December Roll call?
- Thread starter flyboy08
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
Kimela & Roger ... 12/3-12/10 at Palace, diving with AquaSafari a few days ... 12/10-12/18, diving with Alison 12/11-17th (we'll see you @captnpat on the 17th? with Alison!)
gopbroek
Contributor
JFS
Contributor
A balmy 83 degrees yesterday. Still wearing shorts and rash guard. Slip on a jacket during surface intervals. A 5mm you would be toasty warm.
Current water temp, anyone? Wondering if I should bring my 5 mil or something less.Thanks!
My Shearwater was consistently 82 and hit 81. If you get chilly, I’d bring the 5 mil. I had my 3 mil and beanie and had to add an extra layer and could have used a 5 mil but my dives were long with steel tanks.
deepsea21
Contributor
I always dive a full 5MM and wear a tropic beanie during the winter months these days (age has a way of catching up with lots of us). I also added a Lavacore vest last year while in Hawaii in Feb (78 degree water there at that time) that I can wear under my 5MM when necessary. Nice thing is it adds no buoyancy.
I'm somewhat convinced it's not so much the water is overly cold being 80-82 in December, it's that the air temp and humidity are much lower which makes for a colder morning ride out, a colder SI and colder trip back in. If you get a chill in the water, during the SI it seems to build if it is cool and windy and low humidity... Some will literally sit shivering under boat coats anxious to get back into that water that all of a sudden feels like a bathtub as the chill during the SI builds and we all know that even though it feels warm compared to the air and wind it's going to chill you even more on the next dive(s). Add multiple days of repetitive diving and that can take a toll.
Anyway, my goal is to not get chilled in the 1st place. I'll take too much heat over chill any day. One can always cool themselves in a suit that may get too hot by pulling the neck of it out and sucking/flushing some cool water down into and through it but there's no way to heat oneself in the water once the chill sets in.
I'm somewhat convinced it's not so much the water is overly cold being 80-82 in December, it's that the air temp and humidity are much lower which makes for a colder morning ride out, a colder SI and colder trip back in. If you get a chill in the water, during the SI it seems to build if it is cool and windy and low humidity... Some will literally sit shivering under boat coats anxious to get back into that water that all of a sudden feels like a bathtub as the chill during the SI builds and we all know that even though it feels warm compared to the air and wind it's going to chill you even more on the next dive(s). Add multiple days of repetitive diving and that can take a toll.
Anyway, my goal is to not get chilled in the 1st place. I'll take too much heat over chill any day. One can always cool themselves in a suit that may get too hot by pulling the neck of it out and sucking/flushing some cool water down into and through it but there's no way to heat oneself in the water once the chill sets in.
deepsea21
Contributor
Kimela... I know your departure time is closing in (as is ours with 10 days to go). If you don't have a tropic beanie I would highly recommend you purchase one of these in your size. A few MM of thermal head protection makes a BIG difference. There's a reason lots of Coz DM's wear beanies in the summer and full hoods in the winter. Some would say adding 2MM on the head is equal to adding 2MM to the full suit and going from a 3 to a 5.
My wife and I started diving about 17 or 18 years ago and we started wearing shorties and nothing else. As the year's passed we migrated to 3MM full suits. Then we added tropic beanies. And about 2 years ago went to 5MM full suits. Most recently in Feb I grabbed that Lavacore vest in Hawaii.
Bottom line, for $20 buy one of these and wear it with your 5MM full suit as we did and do. It keeps your hair out of the way and it makes a big difference. The one thing you will probably need to do with this beanie that many others have is after your first day of diving with it may notice that the exhaled bubbles from you reg seem to find their way up into the beanie and it pulls on your head. Everyone fixes that with a heated hot nail to poke a hole that highest point of the beanie given your dive profile (so it probably won't be the absolute top but a little further back) and the problem is fixed forever. Any reputable dive op you are diving with will fix the bubble problem these can present in the few minutes it takes them to heat a nail and poke it through melting a tiny hole and sealing the surrounding neoprene at the same time.
Have a great Vaca!
XS Scuba 2mm Tropic Beanie
My wife and I started diving about 17 or 18 years ago and we started wearing shorties and nothing else. As the year's passed we migrated to 3MM full suits. Then we added tropic beanies. And about 2 years ago went to 5MM full suits. Most recently in Feb I grabbed that Lavacore vest in Hawaii.
Bottom line, for $20 buy one of these and wear it with your 5MM full suit as we did and do. It keeps your hair out of the way and it makes a big difference. The one thing you will probably need to do with this beanie that many others have is after your first day of diving with it may notice that the exhaled bubbles from you reg seem to find their way up into the beanie and it pulls on your head. Everyone fixes that with a heated hot nail to poke a hole that highest point of the beanie given your dive profile (so it probably won't be the absolute top but a little further back) and the problem is fixed forever. Any reputable dive op you are diving with will fix the bubble problem these can present in the few minutes it takes them to heat a nail and poke it through melting a tiny hole and sealing the surrounding neoprene at the same time.
Have a great Vaca!
XS Scuba 2mm Tropic Beanie
Similar threads
