First Dry Suit Dive

[ththooft]

So last night I got to enjoy my first dry suit experience. It was in a pool, but still really cool! I now definitely understand what suit squeeze means!
It was a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to playing with this new toy!

 

[Daylonious]

I was thinking about inventing "Dive Cups" for just that problem. Figure paint em red with a white stripe and toss em up on ebay.

"Dive Cups by Daylonious - Because in Scuba, any Squeeze is a Bad Squeeze"

D.

 

[Ber Rabbit]

Did you get any hickeys? I've come up looking like someone beat me with a whip for an hour
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[cummings66]

One of the instructors I know had a bright idea one day. First off he dives a drysuit and has for quite some time so he knows what will happen. He decided to see how deep he could go before he had to add air to the suit. I can't remember the exact depth but it was pushing 100 feet when he got to the point that he could not move hardly at all, they had a line they were descending down so they had to use finger tips to move up bit by bit until he could move his arm enough to hit the inflator for the suit. He said he had lots of hickies after that.

Personally I think it starts getting uncomfortable at around 30 feet if I don't add some air by then, but I've never had a hicky yet... I've heard neoprene drysuits don't tend to do that and it's the suits like my Viking that will give you hickies from the squeeze.

I still think it's odd how you feel the squeeze in a drysuit, Even on the surface you can feel your lower legs being squeezed. Even though I know the theory behind it I still marvel at the event.

 

[Gidds]

OMG! Suit hickies?! Nobody told me about this phenomenon! Where exactly do these show up usually? I bruise VERY easily! I cannot have suit hickies if they occur any place viewable by the general public!:yuck:

 

[Ber Rabbit]

I had a bunch around my throat, could be hidden with a turtleneck though. I learned the hard way that my Viking Xtreme doesn't think I should wear a bra--at least the hickies don't hurt. The suit tore a small chunk of meat out of my knee once on a 35 foot dive. Most of the hickies my suit leaves are on the torso and neck. I HIGHLY recommend proper drysuit underwear, the thickest ones you can get give the suit something else to bite on :biggrin:
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[cummings66]

Any place the suit squeezes you, that's where you can get it. If you haven't got it yet, you might not get it at all if you keep doing what you're doing.

 

[cummings66]

It tore a small chunk of meat out of my knee once on a 35 foot dive. Most of the hickies my suit leaves are on the torso and neck.

How did it do that to your knee?

 

[Gidds]

I haven't taken the suit out as of yet. It's a Bare NexGen. I'm guessing I was not warned about this since my instructor told me that if I felt more squeeze than what I get just hanging out in the shallow end of the pool that I ought to add some air and that feeling that much squeeze was bad for mas as well as the suit. I bet that's what he meant about it being bad for me. I'm thinking maybe I'm safe because I use the suit for bouyancy and I wear a 300wt fleece jumpsuit underneath?

 

[Ber Rabbit]

How did it do that to your knee?

I wasn't wearing drysuit undies just sweatpants and long underwear and the suit is a bit big. A fold got ahold of my knee and pinched it enough to remove a little piece, I didn't even realize it was that bad until I saw the little blood spot. I didn't put air in the suit because the neck seal was so big that the air just burped out and let water in, it was a shallow dive so I wasn't worried about the squeeze. Now I have a new, smaller neckseal and proper undies and I don't get as many hickies--just my neck occasionally and I know to wear a bathing suit top even under the drysuit undies
Ber :lilbunny: