How to keep warm in a wetsuit in 40 water

[triton94949]

If it was me I'd spend the extra money and rent a drysuit.......

My recommendation as well. Strongly recommended.

 

[bobmaggi]

If you have to dive wet then pouring hot water into your suit, hood, boots and gloves just before you get in the water helps alot, 3 finger mitts are a pain for dexterity but your fingers will still operate, get out of the wetsuit, dry off and get somewhere warm for your SI. Warm beverages will help keep your core temp up also. These are some of the tricks we used before we got smart and got dry suits!

 

[String]

Its about the right tools for the job. A wetsuit ISNT the right tool for that temperature water. Buying one is wasting money.

 

[Dapher]

I would talk to your instructor and see if you can through in a dry suit specialty with that wreck course. I dive dry here in alaska where it was 38 - 40 degrees all winter, and would not imagine going out there in a wetsuit. Heck my fingers froze until I got my dry gloves and then they were still cold. Make your dive more enjoyable and get the right gear.

 

[mcmag21]

I recently did a nav check dive plus a couple more rec dives in a cold quary. Wool longjohns and thick wool socks made the dive very comfortable. Water temps were in the low 40's and air temp was 36 and blowing snow. With proper planning and some of the tips given here, you will have some good stories to tell when you get to the warm waters and dive only a skin or shorty.

 

[Tamas]

No problem, can be done and I will be doing it soon, very soon also.....I will be diving in my Mares 6.5 semi in 3-4oC and the thing that works for me is to shed the wet suit off (at least off your torso and feet) for the SI. As mentioned drink warm fluids, stay out of the wind and move around - don't sit around.

Other than that it's not a big deal.....you southerners are just wimps!

 

[coreypenrose]

I will be taking a wreck diving class in 2 weeks in the great lakes.
4 dives over 2 days in 40 degree water. Depth will be shallow no more than 60 feet. I have a 7 mm titanium sem dry ,7 mm boots, dry gloves and will put on my 1 mm under the suit. Any tricks to stay warm besides hot water after the dive ?? and should I put the 1mm on after the first dive?

+

=

 

[H2Andy]

sort of like, two pictures are worth 2,000 words type of thing?

 

[Tom Winters]

Planets must have collided here or something. I run into people here in southern Florida who wear drysuits a good part of the year - and then there's people in Nova Scotia and up nawth diving in subgalactic waters in wetsuits.
But 40° water is some serious cold - I remember doing an ice dive as a thrill-crazed teenager in Connecticut in the middle of the winter in 1968 - and I still shudder from the memories of that first shot of water down my back.
There's always the religious argument as well to consider...the line that starts, "Well, if God wanted people to stay warm in coldwater, He/She/Whomever would have invented drysuits."
Uh, He/She whomever did...

 

[coreypenrose]

sort of like, two pictures are worth 2,000 words type of thing?

It would have worked quite a bit better if the