Suit for Monterey?

[DeepTechScuba]

Whoever thinks that whoever thinks that wet suits are for beginners only are mistaken are mistaken.

Get a drysuit. You will love it. You will wonder why you ever got a wetsuit in the first place.

Having said all that, wetsuits are fine for single-dive diving. But they are miserable between dives, and they do not work well for insulation on the second dive. Which, by the way, also rules them out for boat diving as well.

Ah well, now I am just repeating myself again.

 

[ERP]

While I largely agree that diving dry is much better than diving wet in this area (I dive dry and wouldn't dive wet unless I had to). I think DTS is overstating it.

As long as the air temperature is reasonable you can do a number of dives comfortably in a wet suit. You will be colder on each successive dive, but I've done 4 dives in a day while diving wet off a boat up in the puget sound, with 70 degree air temperatures and 50 degree water temperatures, the 4th dive really was not fun, in fact that dive was what convinced me to go dry.

If your going to dive here regularly, I'd just forget the wetsuit and go dry, but a lot of people do dive wet here.

 

[paulwlee]

I'd also suggest a drysuit if you can afford it.
If you would like to stick with the wetsuit, then two 3mils will not be enough. And putting one on over the other one will be somewhat difficult.

FWIW, I was getting cold with my 6.5mm semidry for anything except active shallow dives. I need another 7mm torso insulation on dives under 60ft, or I am too cold to enjoy the dive.

But then again, I met one person who dives there in a 5mil full suit without hood/gloves, but I think he's a freak of nature.

 

[cnidae]

I had almost 120 min bottom time at Mono Lobo Wall last Saturday. To be honest I was cold and I was using Argon. I would love to see a wetsuit diver handle that amount of time. I'm going to have to get better underwear soon to handle the cold. A wetsuit will only work if your doing dives in the 30min to 45min range any longer and you'll be a Popsicle. Becuase of being cold your air consumption will take a hit and we don't want that to happen. I'm getting dry gloves asap so I can feel my hands at the end of my dives.