anomalydesign
Registered
Hello,
My girlfriend and I are completing our open water checkout dives this month, but will have only been diving in warm water. We hope to dive more locally (Jersey Shore, Dutch Springs etc), and have begun assembling some cool water gear accordingly. She found a good deal on a 7mm ScubaPro Steamer wetsuit, which seems to fit well once it's on (though it takes both of us to work the zipper-less ankle section past her heels when donning the suit). She also found SeaSoft zippered boots (6mm, I think) that fit perfectly.
The problem is that I don't really understand how the lower portion of the suit and the boots are supposed to fit together. The boot zippers barely close even on her bare ankles, so with 7mm of suit added, she can't even start the boot zippers. What's worse, all of the material between her ankle and the boot seems to be pushing her foot forward in the boot and making it a poor fit.
If this were an issue specific to this boot or suit, I'd be fine with going a different route, but it seems to me that this must be an issue with pretty much any thick wetsuit and boot combination. How is this supposed to work, when both items want a tight seal on the same portion of leg?
The ideas that have come to my mind are:
My girlfriend and I are completing our open water checkout dives this month, but will have only been diving in warm water. We hope to dive more locally (Jersey Shore, Dutch Springs etc), and have begun assembling some cool water gear accordingly. She found a good deal on a 7mm ScubaPro Steamer wetsuit, which seems to fit well once it's on (though it takes both of us to work the zipper-less ankle section past her heels when donning the suit). She also found SeaSoft zippered boots (6mm, I think) that fit perfectly.
The problem is that I don't really understand how the lower portion of the suit and the boots are supposed to fit together. The boot zippers barely close even on her bare ankles, so with 7mm of suit added, she can't even start the boot zippers. What's worse, all of the material between her ankle and the boot seems to be pushing her foot forward in the boot and making it a poor fit.
If this were an issue specific to this boot or suit, I'd be fine with going a different route, but it seems to me that this must be an issue with pretty much any thick wetsuit and boot combination. How is this supposed to work, when both items want a tight seal on the same portion of leg?
The ideas that have come to my mind are:
- Leave the boot unzipped and either make a velcro extender, or use a different strap entirely to seal the unzipped top of the boot around the outside of the suit. Unfortunately this would not solve the fit issue caused by the extra material in the boot, though even unzipped the boot will not slip off her foot by mistake.
- The 7mm ScubaPro suit is actually composed of two separate layers of thinner neoprene. I believe I could cut and remove the inner layer for the portion that would overlap the boot. The remaining inner neoprene above the boot top would still be plenty tight to prevent water flow, and the outer, un-cut neoprene layer should be large/stretchy enough to pull over the zipped-up boot to prevent any skin being exposed.