Cold Water Diving

[Boogie711]

E-Type - I did check dives in 34 degree F water in a wetsuit.

I have no aversion to diving wet. I have friends who ice-dive wet. But every single one of them would prefer to dive dry.

Being cold is not just a 'state of mind.' It's not about pansy-assed complainers. It, much like Soggy says, slows down your metabolism, makes you more succeptible to DCI, increases narcosis, and increases suseptibility to oxygen toxicity.

How is wanting to avoid any of that "pussy-assed?"

Just because you dive wet and 'feel OK' doesn't mean it is OK. That's hardly a scientific analysis.

You remind me of people who drive while talking on a cellphone, without a seatbelt, with their highbeams on, while reading the newspaper and eating breakfast all at the same time. Sure, you may very well never have an accident. But when you do have an accident, don't try the "But I always drive this way and it's never been a problem" line.

 

[etype]

soggy:

Sggy writes:“The water isn't what insulates you, it is the air trapped in the neoprene the wetsuit is made of. “

Which insulates and traps the water against the skin, which is heated by exposure to your body and is trapped inside the wetsuit and displacement of this trapped warmth is stopped and held by the water present.... as it’s not affected by pressure irregardless of the compression of the neoprene.

Sggy writes:“Wow...conspiracy theory. The US military has done studies. I know you won't accept this, since it is also done by a manufacturer, but check out the studies on”

Soggy i’d have to count a couple of decades of dives that were done in a drysuits in my logs. I’m not unfamiliar with dry suits, I know what drysuits do. I own several.
What i’m saying is, i’d rather dive in a wetsuit...and my point is that this is made out to be the worst situation a diver could possibly find themselves in, and this is more than a little exagerated (as your comments veer quite far from reality)...you link to navy whitepapers that warn of a chilly and impending demise, preceded by extreme incapicitation.....it’s just simply a lie. (not you, don’t get offended...i mean the industry insistance on the need of this gear, ‘ie’ sport requirements are different than military or techical requirements) The study concerns divers who are cold....I told you i’m not cold when i dive a wetsuit....your study doesn’t change that.

The industry could teach you how to fit a wetsuit and how to move in the water...it’s perfectly warm, you need less bouyancy control and you are freer and use less air...but instead they give whitepapers that are completely biased in their sampling (wetsuit diving is different than drysuit...you have to move to stay warm...but their samples are assuming a wetsuit diver behaves like a drysuit diver...thus gets cold and is subject to the symptoms of cold...done properly a diver in a 7mm wetsuit who is healthy will not get cold at any rec depth... a warm diver in a wetsuit does ‘not’ use more air...uses less...lets see those studies about a wetsuit diver who is WARM......different picture then...but it won’t sell a lot of drysuits)
Understand this if you can..a warm diver is not a cold diver. Your whitepapers concern cold divers..... I dive 40 meters in a wetsuit a few days ago..i was not cold..i was warm. I’ll do the same dive in January...it’s not much colder at 40 meters..and i’m still not cold.... In fact i loved it. The thought of being impeded by a drysuit seems kind of naff to me...i wonder why you all insist on it...you keep assuming it’s cold.


Unless of course, my two wetsuits., a 7mm bare semidry and a sherwood two piece, are freak suits with advanced technology that have somehow escaped the lab. Except that my diving buddies do wetsuits also...in fact i live in Canada which is fairly cold water...and most people with a lot of experience, including professionals...dive wetsuits when diving for enjoyment and fun and excercise and doing some underwater travelling.......none of us that i dive with have gotten incapicitated, slip into unconciousness at depth, experience oxygen toxicity ( Naturally a dive that does not entail a lot of swimming i would wear a dry suit also...)...in fact we are not only warm but we dive with less weight, freer movement, cover more distance horiziontally and not just vertically. So my point is the dive industry and people’s shopping lust are doing divers a disservice. Diving with a good tight fitted 7mm wetsuit in 45F water is not only well within the capacity of any healthy person, but this sport should be also about being healthy, excercise and building endurance and developing your innate talent and not just how deep you go or how much gear you buy.

As for the Rush Limbaugh reference..i don’t know what Rush is about, i’m Canadian not American and have never listened to Rush, avoid American channels and media and have no interest in American sociopolitical references whether right or left.

As for the couch potato thing...Too bad you don’t reference white papers that aren’t compelling you to buy more gear. There are many of them that report the fact N. Americans are couch potato’s, this should be obvious...i see so many divers dripping with the latest gear...they run around like fresh widows on a shopping jag..... and they are always telling everyone their latest purchase is indispensable and they are now safe from imminent departure to DV’s locker and i f you don’t get it too, well your not a very safe diver....i’m sorry if the fact surprises you. Thanks for the laughs.

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ColdH20diving: i’m not saying that you people who want the security of a dry suit are pussies, don’t take it so personally...i’m saying the expectation that you MUST have one, it’s the law...or it’s so horrible...is wrong....is pussy Like i said, diving with a 7mm is 45F is no problem for a healthy adult. Your boat divers in their drysuits may be all cosy and ready to dive...(-- pussy tourist divers ...kidding..) But they are probably going to enter the water...descend to so many feet....do a lazy circle once or twice....and then slowly ascend in a lazy spiral several minutes later....meanwhile a wetsuit diver in 45F is going to be wearing 1/3rd the ballast or even less depending on bodyfat....will be moving with an ease the drysuit diver can’t match (hydrodynamics is much more important than any one who tells me how good drysuits are realizes...) will be warm as toast and will out swim any drysuited diver by a large margin, use less air, not more, will not be cold but very nicely warm (all the studies talking about cold divers using more air and etc. are assuming the wetsuited divers are cold...what if they are not? If i was cold during a wetsuit dive....i would put on a drysuit.)


Boogie711:
(KitchenerWaterloo? I went to U of W! Oom PahPah! I remember diving the quarries around there Elora and Innerkip...i remember oktoberfest...ah bratwurst and kraut...and beer!).

As for being a Darwin award candidiate.
Thats a pretty stupid insult. I imagine you figure your quite a hombre for someone from Kitchener. I’ve been a commercial rated diver for twenty years and diving scuba for more than 30. I’ve been diving drysuit and doing decompression dive for a long time before deco or mixed gas has been available to sport divers, which i think has only been recently. I’ve had no accidents, my partners have always considered me solid, i’ve never been with out offers to work... and i’ve saved the lives of professionals as well as tourists many times..

This subject seems to lead to exaggeration and nonsense...like you are threatened or something...and your all assuming a drysuit suited dive in a wetsuit. And a wetsuit dive is automatically cold. You keep pointing out situations where a wetsuited diver is cold....instead of warm...which is what i am when i dive in a wetsuit... otherwise i would wear a drysuit.


A lot of the return comments here are stupid...bias more than sense. You keep ignoring the main point of what i’m saying and pointing out situations where a wetsuited diver is cold. What i’m saying is a diver with a well fitted 7mm suit with fullhood and gloves who is healthy and experienced is NOT cold.
You feel a nice shot of cold the minute you jump in the drink and the air bubbles out of your suit.....so you kick for awhile and tread water..d in a few minutes your as warm as toast and continue to be for the entire dive....this is winter diving.
the same with REGULAR swimming (without any dive gear...just swimming)....water often seems totally impossibly cold as ice.... sheer ice water, you’d have to be crazy to jump in...but you dive in despite this and splash around for 5 minutes and suddenly your perfectly warm as toast, and you stay that way till you get out...and you have to towel off quickly or your cold.
It’s the same with diving. Lot of what all of you are saying is irrational. You point out whitepapers and unrelated situations and seatbelts and cellphones and ignore what i’m saying.
Yes you are pussys (come to think of it)...you have a irrational fear of cold water that makes you much more frightened of it than it deserves. I’m telling you that in dives where you can swim and move, even at 45F a wetsuit is much more enjoyable and healthy than a drysuit...and it’s not cold. If you dive in a wetsuit and your cold...than putting on a drysuit is the right thing to do.
But don’t pretend that diving safely and warmly in a 7mm wetsuit at 45F isn’t done.
It is done and it’s common and it’s easy...and yes you are pussys.
(Boog7: wetsuits in 34 when your just doing check dives and not working your muscles is pretty cold...i don't dive 34F in a wetsuit)

and dry pussies too (as opposed to wet ones

 

[zeN||]

You can still pee in wetsuit! ~Z

 

[Dryglove]

I can pee in my drysuit also. Arent P-valves great Now removing the condomn catheter after diving isnt so great ;-0

 

[zeN||]

Aaah, hence the term "Pee" valve, gotcha zeN

 

[JeffMandell]

I hesitate to jump into this lovefest, but isn't the underlying source of this disagreement likely to be that... (drumroll)... some people are more affected by cold than others?
My wife is cold constantly in the above-water world; she was born cold. I'm not. She's constantly turning off the AC in the car whle I'm constantly turning it back on. It seems obvious to me that, similarly, some divers will be comfy at 45 degrees in a wet suit and others won't. Those who don't get cold at depth have the advantage over those who must don a dry suit and god bless 'em. But all the emails and white papers on earth won't make the others warm in the same temperature water.
For people to be taunting each other as pussies or neanderthals because they are or aren't cold seems as pointless as my insisting that because I'm wearing sunglasses you should be wearing sunglasses too. No one approach suits everyone.

 

[ERP]

I did my first dozen or so dives in the puget sound wet, and on the first dive of every day I was warm. I can't say the same about the surface intervals, or subsequent dives.

What finally made me go dry was a 3 dive boat dive, with 75 degree air temperatures, The first dive was fine, the second I was chilly, the third I had absolutely no fun and was freezing. I couldn't imagine doing the same with 50 degree air temps.

You can certainly get away with diving wet, but a drysuit is much more convenient and a lot more pleasant on those long surface intervals.

Since I moved to CA, I've noticed that a lot of people in Northern Ca dive wet. The water temperatures aren't much different here, but the air temperature is generally higher. Personally I wouldn't dive wet here.

Just another viewpoint.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I have to agree with Etype on nearly all points. A lot of the appeal of dry suits and the basis of many of the arguments is that if you are not diving dry you are not aking advantage of the best available tool for the job. Kinda like the trimix divers whoi like to state trimix is the only way to go on all their dives. This just isn't the case.

I prefer a semi-dry wet suit as it is more streamlined, can be dove with less weight and reduces task loading. I leave my dry suit home as soon as the water at the surface reaches the mid 50's (the water at depth is still low to mid 40's and is not a problem in a wet suit assuming warm temps at the surface between dives.

In my semi dry I stay warm, I can swim faster with less effort and my air consumption is lower. To some degree it depends on your tolerance to cold but a properly fitting wet suit or semi-dry is not only a viable option but is in many cases, the best tool for the job in water a lot colder than many people are suggesting on this thread.

 

[zeN||]

Pussies! ~zeN

 

[ScoobieDooo]

Buy your drysuit from CANADA! I purchased a BARE ATR Light drysuit and saved HUNDREDS over USA dealers!

PM me for the dealer I used in Canada. I saved over $500 in US funds buying mail order.

I know what your thinking - fit problems. Nadda - the shop took MANY of my measurements that I carefully measured and my suit arrived 8 wks later and was perfect. Fit was awesome!

Otherwise, I couldn't have afforded a trilaminate drysuit!

Now I dive happy & dry!