Dry suit top three pieces of advice

[James R]

Without reading every post here, the biggest problem most drysuit students I have taught have is that they don't truly understand how to do a proper weight check, so they end up trying to use too much weight. If you're properly weighted, as you should be, it's pretty easy to dive dry for most people. I spend more time on this than most, and I never purposefully have students over-weighted in my classes.

One cue I use when we are doing a descent down a slope, is to imitate how an airliner lands. Not head down, not head up. Just a nice gentle angle to keep the air where you want it.

Pee valves. I have never owned a drysuit that didn't have one. It's a bit scary cutting a hole in a brand new, never been wet, suit, but worth it IMO. Yes, you can have them installed by the manufacturer so you don't have to install it. What can I say, I like my coffee. I like to stay hydrated. I hate holding in pee.

 

[shurite7]

No. With that being stated I am one of the lucky people who does not have to use much weight. During the summer months I can get by with two pounds with my fleece undergarment. During the winter I use 10 pounds, even under the ice, with my polar tech undergarment. I use a ss BP/W, trilam drysuiit, and a ST100 tank.

The research group from the university here who travel to the Antarctica do not use BCDs for buoyancy because they are not allowed to dive with one. They use the old style BackPack. Each person wears a lot of weight and they use the drysuit for buoyancy. Another advantage of this is the extra air helps keep them warm. One of them gripes when he has to use his BCD while diving in the lakes or out on the coast up here.

 

[Frontpointer1000]

Finished the DS course today.

Here are my thoughts:
The dive shop was awesome, they were extremely interested in making sure I was happy and taken care of. We drove together in the shop truck for over an hour each way and chatted about diving and everything else. The instructor and I were the only ones diving so he gave 100% of his time to me. We were together from 9 AM until 6:30 PM. We sat out two camping chairs on the beach and reviewed all the material and went through the dive suits with incredible detail. They were already very familiar with my style of diving and the fact that I like to dive solo - and after this class already had set up another DS for me to try which was front entry (good for solo set up). Additionally the dive shop owner let me borrow his extra regulator for a side mount pony because I will be diving solo in a day or 2 when I try out this other DS (I flew here and brought minimal gear, so the LDS owner let me borrow his back up reg for my solo dives-I left my personal back up gear at home).

It was a beautiful day with some mild wind and I loved sitting on the beach reviewing the material and talking about everything. The surface interval was the same. The water temperature was 51° but visibility was between 5 and 10 feet. Beautiful calm waters, mild breeze, warm sun, mountains in the distance. A great day.


My DS was the Waterproof "hybrid" - which I really enjoyed except for a couple of things. It's a back shoulder entry which requires a partner to close, and the internal hybrid mesh suit, although awesome and great for thermal insulation, unfortunately retains a great deal of air and I was incredibly floaty. I had to use 30 pounds to feel comfortable and even then once my tank was half full I was fighting to stay down. The Suit was a large and I should have been in a medium. The booties (integrated and attached to the suit) were too large and on the first dive my feet came out of the booties multiple times -the legs were also too long (so my feet were in the bottom of the legs but my boots and fins were then useless because they just flopped around). I put on four pair of socks for the next dive which was much better, but still felt sloshy.

The lift/loft with the hybrid suit in the legs caused my legs to continually lift over my legs. Even when there was no air in the suit. Anytime My head/back were less than a 45 degree angle, my legs would lift above my head and I was fighting through both dives to keep my legs behind me/under me.

Overall, a fun but frustrating event. The suit was too large, I nearly NEVER had any but the smallest amount of air in the suit, had exhaust valve open all the time. I think the hybrid mesh just holds so much air which cannot be vented. And the larger-than-necessary suit...aargh. Nonetheless, diving for a couple of hours in 51 degree water and not being cold at all is pretty incredible.

I'll try another suit in couple of days and report back.

 

[Storker]

the internal hybrid mesh suit, although awesome and great for thermal insulation, unfortunately retains a great deal of air and I was incredibly floaty. I had to use 30 pounds to feel comfortable and even then once my tank was half full I was fighting to stay down.

Insulation = buoyancy. If the undersuit had held less air, it'd been colder.

 

[Frontpointer1000]

As promised:
Today I dove dry again, but this time with a different DS. This was an older, front entry model that is the precursor to the new Waterproof D7. Insulation was just a lavacore, fleece pants and a long sleeve wicking tech shirt. First dive was with a weight harness and 20 lbs, along with a sidemount catalina 50 CF tank and an alum c-80 on the back of my BCD. This was 10% different from my previous DS dives. I was in control, comfortable, level, not fighting anything. I was diving solo and felt great. The suit fit so much better - the other suit was too big.

Anyway, the second dive I dropped 4 lbs, put a light weight jacket on over the lavacore, and still could have dropped more weight.

Loved the suit, felt very comfortable, never cold. Leaked a little around the neck (the seal was too big for me). This actually felt like diving, whereas the previous dives felt like wrestling with a 6-armed, 5-legged prostitute and drowning while wearing saran wrap.

 

[Frontpointer1000]

*100% different, duh.

not 10%