How many of you dry divers had formal training

[616fun]

No class - I just surrounded myself with some seasoned drysuit divers. If you're comfortable doing it without professional supervision and have friends that are experienced with drysuits, then I'd skip the class.

Take it slow like Cancun Mark said - hang out at about 20 ft for the first few dives. I've found that's where the suit is the most volitale. If you do well there, take it down a bit deeper.

The only real reason to do a class is to have a card to rent a suit if you don't own one. Sounds like your Uni-suit will fix that problem.

OH - One other peice of advice - you'll have to plan your buoyancy a lot more with a drysuit. Be sure to vent the suit before you begin to ascend, not while you are ascending. It's not quite as responsive dumping air from the drysuit air space as it is the BC. Obviously the difference in the size of the air space makes a difference. I did that on my first dry dive and took a ride from about 20' to the surface. Nothing hurt and a lot learned in a few seconds.

 

[oversea]

I have been doing alot of research and talking to the guys at wreckvalley.com and have been getting some useful information. I am really considering getting a suit and doing a bit of shallow trial and error at the beach. Oh, also consulting some reference materials such as padi books and vids. I feel as though all of the specialties I have were self taught. I was given (no, paid for) the reference materials, I read, did questions took tests and thats it. The O.W. for them were a joke, nothing geared specifically towards the specialty. That goes for Nitrox, stress and rescue, boat, and night diving. Yeah, they are not very in depth specialties but still, I basically taught myself.

 

[TCDiver1]

I am considering also getting the uni-suit (or henderson) and going for it.

The Uni-suit is a good suit. The zipper is in a much better place than the first ones. You don't have to be gumby to get in the new ones.

By the way i don't recommend going dry without some good mentoring and/or instruction. We didn't know any better in the 70's. Now we do.

 

[steve2281]

I did a couple of dui days before I got my suit. I also did the class; I didn't really want to, but it was HIGHLY recommended where I do most of my diving. I thought it was worthwhile, got to practice skills that I might not have learned/practiced on my own.

 

[Azza]

When i got my drysuit the shop i bought it from gave me a few pointers and let me play in their pool. Other than that no formal training.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I made two shallow dives in my first drysuit, realized there was nothing to it and was glad I didn't pay for a class. Some classes teach you to use the drysuit for buoyancy, which takes practice and is counter-productive. Adding just enough air to eliminate the squeeze made it feel just like all my previous dives.

 

[2TH DIVR]

Self taught. Don't think there was a class in the early 80's or didn't know of one. That was in MA. now that I live in Florida I still use one during the winter.

 

[Tavi]

Self Taught. I did a lot of reading, mostly here. Then a couple shallow dives, before moving on to deeper stuff.

 

[Hoosier]

That's what I thought, self-training and some advices. However, my LDS kept saying that you HAVE TO take DS class like saying that you must have to buy your reg from LDS, not from online stores.

 

[TwoBitTxn]

I took a formal course from an experienced instructor.