Dry Suits

[jerryn]

I only use my 7mm when I am doing 1 dive in the 50 to 60 degreee range for less than an hour, or if I'm doing recreational diving in Hawaii or the Sea of Cortez where a 3mm or 5mm wetsuit will do. Otherwise I use dry. Also whenever I am doing a decompression dive I dive dry, including Hawaii and Mexico.

Some thoughts on the other comments. Actually there is a loss of thermal capability with wetsuits at depth. They compress, the air bubbles compress, therefore there is less thermal protection. But if the suit is relatively new, you might not notice the difference at 4 ATA, for a while. One of the issues with wet suits is that the thermal capability degrades with every compression. So an older wetsuit is not as good as a newer wetsuit. We tend to keep them until they either tear or we can't stand them any more. With a dry suit -- in particular with a shell dry suit -- you never have a degradation of thermal capability, either with depth or number of uses. Also you can adjust the amount of thermal protection to the temperature of the water and to how you are feeling that day. Sometimes I will just add another layer because I am feeling a little cold. If you are on a live-aboard doing a lot of dives on consecutive days this is a real plus.

The downsides -- if you tear a seal your day of diving may be over with. And it happens. If you tear a wetsuit, a little duct tape and your good to go.

zippers and seals will require replacement. The better you maintain your suit, the more dives you will get before replacement, but you will replace them eventually. On one of my suits I am on my third zipper.

If you are a guy, you can have off-board discharge with a p-valve. Women don't have that option. Wetsuits are gender neutral in this regard.

For lake diving in Colorado, or winter diving in Southern California, or diving in general in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest I would definitely go dry. You will not regret it once you get used to the dry suit.

Jerry

 

[g2]

If you are a guy, you can have off-board discharge with a p-valve. Women don't have that option.

I think the She-Pee has that covered now, so to speak.

 

[Tjack]

What about the semi-dry option? These suits with integrated hoods are very popular in SoCal where people dive temps in the 50-60 range year round.

If a dry suit is in the near future, check E-Bay for deals on new or almost new demo models from the manufacturers.

 

[Captain12Pk]

When I first started diving dry, I would go back and fort based mostly on water temperature. Anymore, I dive dry only. The only thing that changes now is the undergarments.

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

I think we continue to confuse ourselves, the question "at what temp do you dive dry" depends on a lot of other factors besides water temp. The huge one "do you already own a d/s" is going to take a lot of borderline situations and push them dry because the cost and maintenance issues are not a factor.

At what temp does a w/s dive consider purchases a d/s to continue enjoying diving?

is very different from....

At what temp does a diver owning both w/s and d/s choose to dive dry?

Add in the variables of top side temperature and winds, number of dives, depth and duration of dives, personal preferences, etc... and you have an infinite number of correct and contradictory answers.

 

[RonFrank]

I just came back from a bit of S. CA diving. As usual the majority of divers were diving wet. No surprise Tom and I were the last out of the pool on about every dive. Water temps were low 50's~High 40's.

The one guy that buddied with us on one dive indicated he would signal and surface when he got cold. He did not make it 20 minutes! We did more than double that in comfort. He was in a 7mm, but I can not comment on the model.

Some folks in CA may champion wetsuit diving, but my observations on their willingness to do even 30 minutes wet is that many get too cold to handle the temps, and it becomes increasingly difficult when doing multiple dives in such water.

The one downside to dry diving is that once on the surface it can get hot fast in a DS. I generally pull off the top half, and that works well for any dry diving I have done with warm surface temps.

 

[BigBubbaJ]

Once you learn to dive a drysuit it is second nature and no problem. So there is a bit of learning and task loading at first, but once you get it down it is no problem. I only add suit inflation gas for uncomfortable squeeze.

That said, I like a 3mm in Bonaire, anything else is a Drysuit.

A drysuit has the added benefit of acting as a second source of inflation, and therefore allows for safe recovery of a total wing/BCD failure. For those of use that use heavy steel doubles, this makes the use of a drysuit mandatory since we are so negative and usually have gas in our wings.



I have a Whites Fusion which I bought used on scubaboard for $1100 after diving for a year an a half in a TLS 350 which I bought used for $700 or so.

If you get an argon system you can buy the cool "ARGON DO NOT BREATHE" stickers also.
I dove argon once and did feel warmer. But I use air or nitrox for suit inflation since the first time as it is easier to transfill with available gasses.

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

I just came back from a bit of S. CA diving. As usual the majority of divers were diving wet. No surprise Tom and I were the last out of the pool on about every dive. Water temps were low 50's~High 40's.

The one guy that buddied with us on one dive indicated he would signal and surface when he got cold. He did not make it 20 minutes! We did more than double that in comfort. He was in a 7mm, but I can not comment on the model.

Some folks in CA may champion wetsuit diving, but my observations on their willingness to do even 30 minutes wet is that many get too cold to handle the temps, and it becomes increasingly difficult when doing multiple dives in such water.

The one downside to dry diving is that once on the surface it can get hot fast in a DS. I generally pull off the top half, and that works well for any dry diving I have done with warm surface temps.

I am curious, were in So Cal were you diving and so many people were calling dives after 30 minutes? Maybe you have found a pocket of wimps? Catalina should be around 65F this time of year.

 

[Tjack]

SoCal water temps last week were running, 52-54 degrees around San Diego. Ron's computer read 49 degrees at one point. San Miguel was 54-57 dgrees and Anacapa 61-63 degrees. La Jolla at a max depth of 20 feet was 61 degrees. There has been unusual upwelling this year keeping Temps and Vis way below normal. According to a couple of Cali dive op websites I saw, anything under 60 is considered "Cold Water Diving" Below 60 degrees I'm using a drysuit for sure.

 

[RonFrank]

I am curious, were in So Cal were you diving and so many people were calling dives after 30 minutes? Maybe you have found a pocket of wimps? Catalina should be around 65F this time of year.

I hardly dive CA enough to be any type of expert on the divers, etc. Tom provided the temps on dives we did as well as some diving he did as I continued my "Family" vacation...

After doing two trips out there I have noticed that a lot of divers are not down for max bottom time (or the magic one hour boat limit). I am not faulting them, just an observation, and for the most part I have no idea why, so getting cold is only one possibility.

You may get more insight on the CA forums, but then again MOST divers are NOT on SB even if we do have a very large amount here.