New Diver in the Puget Sound Area

[ElliottM]

Hello everyone. I recently received my PADI Open Water certification, by instructor Mary Beth Ackerman - if you are in the Puget Sound and know someone who wants to get certified, I highly recommend Mary Beth, as she is great.

After completing my dives in the Puget Sound on 12/27/08, with air temps around 30 degrees F, and water temps around the mid 40s, I am looking forward to doing some warm water diving. My son lives in Costa Rica, and next week he and I will be diving off Playas del Coco, where we plan to go for our Advanced OW certification through Deep Blue Diving. Any advice on diving in that area (e.g. Catalinas) would be appreciated.

This is just a brief introduction to say hello, and I welcome any other Puget Sounders to say hello.

Elliott

 

[DiverBizz]

OMG. water in the 40s ouch. I thought 60s was cold. Welcome to the Board and have fun.

 

[M.HARDY]

Welcome to the Board...I'm not a Puget Sounderer but i'm a Vancouver B.C. cold water diver..so if that counts..Hello Elliot.. I wish one of my sons lived somewhere warm.
Take Care & Dive Safe

 

[ElliottM]

Thanks for the greetings. I guess I get the best of both worlds - cold water diving here at home warm weather when I visit my son. I do think I will seek to maximize the warm water dives as much as possible, although with a 7mm suit even the mid 40s water isn't bad.

Dive safe!

 

[Yoshua]

Heya Elliott.

Welcome to the board, I am in the bremerton area and recently certified too. I went out this weekend to try on suits.

7mm is THICK. I got certed in Maui and I think I was spoiled a bit. The place I went only had 2 piecers in 2xl and Lets just say that didnt work out so well.


Did you do your cert in a one piece 7mm or a 2 piece?


I am going to go on a work out regimine starting this week to drop a few pounds. I am not huge but I am shapes. According to the 2 piece suits I fit into a 2xl bottoms perfectly, as I expected to from diving in Maui. However my shoulders and chest wouldnt let me zip up the 2xl top. Actually took a 4xl top to get the top zipped up, but there was sooooooo much extra material that it was ridiculously obviously too large for me. So time to trim up a bit I guess.


Anyways, if you did a 1 piece was that warm for you? No issues with the cold in the winter?

Thanks
-Josh

 

[gedmondson]

Josh - I would recommend diving dry. Apply the money you intend to spend on a wet suit on a dry suit. If you dive year round in the Puget Sound, you are going to make the change eventually anyway.

 

[ElliottM]

Josh,

I am not nearly experienced enough to feel I can speak with authority on the best suit choice, but I will answer your questions and add my 2Ž¢. I used a two-piece 7mm suit, and it worked very well for me. I was comfortable in the conditions we had immediately after Christmas and felt no real discomfort using a wetsuit.

The first caveat I would add is that I am carrying around a fair amount of my own "insulation" right now, so I was almost certainly warmer than someone with a lower BMI would likely have been. My son is 17 and has very little body fat on him, and he was uncomfortably cold during our surface interval after the first dive, so much so that he skipped the second dive to get dried off and warm. However, he also lives in a tropical climate and in general was colder than a native would have been.

Gedmondson may be right, and you and I may go the drysuit route eventually. I have been working on getting in better shape and dropping the extra weight I've accumulated, so I may find myself less comfortable in a wetsuit. However, I will say that the group of divemasters who accompanied us on our checkout dives were mixed in their choice of dry versus wetsuit use. Those who used wetsuits felt comfortable enough that they didn't feel the need to switch. My instructor, Mary Beth, said she always seems to run a little cold-blooded, and for her a drysuit is the only way to go.

BTW, my son and I did five dives off Playas del Coco and had a great time. We achieved the Advanced Open Water cert, and we both felt our skills grow tremendously. The nice part for me was not having to carry so much additional weight with the 3mm suit versus the 7mm suit in the Sound. That alone is motivation to shed some of my extra weight.

Cheers, and dive safe everyone!