Drysuit course - Warm vs Cold waters

[flymolo]

Thanks. I will give it a try because I have been trying to squeeze out every bit of gas and dive with the least amount of weight.

yeah you need extra weight when you add thicker undergarments and/or go from fresh to salt. no way around it unfortunately. if you use an aluminum backplate maybe switching to a steel one would suffice

 

[DCN]

I plan to dive dry in US NorthEast and NorthWest (~45-55 degree temps) cold water, therefore it would make sense to learn the drysuit in cold water

If most of your diving is cold water, do your training in cold water so you know how to handle the conditions.

 

[rx7diver]

... I plan to dive dry in US NorthEast and NorthWest (~45-55 degree temps) cold water, therefore it would make sense to learn the drysuit in cold water ...

I agree with others here that suggest you would be better off learning to drysuit dive using the stuff you will be wearing for your NE technical diving. Get with competent, experienced divers who routinely do this type of diving in this environment, and learn what they wear (what gear they prefer) and how they do what they do. This is the approach I used when I began diving dry in the Great Lakes. (I didn't take a formal drysuit course.) Worked out great, no pun intended.

ETA: I wore a DUI crushed neoprene suit with knee pads, neoprene fold-under neck seal and wrist seals, medium Thinsulate underwear, polypro liner, and cold water wet hood and gloves; isolation-manifolded HP100/120's (3,500 psig PST cylinders); Hogarthian-inspired BP/W (Alum back plate); Poseidon Odin regs; and solid weights on a weight belt--all suggested to me by experienced divers for deep diving on Great Lakes shipwrecks. No regrets whatsoever. Perfect kit (for me). One thing, though: As my depths and bottom times became more "extended" (made more practical due to my move from HP100's to HP120's), I began considering dry gloves and a dry hood.

rx7diver

 

[flymolo]

If most of your diving is cold water, do your training in cold water so you know how to handle the conditions.

strongly disagree.

more consecutive days/hours and better instruction will get you farther. you deal with the cold water by layering up but the core skills don't change.

an instructor who spends upwards of 300 days in the water a year is going to be far better than someone who only gets in on the weekends if that

 

[DCN]

.. the core skills don't change.

an instructor who spends upwards of 300 days in the water a year is going to be far better than someone who only gets in on the weekends if that

The core skills are the same, thus it really shouldn't matter where you learning the core skills. They aren't that hard. No-one learns how to master a drysuit during a course, that takes practice.

We might be biased (or totally wrong), but we'd still argue that learning in the conditions that you usually will be diving in, is way more important and valuable. "Just layer up" when you hit cold waters is a simplistic approach, there are other things to consider when diving in colder waters, many have already been mentioned. One important element is actually dealing with the cold itself; how you handle it, react to it, or how reduced mobility and dexterity affects you when you operate valves with thick drygloves etc.

 

[flymolo]

The core skills are the same, thus it really shouldn't matter where you learning the core skills. They aren't that hard. No-one learns how to master a drysuit during a course, that takes practice.

We might be biased (or totally wrong), but we'd still argue that learning in the conditions that you usually will be diving in, is way more important and valuable. "Just layer up" when you hit cold waters is a simplistic approach, there are many other things to consider when diving in colder waters, many have already been mentioned. One important element is actually dealing with the cold itself; how you handle it, react to it, how reduced mobility and dexterity affects you when you operate valves with thick drygloves etc.

Yeah I hear that, but for example if OP were to train in Mexico he could spend a ton of time swimming a shallow cavern line with a lot of ups and downs. I think that kind of training would go a long way.

 

[Nosmosis]

As a tech diver, I will be taking a drysuit course in backmount doubles, and I can't decide if I should do the course in Tulum/PDC (I'm cavern certified) or a far and expensive drive away from me in a cold lake.

I plan to dive dry in US NorthEast and NorthWest (~45-55 degree temps) cold water, therefore it would make sense to learn the drysuit in cold water with my 150g thinsulate undergarment, however I would really prefer to just do my drysuit course in Mexico (with only a base layer) so I don't have to deal with that trip. My concern is that if I learn in Mexico, then when I incorporate my thicker undergarments it will be a problem for me.

Does the amount or type of undergarment have that big of an effect when learning to dive dry, or is it small enough where after learning how to use a drysuit I will be able to use those skills across all garment types?

In my opinion, it doesn't matter where you do the course. I teach drysuit regularly (in the Chicago/Milwaukee region) and I can say that no student is 100% at the end of the course. They all complete the skills, but a few dives does not make a perfect drysuit diver. They all need to get many more dives and perhaps after 25 dives or so, the drysuit diving becomes "less weird" and more comfortable. Stick to open water dives for a bit (no wreck penetration) and get really comfortable with descents and ascents, diving the suit and doing basic skills (reg remove/replace, mask removals, deploy DSMB) while keeping buoyancy & trim. Yes, when you get back to colder waters and use thicker undergarments for the first time, you will work to get the weighting right. I know when I first bought some BZ400 undergarments last year it took a couple dives to get my weighting dialed in and it was a bit shocking how floaty they were. Yes, undergarments do make a big difference sometimes the thicker they get. But dry diving skills will be ok to learn in a drysuit with thin undergarments in warm water. In some ways, there is an advantage there because you can focus on just diving the drysuit and dealing with that strange new equipment instead of doing they while also learning how to use dry gloves, while wearing a thick hood. One approach to consider is find a GUE instructor in Mexico and do a Drysuit Primer class. Very worth it and does not require a GUE certification to do it. Also since you said you are a tech diver, I assume you are diving doubles. With thicker undergarments it is important to make sure you can reach your valves - so make sure the undergarments you use fit and allow you to reach valves. I have had undergarments that were thick and too constrictive to allow me to comfortably reach valves.

 

[Stoo]

As someone who's been diving dry for 40 years, if you're a capable diver wet, it'll take about 15 minutes in the water to get "ok" with a drysuit, and three dives to become proficient. Ya, I'm old, but I know I'm not alone when I suggest that "Drysuit Diver" is one of those courses that doesn't really need to exist.

FWIW, if you're going to truly benefit from a drysuit, you're going to want drygloves, so wherever you do it, I suggest wearing gloves. I think doing it in cold water would be beneficial since the bubble of air you'll be diving in is larger and more reactive in cold water due to the thicker undergarments.

 

[happy-diver]

I bought the PADI drysuit book, and hired the drysuit video from the dive shop, not too far around the corner

Drysuit Diver – Dive RAID International

diveraid.com

And went diving!

You see if you dive in the ocean, it will throw you around covering up your mistakes until you don't make any

 

[Edward3c]

The one thing no one has mentioned yet. You can never forget your wearing a drysuit. Even after +1,000 dives I still ‘drive’ mine.