Cold weather diving

[Dutchman]

How do you stay warm during your surface intervals? Say you dive to 100' for 30 minutes. You surface for one hour. It is 37 degrees out there. :11: Do you stay in your suite? Assuming there is no warm, dry hut to relax in.:no

 

[simcoediver]

Thats one of the problems with wetsuits,you need to get a drysuit if you are diving where the air temp is just above freezing.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Depends on the suit.

If it is a dry suit, the answer is normally yes. However if it is a neoprene dry suit you will want to cover it with a dive parka or windproof rain, suit etc to reduce the evaporative cooling that occurs as the water evaporates from the nylon outer layer of the suit.

Trilams and vulcanized rubber suits dry much faster and shed water better, so less evaporative cooling occurs so covering the suit is not as important.

In really cold temps, taking the suit off may be preferred as most drysuits are designed to reduce heat lost through conduction rather than through radiation. Again a good dive parka may be the ticket here.

With a wet suit, keeping the suit on is easier, but again care needs to be taken to reduce evaporative cooling or you will end up with a net loss of heat during the surface interval compared to changing clothes and re-donning the suit later.

In 37 degree temps and not much wind, I'd stay in a dry suit and possibly even end up unzipping the suit to stay cool.

I'd stay in a wet suit only if there was little wind, some sunshine and if I had a dive parka to go over the suit.

If the temps are 10 below zero it is a moot point regardless of the suit as I'll normally call it a day after the first dive. Ironically when it is that cold, evaporative cooling is not a big issue as the water very quickly freezes to the surface of the suit. You get very little evapoaration and sublimation is minimimal unless it is really sunny out.

 

[MentalMarine]

Bring a cooler full of warm water to put your hood and gloves in, man...that is almost better than sex after a cold dive.

 

[northen diver]

How do you stay warm during your surface intervals? Say you dive to 100' for 30 minutes. You surface for one hour. It is 37 degrees out there. :11: Do you stay in your suite? Assuming there is no warm, dry hut to relax in.:no

I used to use a old canvas military bakers tent ( about 100 bucks at the army surplus stores) with a propane fueled heater in the tent. The tent would stay around 60 degrees with 10 degrees or higher outside temps which was plenty warm enough. I now use a 16' "pony" trailer" that I plug into a 6000 watt generator. If the temps are around the 20's or above, I'll use two ceramic heaters in the trailer and the trailer maintains around 75 degrees. If it is near zero, I throw a blanket over the trailer and add another 1500w ceramic heater and it still maintains around 75 degress. I did a Ice dive with some friends last year and they had a BIG bone fire going for warmth. I was concerned about hurting my drysuit with the fires embers flying everywhere, so I stayed awayed from the fire. 37 degrees will be comfortable temp on the surface in a trilam or rubber drysuit, but once the temps are in the single digits, you really need some type of warming station, even diving dry.

 

[haha49]

the key is not to get out of the suit...

 

[String]

Suit on, fill it with air.
Thick wind proof coat on top of drysuit, skiing gloves, beanie hat.

Then try to stay out of the wind and rain while drinking coffee or chocolate.

 

[Nelson1345]

I just did three days of cold weather diving on a barge that was sinking. The weather out was 5 to 10 degres F. I was diving a drysuit with 100 gram linner. Warm sugar drinks help. The sugar is more important than the warm drink for warming up. It helps the body keep its self warm. I also found that you need to keep moving. The worst thing you can do is stand there and wait to get back in. That will make you not want to do the next dive. I live in Alaska next to a big river that dumps a bunch of silt in the water in the summer. Making zero vis. So the best diving here is winter when the river freezes.