even if I were, Emily is not. So we have to decide that we want to dive and struggle with the weight, or not. Her knees are a looming issue. When one of those goes out -- we're done diving, and least for quite a while. When we boat dive, we ask the crew to take her BCD before she goes up the ladder. I wish I could figure out how much weight we'd lose from our backs if we changed equipment -- but every time I ask I get so confused!
Some folks have said they dive in pea soup. Well, not us.
I need to see my damn buddy! She she needs me to see her. Neither of us are comfortable if we cannot see one another. I'd say 10 feet is about our lower limit. So...we need low surf *and* good viz! We probably should have thumbed the dive when we arrived and saw the viz. But lots of other people were diving so we thought it would be OK -- lesson learned.
Thanks to many of you that offered help -- we will be taking advantage of some of that!!
- Bill
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jIM STEELE
Contributor
your total size dictates your displasment witch dictates how much you have to weigh to be neutral physical size of tank or extra padding on bc thickens of underwear will change the weight of your weight belt, so less displacement easier to walk or climb. about vis hold hands enjoy the ride dive on
---------- Post added March 8th, 2013 at 07:43 PM ----------
rent her a 50 and have a nicer shorter dive
---------- Post added March 8th, 2013 at 07:43 PM ----------
rent her a 50 and have a nicer shorter dive
Woohoo!!! This is great news. Okay. Air will travel up my legs and expand causing increased positive buoyancy and shoot me upward. Before I assume the head down/feet up position, I should vent the dry-suit (completely or partially). Since I'll be reducing buoyancy within the suit, assuming I was already neutrally buoyant, I'll have to compensate either through greater lung volume or added air in the BCD.
While, the position has risks, it can be achieved and controlled with practice. Do you think I'm headed in the right direction with this reasoning?
O.
Well, if you think about it, if you are horizontal, there is gas spread throughout the suit, all at the same pressure. When you go head down, the gas moves to the feet, and if the feet end up higher than the depth you started, it will expand. If you have a small amount of gas in the suit, you can probably compensate for this simply by breathing at a low lung volume for a little while. When I'm cave diving, I keep the volume of air in the suit as small as I can, so I don't have to do very much at all to compensate for position changes.
Bill, if your suit is constantly venting, one of two things is true. Either you are diving in very much a head-up position, or you are overweighted by a significant amount (or maybe both). I can actually blow my Fusion up quite a bit in the horizontal position I usually dive in, but if I'm sufficiently negative (for example, diving doubles with a stage) I will have to put some gas in the wing, because the suit will begin to auto-vent. But we are talking starting the dive 15 pounds or so negative -- and no single tank diver should be doing that.
The construction of the Fusion suit, with the Lycra skin, actually tends to prevent gas trapping and ballooning. A traditionally constructed suit will, unless it fits very well, tend to be much more egregious in this regard.
Bill, if your suit is constantly venting, one of two things is true. Either you are diving in very much a head-up position, or you are overweighted by a significant amount (or maybe both). I can actually blow my Fusion up quite a bit in the horizontal position I usually dive in, but if I'm sufficiently negative (for example, diving doubles with a stage) I will have to put some gas in the wing, because the suit will begin to auto-vent. But we are talking starting the dive 15 pounds or so negative -- and no single tank diver should be doing that.
The construction of the Fusion suit, with the Lycra skin, actually tends to prevent gas trapping and ballooning. A traditionally constructed suit will, unless it fits very well, tend to be much more egregious in this regard.
So I haven't read all the post. Just enough to make me giggle.
yes. Cold water diving is a PITA. Yes dry suits can cause issues. Yes warm water diving is a walk in the park by comparison. Yes I love cold water diving.
It's what I look forward to in diving. I don't mind the occasional excursion to cayman.
I look forward to the quarry's so I'm prepared for the Great Lakes.
yes. Cold water diving is a PITA. Yes dry suits can cause issues. Yes warm water diving is a walk in the park by comparison. Yes I love cold water diving.
It's what I look forward to in diving. I don't mind the occasional excursion to cayman.
I look forward to the quarry's so I'm prepared for the Great Lakes.
Peter_C
Contributor
Bill, do you use your wing for buoyancy too? Maybe I missed it earlier. I highly recommend taking the squeeze off, then using the wing for buoyancy.
Often I will slightly close my exhaust valve down if I am constantly looking over my left shoulder.
I have no problem going head down at most any point. My socks, shoes, and legs fit tightly though on my Fusion. Makes it a pain in the butt to take off.
Took me a few dives to get my drysuit under control, but it fit properly. There hasn't been a whole lot of dives I haven't enjoyed.
Often I will slightly close my exhaust valve down if I am constantly looking over my left shoulder.
I have no problem going head down at most any point. My socks, shoes, and legs fit tightly though on my Fusion. Makes it a pain in the butt to take off.
Took me a few dives to get my drysuit under control, but it fit properly. There hasn't been a whole lot of dives I haven't enjoyed.
Like TSandM said, the Fusion is actually pretty good about not trapping gas, if the inner shell layer is distributed properly over the body. On my first dive in the Fusion, I felt like I managed to create some significant folds and other placement issues in there that caused me a bit of trouble with both flexibility and gas movement. That's not really a problem with the suit - it just required some awareness that I didn't give it.
To be fair, I had to rent that suit at the last minute when my drysuit's zipper gave up the ghost on the first morning of my UTD tech 2 weekend, so I was in a bit of a rush on that first dive.
I did a better job donning the suit on subsequent dives though, and it felt like it made a pretty big difference.
To be fair, I had to rent that suit at the last minute when my drysuit's zipper gave up the ghost on the first morning of my UTD tech 2 weekend, so I was in a bit of a rush on that first dive.
I did a better job donning the suit on subsequent dives though, and it felt like it made a pretty big difference.Similar threads
