Dry suit

[Garfish]

Hi Wes:

I agree with the guys above. I just bought a drysuit & plan to take a "Drysuit" course. I'm a intermediate diver with Padi certification. What i have read & of heard,without the training you can do serious injury to yourself.

As of taking a drysuit course during open water training, I also havn't heard of this being done in the northeast.

Good luck/dive safe.......

 

[danceswithoctopus]

I have been diving in the Pacific Northwest for over ten years. I am Divemaster Certified and have actually assisted in the classes SubMariner refers to (PADI). It is not at all uncommon for OW students to learn in drysuits. Here's one local dive shop that does this: http://www.discountdivers.com/instruction/ow.html

I don't think anyone in their right mind can advise against seeking training before using a dry suit. It's a new piece of equipment that you need to manage, with its own set of possible malfunctions.

That said, I have over 1000 dives in a dry suit, and about 12 in a wet suit. I never took the class and do not hold the c-card. I did make my first dives in the company of an Instructor (a friend of mine) and was thoroughly aware of the hazards and procedures. It's going to depend on your experience and comfort.

Stay wet (unless you're in a dry suit)

 

[Jonathan]

I felt I included the important part of the quote.... As I said I believe you should be able to with the extra training you talk about but the LDS I use in the UK stopped doing this several years ago because it did not meet PADI standards - or so they said. Go up to Stoney any weekend in Jan - Apr and you will see hundreds of ow students in semi dry suits.

Now I'll have to get the manual out......

Jonathan

 

[SubMariner]

Here is a section directly from the Instructor Manual, Open Water Diver Course, Section 4 "Open Water Dives". It is page 4-2 of the new Digital Manual, under Required Equipment:

"....When student divers will use dry
suits during Open Water Training Dives,
they must complete a confined water
dry suit orientation session prior to any
open water training..."

There are also multiple references within O/W dives with regard to performance requirements for achieving neutral buoyancy that make specific mention of the student wearing a drysuit. For example:

"Achieve neutral buoyancy by inflating the BCD (or dry suit if used)
with the low pressure inflator." [From Open Water Dive #2]

There are other references for other particular skills such as CESA that I won't get into here.

Therefore it IS permissible to have students do their Open Water training in Drysuits.

~SubMariner~

 

[danceswithoctopus]

Okay, that's settled. To arnied's question: "I have no where near by to take a lesson so I was hoping to get a few tips on how to properly use it . Any help would be great"

Dude, is there a LDS? Where in Oregon do you live? I wouldn't suggest that you just head to the deep without knowing how to drive the thing.

Where do you want to dive it? Thirty dives since February? Nice. There is likely a LDS near your dive site. And the class can be done in a day if you want to make the commitment.

Stay Dry

 

[Jonathan]

I'll try again lost the last attempt!!

What I said was I believe - I sit corrected, thanks.

Do they use hire dry suits or their own?

I guess the real reason my shop stopped was because it was too much hassle and probably ended up as less thermal protection.... Due to the different neck and wrist sizes we nearly always had to tape students in using electrical tape.

Add to that none of them ever seemed to have the same shoe size as suit available - is kind of funny watching students trying to cope with their feets in their "knees". I feel fully justified in laughing at them as it happened to me on my pool session, talk about hyperventilation!! Strange thing is though by the time I got to the open water bit I had my own suit - so maybe that's just good marketing......

Jonathan

 

[danceswithoctopus]

Well, I think it's digressing from arnied's original post, but the LDS's here that I know of who teach OW in Dry Suits let students use only dry suits that they purchase. I know of very few places who rent dry suits anymore (a few tried, but quit for the reasons Jonathan mentions--it's just not cost effective).

Wet is good, dry is better

 

[budgy]

Hi Arnied,
Its always easier if you have someone who knows what their doing to show you how.
What kind of suit have you got? Neoprene, compressed neoprene or tri-laminate (shell suit).
Cuff or auto shoulder dump?
One of the first things you need to do is sort out how much ballast weight you need.
You need a diver assistant.
In the UK we use 50 bar as the safety reserve and plan to arrive on the surface with that amount. You have a simular reserve but you express it in psi.
Fully kitted up with a your single or twins tanks on safety reserve, establish what weight you need to sink on exhale, advice is find the minimum and add 4lb. Be sure you are in an upright position and fully empty your suit and bcd of air. N.B. salt water is more buoyant than fresh. If in future you increase your underclothing or change tank size you may have to adjust your ballast. I think a thick pullover for a large man is about 4lb extra buoyancy. The same size tanks does not always weigh the same.
Everyone warns about foot inversion getting loaded with air in your feet and on the surface being unable to right one-self.
Get in a swimming pool fully kitted up with an assistant standing by, grab the ladder in the deep end and with your head down fill your boots then floating feet first let go and learn to right yourself. You will probably struggle and may need assistance the first couple of times, but you will get it right.
The squeeze from compressed neoprene suits can give you large hicky type burns if you don't work some air into the legs even on shallow dives to 6m.
Shell suits are more forgiving and you don't need so much to offset squeeze.
Most club divers over here dive with single tanks and don't practice as much as they should, so they are advised to use only the suit when underwater to control their buoyancy, that way there is only one control to bother with. Some experienced dry suit divers, just put enough air in the suit to avoid squeeze and control buoyancy with the bcd, ascending from a deep dive they have to dump from two places, its not a problem.
If you have a shoulder auto dump, open it fully at the beginning of the dive and leave it open. Though its supposed to be automatic you will need to raise your shoulder to dump air if you swim in a horizontal trim. Cuff dump is pretty simple lift your arm.
The rest of the game is about retaining neutral buoyancy, its comes with practice. Add air slowly a touch at a time and pause, dump air early, a little at a time.
A sticking inflation valve can happen to anyone. If it happens to you, open your neck seal and disconnect your inflator hose fast.
A flooded dry suit may be cold but water weighs nothing in water.
Harry Rat
has some good articles and exercises for building up good buoyancy control. Take it easy, dive with a buddy and give yourself chance to get plenty of shallow dives practice, at least the first 4 dives 6 to 10m max depth, next 6 max depth 20m. Most of us here do 25 to 35 non deco dives max depth 20m to get used to a dry suit before doing more adventurous diving.