Wet or drysuit in New Zealand?

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Dive schools are generally operated through the local dive shops. In Whangarei, which is the closest city of 40,000 and is 40min drive from Tutukaka. The 2 main shops are Dive HQ which is in Clyde St. It is Naui & Padi. Good crew. I did my dive master training there. The owner is Dean. He is one of the most experienced divers in the country and is on the NZ dive council, the body that administers all diving in NZ. If you search for 'Dive HQ' it links to all the branches nation wide with contact info. The other main one is also a Padi outfit on Lower Cameron St, but the benefit of using Dive HQ is that they have their own indoor training pool, which gives more flexibility. I personally rate them as the best. The normal dive location, subject to weather, is the Poor Knights and you get to do your open water training dives there.
All of them have hire gear. Training locally is a great idea. The conditions change all the time and if you learn to dive here, you get lots of variety in your training. It's about $500 NZD for the open water training and it includes the dives to the Knights and the hire of gear. That was what it was last time I was there.
I did my Padi IDC with Dive HQ Auckland and thsy are another great bunch with their own pool as well.
There are dive shops in all the cities and plenty of choices. You just need to plan your trip. If you dive below the upper half of the North Island. you will need to upgrade your wetsuit from a 5mm to a 7mm or a dry suit. Dry suits will cost from $1600 - 2000 and I don't know if they are hirable. Above, you can use a 5mm with booties, gloves and hood during winter and drop the hood in summer. Depends on the water temp.
Email me if you want any help.

Cheers

Gasman
 
Just thought I'd give you a perspective from a South Island Diver:

I only started diving this winter, and have been using a 7/5mm one piece with a 3mm vest/hood. All my diving has been in Canterbury - Kaikoura, Lake Coleridge, Banks Peninsula - water temps ranging from 10 - 13 C.

When you're sitting still it can get a bit cold, but otherwise I haven't been too bad so far. I guess it depends on what you're used to really. If you have a dry suit, I'd wear it.
 
TheYellowSubmarine:
I've was told by the people at http://www.oceandry.co.nz at the Auckland Boat Show that they can arrange hiring of drysuits.
Thats right, I forgot about Nigel and the guys at Oceandry, they're at Warkworth (like
myself) about 3/4 hour north of Auckland. Their rates are very reasonable. I use one of
their suits myself. I guess if your used to cooler temperate water diving in a wetsuit,
you'll be fine, but if a warm water diver go for the drysuit.
 
I did some "research" about a Pinnacle semi-dry with Merino wool inside. I think I'm gonna check that suit out when I'm over in NZ. I want to do some diving in wintertime maybe, so a warm (can't afford a dry one) suit would be nice. Still have to figure it out, but the best way to do this is by testing the suits realtime!

So, if I'm lucky a LDS can lend me some...

Haiko
 
Just remember a semiDRY is still a WETsuit. Temperatures don't really pick up until November or December. A semidry will do alright for the top half of the North Island I'd say. Diving South of Taupo I'd definitely say drysuit.
 
I was in Poor Knights a month ago and used a dry suit and was very comfortable. rest of the guys were in 7mm wetsuits but they were the new pinnacle wooly interior ones, but they had no problems at all

Dive Tutukaka - top place to do Poor Knights from. loved everything about them and being a centre owner i am hard to please, unless you hand me a beer, in which case i am easy !!
 
If it helps, I've just decided that I can't cope with getting through the rest of this winter in my merino lined 7mm semi-dry. Diving is not to bad, but the surface intervals are a killer if there is no sun or it's windy! New drysuit ready and waiting for as soon as I can get rid of this stinking cold.... I'll probably be back in the semidry around the end of November.

NZ is not the cheapest place to train from O/W to DM. To give you an idea of costs, the respective courses prices are around:

AO/W - $250
EFR/MFA -$150
Rescue - $400
Divemaster - $1200-2000

Pick and choose your DM course carefully - make sure you get some real intern experience rather than just messing about with simulated training exercises. A DM who has never worked with real students is easy to spot!
 
AndyNZ:
If it helps, I've just decided that I can't cope with getting through the rest of this winter in my merino lined 7mm semi-dry. Diving is not to bad, but the surface intervals are a killer if there is no sun or it's windy! New drysuit ready and waiting for as soon as I can get rid of this stinking cold.... I'll probably be back in the semidry around the end of November.

NZ is not the cheapest place to train from O/W to DM. To give you an idea of costs, the respective courses prices are around:

AO/W - $250
EFR/MFA -$150
Rescue - $400
Divemaster - $1200-2000

Pick and choose your DM course carefully - make sure you get some real intern experience rather than just messing about with simulated training exercises. A DM who has never worked with real students is easy to spot!


But for diving that suit was suitable? ;-)

I know that NZ is not that cheap, but compared to, let's say... Holland, it's a real bargain! Have seen some prices in OZ, but they are not much lower than the ones I found in NZ. Maybe the LSD in Bundaberg (AUS) is the cheapest (I did my OW with them) of all... So I stilll have to shop around I'll guess.

As long as I get a good (and fun) training in NZ, I don't bother about speending some extra $$... But, I have one year do decide and to make up my mind before I travel to NZ.
 
HAiko:
But for diving that suit was suitable? ;-)

Depends. Certainly for most situations (e.g. typical two dive rec day) it was fine. However, the dive shop I do DM work for part time has a policy of only taking groups of four on O/W dives - so instructors/DMs "double dive" a day to get a eight students through their O/W dives in a weekend..... four dives in a day, sat looking for students with problems etc was quite frankly bl**dy freezing. If you are thinking of training as a DM you might end up in this situation!!

The Pinnacle suits would be fine for this in summer - but at this time of year, never again!

There's a brand of wetsuit called Trident (made in the same factory as Pinnacle and I think they're a wholly owned subsidary?) have the same merino lining but the outer fabric seems a little more robust.

If you're going to go down the drysuit route, I'd definitely look to buy outside of NZ. You should be able to claim tax back when you leave Holland which would make it a lot cheaper than the suits here (typically NZ$2500-3500).
 

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