O'Neill Mutant 5/4mm for Monterey?

[sammyman]

I recently purchased an Oneill Mutant 5mm wetsuit for surfing. Awesome. I was really impressed by the suit on its first run because it was warm, and very little water came in or out anywhere. I actually thought it would be a better suit for diving than my 7mm diving suit at home. When I went home and checked out the diving suit it was actually a 5mm xs scuba suit! Is my Oneill 5/4mm to thin to be using at Monterey? I also have a chest and hood thing that is a couple more mm. So really the arms and legs would go from 5 to 4mm.

 

[mobeeno]

7 mm full suit with hood, gloves and booties is the minimum for me

 

[sammyman]

Yeah that is what I thought people would say. I am kinda surprised because a dive shop sold me the 5mm, with the extra 2 or 3mm hood and vest. So that means my core would be a 7-8mm and my legs would freeze off at 5mm.

 

[Hinalo]

I'm with mobeeno. Use the 5mm for winter diving in Hawaii.

 

[pacificgal]

I dive 7/5 mm in Monterey with a 5/3 hooded vest. Usually pretty comfortable

 

[sarita75]

It really depends - what are your depths? Bottom times?

Alot of wetsuit divers will only do 7mm farmer johns (14mm over the torso). I do a 7mm wetsuit, with a 3/5 hooded vest. After a 60 minute dive I am pretty frozen but, if conditions are good and I don't require much surface interval time, I can usually get back in - but I better take a warm shower afterwards. That is only in the shallows (under 45'). Anything more than that and I am pretty cold both dives and the dives will be a LOT shorter.

Really depends upon you. If you aren't taking on too much water in your Mutant suit - give it a go from the shore. Just make sure that you have some really nice warm clothes to jump into if you get chilled.

 

[Peter_C]

I wouldn't do a wetsuit at all. Instead a drysuit is the only way for me to be warm enough. I tried a 4mm full suit with another 7mm over the top. Still froze my butt off in 48 degree water. Now I can hardly move during the dive and stay toasty warm on multiple dives.

 

[saf1]

I dive a 7mm body with a 3mm chest/hood combo. Gloves and boots of course. As someone above said that is the minimum for me. I know for me the 3rd dive is always the toughest.

Depth seems to play a bigger part for me. Me and my buddy both dive wet so we make sure we remind one another the cold signal before dives. Just so we are on the same page.

Oddly enough the only place I've had issues really was when I dove Lake Tahoe earlier in the month. It was the surface to bottom temp change that made it worse - in my opinion. Surface was 74 and bottom pushed 49 and it was a sudden swing. In this case we just moved to shallower waters and all was good.

 

[Gombessa]

I've seen some TOUGH people (old-school instructors whose skin nerves have frozen off?) who can dive with less exposure protection in Monterey, but they're definitely the exception. Most people go at least 7mm. When I dove wet, I got quite cold in a 7-8-9, and I almost always wore a 7mm farmer john.

I've also heard that surfing wetsuits may use a different type of neoprene (which may not resist crushing as well) because they're only meant to be used on the surface; if that's the case, it may not perform as well as a diving wetsuit even if it's thicker. Dunno if that's true...

 

[cricfanSD]

I used to dive 7/5mm in Monterey and it was OK. Drysuit is way more comfortable but you can definitely dive 7/5mm if you have some tolerance to cold. Do remember that you will get cold as you go deeper and my ceiling is around 70 ft
Here is the caveat, a 7mm suit is a better thermal insulator than a 5+2, so YMMV.