Plan on diving dry. Don't do it on an impulse.

[COVCI]

Yo...Dag...don't you have some Ice Training after action reports to write or something?

Didn't see you sneek in though the side door to ScubaBoard.

Hope all is well for you and Wobbles.

Chris
AKA
ChrisColumbus
AKA
COVCI

 

[roakey]

I was diving dry before PADI had the drysuit specality. One wonders how any of us survived...

Roak

 

[Genesis]

I taught myself how to dive dry.

Its not a big deal. This trend towards "show me the card that says you can do X" is nothing more than a money-grab by the shops and agencies, and we should RESIST IT STRONGLY, and refuse to patronize those organizations and businesses that attempt to press it forward.

 

[Northeastwrecks]

Next they'll introduce specialties for other pieces of equipment like...

slates, lift bag/surface markers, knives and lights...

and require a card before renting them. LOL

Mike, would you need to take both the dry suit and the lift bag course. I had someone at DS tell me that I didn't need a lift bag because my suit would work just fine!!!!

My LDS doesn't push the dry suit card unless someone really wants it, in which case we are more than happy to teach the course. Instead, we take them to the pool and invite them to hook up with us during a mutually convenient OW weekend. We take them out when we are done with the OW students. We don't charge for these dives and we don't knock anything off the price if they don't participate in the pool or OW dives.

I strongly prefer to see people who buy suits from my LDS to take advantage of this. While it is true that you can learn to dive dry without too much effort, it gives us a chance to pass on pointers, confirm that they actually do know how to dive the suit and see how the suit fits in the water while they are wearing their gear.

 

[Don Burke]

I just bought my suit, read the chapter in the PADI AOW book, burned an AL80 in the pool, burned several AL80s in shallow water, and went to the ocean. The change to steel came shortly after.

I thought the divemaster and captain were going to bust a gut watching me during the shallow water work. Other than that, no excitement.

I can understand why a shop owner would want some assurance before he rented someone a drysuit. I sure would.

 

[matt_unique]

...training does provide a common language for people, especially new divers, which can come in handy for them. Short of a bad instructor it only serves to help. I was mostly self taught (inc. buddy observation) as well but chose to get all the certifications to make sure I did not miss anything along the way. No harm in training and it makes learning a bit easier for people.

--Matt

 

[Gary D.]

Yo...Dag...don't you have some Ice Training after action reports to write or something?

Didn't see you sneek in though the side door to ScubaBoard.

Hope all is well for you and Wobbles.

Chris
AKA
ChrisColumbus
AKA
COVCI

Hi Chris;

I just did an Ice Re-certification report on DL. :new_olymp

It's my job to sneek through back doors. :54:

Wobbles is doing better than she has in years but she's driving me to

So How the heck have you been?

Gary D.

 

[Gary D.]

I started diving dry once in a while back in the mid 60's. We didn't make a habit out of it.

Back then it was climb through the tube, either front or rear entry, fold it just right and put the clamp on. You want a challange this was it. No air in, no air out. You went till it hurt.

These new suits are a breeze but some people need more training than others. Just like driving. Some do good right off the bat where others will never figure it out.

Gary D.

 

[Rick Inman]

Every so often there is a post like: Going to do something tomorrow, next week or next month in cold water so where do I get dry suit certified?My personal feeling is that this is totally the wrong approach.

Gee, that's exactly why I bought my dry suit, on impluse. The water was gettin' cold and I wanted to be warm. Guess I should have bought the thing BEFORE I needed it. Darn, and I've been having so much fun...

The wreck we were diving on is at 143’ with a water temp of around 34df year around.

Seriously, what wreck in what lake? I'm always looking for good sites locally. I know you're not talking lake Coeur 'd Alene, 'cause even this time of year the temp below 100' is closer to 40d.

Now the interesting part. They were both dry suit certified but had never dove one out side of the pool scissions.

I would sure like where they got their certs. I know that Atlantis, Landlocked, Spokane Scuba, Toms, & Divers West all require open water. Maybe not locally?? It would be good to know who to avoid. My guess is, you didn't ask.

After I bought my dry suit, I did four shallow dives (Spokane River below Planter's Ferry Park) to get the hang of it. What a blast! I went up, I went down, put in too much air and too little, moved air around in the suit this way and that and then re-established trim, did feet first recovery flips (fun, but a skill I now know I'll never need), did the funky chicken and otherwise scared the local population of rainbow trout into the next county. I had fun and learned tons about dry suit diving.
Those guys with the ski suits have more problems then just lack of training and bad motivation. they're the kind of people who would try to pump air down a garden hose with a fireplace bellows (hey, that just might work :ssst.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Sorry Mike but that's a bit flippant, using a dry suit is very different to diving in a semi dry as you should well know. It is very stressful for divers, esp inexperienced divers who cross from wet to dry and students benefit from learning to use such a different piece of equipment first with an instructor before going off diving independently.

Well, maybe it's flippant but when I wrote it I was thinking guys like my former cave instructor and my former trimix instructor and many other divers I know who dive almost exclusively cold water in dry suits but don't have a dry suit card. I find the mental picture of some one in a dive shop refusing to rent them a dry suit because they didn't have a card is kind of funny.

I have one and I even have a dry suit instructor card but I doubt I could find either one if I had to. If I was on the road and had a suit blow out and I needed to rent one I'd have to get them to take my word for it that I have a thousand or so dives in a dry suit.

You're right that some divers especially new divers have a hard time with a dry suit at first but I think we should let them worry about it.

There isn't anything wrong with taking a dry suit class or orientation if a diver decided that's the way they want to go. Requiring the card though is bs, IMO.