Cressi Lontra Question

[RMAdventure]

I'm going to be a new diver soon. I have finished the pool and class portion and I am just waiting to do my open water dives. I live in Colorado and I am interested in diving locally. I am interested in using drysuits in the future. The hard part is the cost, especially as I try to buy all of the other equipment I will need. I read a review about the Cressi Lontra that said it is a great suit for keeping out water, it tends to be more "dry" than wet. The price is also pretty good. Would a suit like that be a good way to start, or would it be better to just wait a year or two for a dry suit?

 

[Token]

I have faced a similar situation diving in Alberta... Given the amount of enthusiasm most drysuit divers feel for their gear, I'd say you'd be best off to borrow or rent a drysuit until you can afford to purchase your own. Look around...used deals, and deals on discontinued models can often be quite good. Inquire at dive shops as well as online...there are lots of suits in good condition that people are trying to get rid of. If I wanted a drysuit, that's how I'd go about it.

In my own case, I'm going with a quality semi-dry [sounds like your Lontra]. However I don't plan to use it very much locally...I'm quite satisfied with one or two lake dives in a day, and I'm not particularly sensitive to the cold. I can also layer it with a hooded vest, or even a Thermolution heated shirt. I don't want to go to the trouble and expense of drysuit training, practice and purchase for the sake of perhaps a dozen dives [or fewer] over the course of a summer. I dove with a 7mm semi-dry off Vancouver Island last year in May, and was quite comfortable...that suit had other problems for me, but it sold me on the semi-dry concept.

Bottom line...if you _know_ you want a drysuit, I'd recommend you save up for it the best you can. Buying something you don't really want in the meantime, even if it's cheaper, looks to me like a false economy.

 

[johnboywalton]

The Cressi Lontra is one of the better "semi-dry" suits out there. Click here for a review. That said, the best any semi-dry suit can promise is to tightly restrict water flow and to provide a thick neoprene shell. As a result, the best semi-dry suits can go down to waters in the upper 40s with a good fit and the right undergarments, but any colder than that is and will always be drysuit territory. Keep that in mind and look up what the water temperatures will be at depth where you intend to do most of your diving.

 

[Mitchell Teeters]

Save your money and go dry, DRIS will have great pricing on a USIA suit, then there is the HOG line. Either way you will be spending money that will eventually be dedicated to the dry suit. Learn from my mistakes.

I finally got to the point that I would take a small sig loan and pay it back rapidly, luckily the wife said I could drop the coin. And luckily again it was at the time of the Black Friday sales. If you can hold until November you can get some serious deals. The AquaSport and Edge suits are quite nice for what you get. Then when it's time for garments you can get some quality garments from Rondel on eBay. Just check out the cheap eBay undergarment thread. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

 

[RMAdventure]

Thanks for the input guys! It's just hard to imagine spending the money on a dry suit in addition to all of the other equipment I will need. My local shop also mentioned that if you buy a dry suit through them, they will throw in the PADI dry suit specialty. I'll have to check prices online and ask the LDS a little more about it.

 

[Prof Diver]

I own an lontra and a dry suit. I find the lontra to be everything that it is and more. I tell my customers that it's a pain to put on, because it really is, but the extra 15 minutes that it takes to put is worth it. The suit is like a second skin. However I still find that I get cold when teaching a class, manly because I'm from tropical waters and now teaching in cold waters. But when I'm just diving for fun I never get cold.

Now for a dry suit, I personally recommend that you barrow one if possible until you decided that dry suit diving is for you. I've only done a few dives in my dry suit and find the experience to be a little overwhelming because I'm no longer thinking about the sites but more about where I am with the suit, do I need more air in it or less and so. A lot of people say that you to do at least 10 dives in a dry suit to determine if it is for you. There is no point spending thousands of dollars on a dry suit if you will never use it. Or if you can't barrow one, look into some of the cheaper dry suits, this what I did.

 

[NE_SSI_Diver]

Going dry only makes sense if your water temperatures are very cold, and also when you are willing to dive. It will also depend on your tollerance to cold water. I live in the North East so I do not know the water temperature in Colorado, but 50 degress is tollerable in a good fitting semi-dry, and if you can tollerate the cold.

I own both, so I will talk about both and you can decided which is better. I picked up a virtually brand new Whites fusion drysuit with a pinnacle evolution undergarmet, dry glove system, drysuit hose, and a carrying bag for $500 (one fourth of retail value) at my dive shops annual used equipment sale. For that price it was a given that you would buy the drysuit because it was cheaper than most semi-dry suits. However, a drysuit is not easy to dive in, be perpared to not like your first dives ecspecially when your feet are above your head. It takes practice to dive horizontally in a dry suit and sometimes requires ancle weights. I would suggest renting before buying to see if you will like it, but do not stop after one, two maybe three dives. My experience just shows that checking out used sales may help you find a great drysuit for a low price.

Now, My Dad and I are dive buddies, and he just bought the Cressi Lontra. We were looking into the semi-dry concept as a way to dive in warmth during the summer. As of now the Cressi is selling in the mid $200 range, this makes it close to the price of a Scubapro form2 wetsuit (not semi-dry). This again comes down to water temp, but the Lontra is not the best semi-dry suit out there. Many say that the Scubapro Novascotia 6.5mm suit is better. Even though it is not as thick as the 7mm lontra many people say that is seals are almost as good as those found on a drysuit. Because of the seals divers report coming out of the water with only the lower half of thier legs wet. This them seems like the suit to go with but it is around $550, more than twice the price of the Lontra.

If you are going to buy the Lontra there are a coubple of things to know. Firstly, the seams are not fluid sealed which is a way of significantly reducing the water which comes in through the stitching. Also, for the best seal Cressi offers a hood which is seperate from the suit (even though its in the same picture as the suit). Another thing to note is that the best semi-dry suit depends on how well it fits you, the cressi might not be tight enoguht to act as a good semi-dry and vise vera for any other suit.

So thats my rather long two-cents, I hope it helps.

 

[RMAdventure]

Thank you, it's great to here from somebody with experience with both.