Forbin's Descent
Contributor
It's a long one...
I learned to dive in the fall of 2020. Being as I had some time goals set for myself I immediately jumped into dry suit diving a few short months later so I could dive all winter. This was not a stretch for me as I've owned numerous dry suits for white water kayaking and am familiar with wearing and maintaining them. My LDS is a Scubapro Platinum delaer and had a brand new with tags Evertech Trilam sitting on the shelf that he was likely never gonna sell so I offered cash and ended up getting it for $800. I'm not sure why but he threw in two SI Tech Glove systems, an Oberon and Glove Lock QCP, as well as a set of Scubapro Easy Don gloves. I have yet to use either of the SI Tech systems and likely never will.
My plan was never to cold water dive but just get through a winter of diving and gaining experience. In addition to the suit he threw in the certification for free as in he just gave me the card with suit. As far as training I was able to tag along with one of his OW classes to the pool and figure out how to use a diving dry suit on my own. Again, being a whitewater kayaker I am very comfortable in the water and doing these drills on my own were not issues for me.
As my goal all along was to cave dive my very next dive after the pool in the dry suit was Devil's Den. I was with another newly minted OW diver so for all intensive purposes this was a solo dive. Everything went great. Other than some leaking through the loose inflation valve on the suit the suit was great and I felt fine buoyancy and trim wise in it. For my next dives I tightened up that valve and the purge valve. Tested in the quarry and it was bone dry. My next dives were in January off Pensacola down to 90 feet. Man it went great and I was so dry and warm. Everybody else was in wet suits and jealous as hell.
After that I continued to dive it in the quarry. All of the sudden on my ascents I can't keep my feet down. Air is gathering in the feet and I struggle to get it out. This continues over several dives and I am starting to struggle fearing the out of control upside down descent. I also realize if this would have happened in one of the swim throughs at Devil's Den or at 90 feet in the Gulf of Mexico I may not have lived to talk about it.
I like to pee and now order a pee valve and install myself. I used a gasket punch and of course the hole is too big. I get it to work though and am using the latex gasket method recommended by DRIS. I am an industrial mechanic in a beverage plant so stuff like this I overcome all the time.
After some more diving I put the dry suit away and get my sidemount training in my wetsuit over the spring and spend the summer and fall diving the wetsuit. After I get somewhat comfortable in sidemount, start the dry suit up again and continue to have issues with air in the feet. I get better and better and start to learn to work the air in the whole system. In January 2021 I do my cavern training in Florida and do half the dives dry and half wet. I do have trouble on one dive with struggling to get air out of my feet. Overall though I struggle in the Cavern course wet and dry. After some diving in Mexico wet I come home and just put the drysuit away to work on cavern skills.
For the past four months I've been diving 3 days a week getting all my kicks down, running reels, valve shutdown drills, valve feathering drills and am feeling confident about Intro to Cave next month. Two weeks ago I put the dry suit back on to get used to it so I don't freeze to death doing cave. Not too bad but that big pee valve hole finally pulls free and I get soaked. In addition when I let it rip, being soaked in water causes the catheter to come loose and now I have a dry suit full of urine and quarry water. After the diving I order a large PVC washer off McMaster Carr, make a bigger latex gasket and boom it works great. I have 100% confidence in it and it withstood the test this weekend. Also opted for the up and over instead of the straight down as I had been using. Another great tip I got off the forums was to trim the excess tube off the catheter so it doesn't kink. Pee valve is all perfect now.
I am going to order a custom dry suit but it will just not be here in time for my training so I am gonna use this one. Despite the hard time Scubapro gets about their drysuits it continues to be bone dry other than the occasional seeping through wrist gaskets. But I replaced those with silicone last night and testing it out tomorrow.
I have a subscription to the Steve Martin videos and start rewatching all of his dry suit stuff. I come across some I haven't seen in his new Masterclass series and watch them. The biggest thing I learn from the Masterclass that if properly weighted and using minimum air in the dry suit one doesn't need to worry about shooting to the surface upside down with booties full of air and trying to do silly barrel rolls. You will just float there upside down. That was always my biggest fear with the drysuit struggles I had. So this past weekend I try it as I have my weight pretty well dialed and sure enough I go upside down and just hover there. I am continuing to dive three days a week in dry suit for the next six weeks until my training to get it really dialed.
I learned to dive in the fall of 2020. Being as I had some time goals set for myself I immediately jumped into dry suit diving a few short months later so I could dive all winter. This was not a stretch for me as I've owned numerous dry suits for white water kayaking and am familiar with wearing and maintaining them. My LDS is a Scubapro Platinum delaer and had a brand new with tags Evertech Trilam sitting on the shelf that he was likely never gonna sell so I offered cash and ended up getting it for $800. I'm not sure why but he threw in two SI Tech Glove systems, an Oberon and Glove Lock QCP, as well as a set of Scubapro Easy Don gloves. I have yet to use either of the SI Tech systems and likely never will.
My plan was never to cold water dive but just get through a winter of diving and gaining experience. In addition to the suit he threw in the certification for free as in he just gave me the card with suit. As far as training I was able to tag along with one of his OW classes to the pool and figure out how to use a diving dry suit on my own. Again, being a whitewater kayaker I am very comfortable in the water and doing these drills on my own were not issues for me.
As my goal all along was to cave dive my very next dive after the pool in the dry suit was Devil's Den. I was with another newly minted OW diver so for all intensive purposes this was a solo dive. Everything went great. Other than some leaking through the loose inflation valve on the suit the suit was great and I felt fine buoyancy and trim wise in it. For my next dives I tightened up that valve and the purge valve. Tested in the quarry and it was bone dry. My next dives were in January off Pensacola down to 90 feet. Man it went great and I was so dry and warm. Everybody else was in wet suits and jealous as hell.
After that I continued to dive it in the quarry. All of the sudden on my ascents I can't keep my feet down. Air is gathering in the feet and I struggle to get it out. This continues over several dives and I am starting to struggle fearing the out of control upside down descent. I also realize if this would have happened in one of the swim throughs at Devil's Den or at 90 feet in the Gulf of Mexico I may not have lived to talk about it.
I like to pee and now order a pee valve and install myself. I used a gasket punch and of course the hole is too big. I get it to work though and am using the latex gasket method recommended by DRIS. I am an industrial mechanic in a beverage plant so stuff like this I overcome all the time.
After some more diving I put the dry suit away and get my sidemount training in my wetsuit over the spring and spend the summer and fall diving the wetsuit. After I get somewhat comfortable in sidemount, start the dry suit up again and continue to have issues with air in the feet. I get better and better and start to learn to work the air in the whole system. In January 2021 I do my cavern training in Florida and do half the dives dry and half wet. I do have trouble on one dive with struggling to get air out of my feet. Overall though I struggle in the Cavern course wet and dry. After some diving in Mexico wet I come home and just put the drysuit away to work on cavern skills.
For the past four months I've been diving 3 days a week getting all my kicks down, running reels, valve shutdown drills, valve feathering drills and am feeling confident about Intro to Cave next month. Two weeks ago I put the dry suit back on to get used to it so I don't freeze to death doing cave. Not too bad but that big pee valve hole finally pulls free and I get soaked. In addition when I let it rip, being soaked in water causes the catheter to come loose and now I have a dry suit full of urine and quarry water. After the diving I order a large PVC washer off McMaster Carr, make a bigger latex gasket and boom it works great. I have 100% confidence in it and it withstood the test this weekend. Also opted for the up and over instead of the straight down as I had been using. Another great tip I got off the forums was to trim the excess tube off the catheter so it doesn't kink. Pee valve is all perfect now.
I am going to order a custom dry suit but it will just not be here in time for my training so I am gonna use this one. Despite the hard time Scubapro gets about their drysuits it continues to be bone dry other than the occasional seeping through wrist gaskets. But I replaced those with silicone last night and testing it out tomorrow.
I have a subscription to the Steve Martin videos and start rewatching all of his dry suit stuff. I come across some I haven't seen in his new Masterclass series and watch them. The biggest thing I learn from the Masterclass that if properly weighted and using minimum air in the dry suit one doesn't need to worry about shooting to the surface upside down with booties full of air and trying to do silly barrel rolls. You will just float there upside down. That was always my biggest fear with the drysuit struggles I had. So this past weekend I try it as I have my weight pretty well dialed and sure enough I go upside down and just hover there. I am continuing to dive three days a week in dry suit for the next six weeks until my training to get it really dialed.
