Dutch Springs Quarry Dive

[Rudyh]

I will be doing a couple dives in 2 weeks at the quarry before i go to Bermuda. I dove dutch springs once before but all my other dives have been warm water dives. Question is do i really need to dive with a full hood. I will have a 7 mil suit and 3 mill gloves. Last time the hood really made me claustrophobic and made it hard to enjoy the dives. Surface should be high 70's and there's a 10 degree thermocline about every 30 feet.

 

[00wabbit]

I was out there a week ago. Surface to about 45ft you don't need the hood. Below that you can do without the hood but it is much more comfortable with.

I would go down into the thermocline where visibility improves but it is colder for a couple minutes and then raise back up a few feet to warm up.

Take the hood with you and don't use it on the fist dive. Let your buddy know that as well so he doesn't go down to 60ft and leave you freezing. Also let him know in advance a signal you will use if your head is too cold. You could even take your hood down to the docks and leave it there with a weight on it then do a short test dive to see if you need it.

After my first dive I wore the hood the rest of the day. If you have a tuck in style hood you can leave it untucked. This helps with the claustrophobia. And at the end of the dive you can pull it off easily while you are swimming back.

I. Ended up getting a drysuit style hood that has a short neck that doesn't tuck in. This helped a lot

 

[scubadada]

I can't imagine you would want to dive without a hood. For cold water, I dive with a hooded vest, maybe that would be better for you than a hood.

Good diving, Craig

 

[herbdb]

Get a 3mm beanie. I hate hoods and won't use one. Dutch is very comfortable this time of year. Used my beanie last week to 70' without issue.

 

[Broct]

I would wear a hood. Dutch Springs gets cold at depth

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk 2

 

[AWMIII]

I did 10 dives and 4 1/2 hrs underwater last weekend at Dutch. I only wore a hood on one dive to 85 feet. I spend most of my time around the platforms and doing shallow dives along the walls. The surface temp was 80. I wore a 5mil jumpsuit with booties. I did not use gloves for any dives except for the deep one. There was a pretty good thermocline around 27 feet. It was cool, but comfortable below that thermocline. I wore a drysuit, hood and gloves on the deep dive and was still cold by the end of the dive.

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

i guess it depends how long you want to do your dives and how long you want to spend at each of the site. Last I was there, most of my dives were bounce dives where I went down, checked out the attraction (usually a minute or two), then came back up and swam to the other attraction via the surface. It gets to the low 50's at the deeper dives, and 50's feels like freezing cold. The last time I did a full dive in relatively cool water dive without a hood, it felt like I went outdoors in 10 deg weather with a bare head and my ears going to freeze off. The water temp was only 65 deg.