Question GUE Fundies - Drysuit or Wetsuit?

[Zach The Diver]

TDI ER tech diver here looking to get GUE Fundies tech pass. I’d like to know if it’s easier to accomplish this goal using a wetsuit or drysuit, with the goal of choosing the harder option so I can more easily translate the skills I learned to the easier exposure option. I’m especially interested in tech divers providing this feedback. One thing to note: I am not very experienced in drysuit diving (I do own my own custom drysuit) since I usually dive without a suit or 3mm if cavern diving.

On the one hand, because a drysuit is more complex than a wetsuit, plus the fact that I’m not very experienced with it, it might make sense to train with that. However on the other hand I’ve read that drysuit diving makes staying in trim much easier, therefore in this case a wetsuit/no-suit might be a better option.

Thoughts?

Drysuit is the way to go. If your ultimate goal involves more complex tech diving down the road (as it seems it is) you are heading down a road where having exposure protection for longer bottom times and redundant buoyancy is advantageous.

Take some time to become competent in it before using that suit for Fundies. You’re going to be very task-saturated as it is without fumbling with equipment you’re not that familiar with.

If you’re cavern diving I’m presuming that you plan on going cave at some point (just a guess). Unless you’re exclusively diving very warm cenotes or something you’d want a drysuit for that too.

Good luck with Fundies. I’m taking my class starting later this week.

 

[Heat Miser]

Thoughts?

I was supposed to have a second go at Fundies with Gideon in the Phillipines, just after COVID, the water was expected to be very warm and my drysuit was a touch tight around the chest and arms and made it hard to do valve drills. I asked and Gideon was pretty frank with me, he suggested fixing the drysuit by altering it, rather than turn up with a wetsuit, if my goal was a teck pass. I subsequently got COVID and dissapointedly had to cancel, because he is a bit of a legend in Asia.

I later completed Fundies, in Sydney, some years later with a properly fitting drysuit, and when I got my cert card, to my surprise, it said "Trained in skill refinement, doubles, primary light, 32% Nitrox and drysuit."

 

[TheSnowBeast]

If you're looking at it from a difficulty perspective, I always find drysuit diving just a little harder just because it's another thing to manage. Trying to get stubborn gas out of somewhere while winding a spool and dumping the bcd too.

As far as trim in a wetsuit, I have not noticed any challenges. My experience on wetsuit dives has always been that with less to deal with the whole experience, including trim, is just a little easier

This may also be because my drysuit dives are in 35 degree water with very thick base layers and I'm very heavily weighted vs wetsuit dives are in the tropics