My Drysuit Experience w/o Course

[Subcooled]

Things were going well, but I started to feel a weird feeling in my legs. Finning was getting more difficult. [...] Before I knew it I could feel myself losing control of my buoyancy.

Haven't we all experienced that
Diving a drysuit takes practise.

I concluded I put too much air in my drysuit.

You need to manage the distribution of air in your suit. The less air there is the more trivial this becomes. If you add a lot of air (for isolation in cold water or because your bcd failed catastrophically) you will have an annoying air bubble to manage. And I can tell you it's better to have it in the left arm or on the back than in the boots. If the air travels to your boots, they will become more buoyant. This effect will be more pronounced near the surface. Run-off buoyancy of the feet is really annoying.

I notice my undergarment seemed quite wet.

Happens to me too (there's a steep drop of temperature involved, though).

- Natural perspiration cannot escape a plastic bag.
- Another reason might be that when you close the suit the air is warm and moist and when you submerge, temperature drops and condensation happens at the inside surface of the suit.
- Third possible reason: your wrist or neck seals do not seal properly. If the neck seal is neoprene, remember to fold it in.
- A fourth reason: your inflation and/or exhaust valves are not screwed on tighly enough. Did you tighten them when you bought the suit?

 

[Subcooled]

Yeah, this talk about closing the valve is strange to me. I don't think I ever touch the valve underwater.

If you ever need to dive on your right side (i.e. the dump valve facing up), then you will need to close the dump valve. This situation would probably only happen inside wrecks or caves, though.
Another reason is that you are at the surface already.

A dump valve can be positioned in such a way that one needs to raise an arm to dump suit gas. The valve could also be positioned in such a way that it automatically dumps air. The latter, considered optimal by many, not by me (for some specific advanced reasons), may warrant some fine tuning.

Environments differ. Diving styles differ. Gear differs.

 

[Subcooled]

Slightly OT, but in warmer weather, as soon as you get your dry suit on, have some water ready to dump on your head to help cool you off.

Welcome to the world of dry suit diving.

I know that feeling... but...

A drysuit is very easy to open and close, much unlike the black neoprene owens you call "wetsuit"

 

[Dubious]

Dubious,

Did anyone previously mention the tip to exhaust as much air from the suit as possible before you enter the water by squatting and burping the neck seal and valve? Then at 15 ft notice the amount of squeeze and maintain that feel as you descend.

boat

Thank you for this. I knew to exhaust as much air from the suit as possible by squatting, but not about using that as a reference of suit squeeze at 15 feet. I will give that a try in August (next time we have someone to watch our kids).

Slightly OT, but in warmer weather, as soon as you get your dry suit on, have some water ready to dump on your head to help cool you off.

Thank you for the tip.

Diving a drysuit takes practise.

I noticed that, even though I had expected more troubles after watching a newer diver during our PPB class struggle a lot when he was diving his drysuit. He looked much better in his wetsuit.

Lisa had asked me whether we should go back to wetsuits when it is so warm out. I must admit there is an appeal to diving wet in the hot weather. A little more refreshing in the water and out for that matter since the wet wetsuit keeps you cool landside. Of course, we need practice, but I could see in the future diving wet in the middle of the summer especially if we are not diving bottom temps below 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

[Gareth J]

There is also a psychological aspect to diving a drysuit.

When you start, you are fearful of your feet/boots filling with air and inverting. You are also super sensitive to air moving within the suit.

More experienced divers encourage air into their feet a little to help keep their 'feet up'. i.e so they can be horizontal to the bottom, knees bent. This is a good posture when attempting to keep your feet off the bottom, (in cave or where you have a silty bottom), or when decompressing.

 

[Dubious]

More experienced divers encourage air into their feet a little to help keep their 'feet up'. i.e so they can be horizontal to the bottom, knees bent.

I am not sure I was ever having trouble keeping my "feet up" even in a wetsuit once I got my trim taken care of. Isn't proper trim more of a weighting/placement issue?

 

[FinnMom]

Practice makes perfect.
I learned to dive with a wetsuit, then switched to a drysuit after about 1.5 yrs. I was a very slow learner ’cause it took me maybe 25 dives to get my bouyancy control back to what it had been. I had unbearably, relentlessly floaty feet, even with heavy fins. One fine day it finally (FINALLY ) clicked, shortly after I had given up and bought ankle weights but before I’d ever used them; maybe it was something about finally getting my leg bend just right so air no longer migrated to my feet. It was just like finning backwards, I tried and tried and tried, then when I decided it would obviously never happen, it did.
My daughter and many of our students have used drysuits from day one and that has worked much, much better.

About being scared of surfacing like a cork as a new drysuit diver: I remember my 2nd ever drysuit dive. It went just fine, but I was very concerned about losing it and whooshing up to the surface. After the dive my buddy said ”Gee, you really like this place.”
”Why do say that?”
”Every single rock pile we passed, you swam straight over and started hugging it.”

 

[Dubious]

About being scared of surfacing like a cork as a new drysuit diver: I remember my 2nd ever drysuit dive. It went just fine, but I was very concerned about losing it and whooshing up to the surface. After the dive my buddy said ”Gee, you really like this place.”
”Why do you say that?”
”Every single rock pile we passed, you swam straight over and started hugging it.”

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

@Dubious

This isn't in any mainstream agency dry suit program, but practice dumping air from your BCD/wing and adding to your dry suit and vice versa. See how this affects your trim.

One of the important aspects of preventing inverted runaway ascents is proper weighting and weight distribution.

With some agencies, you do the inverted, air in the boots exercise in the open water. This is where I'd recommend taking a course and being with an instructor. If you decide to do this in open water without, you do so at your own risk. I only say this to cover my biscuits legally. When I do this with students, I have my a diver's platform (Divers Platform) with a tight rope that can be grabbed at any time to stop an ascent.

 

[Dubious]

This isn't in any mainstream agency dry suit program, but practice dumping air from your BCD/wing and adding to your dry suit and vice versa. See how this affects your trim.

Will do.

I am actually thinking about the GUE drysuit primer now. My wife was not the most enthusiastic about doing fundamentals (ok she was only going to do it because I wanted to). I was thinking the drysuit primer would be less pressure and get her interested in doing more with GUE.