What a score!

[Tavi]

My first drysuit come from e-bay. It was a Bare D7 Supra.

I bought my wife a DUI clx 450. I needed time to save up for the suit I wanted, but didn't want to miss out on any diving. If she had a good drysuit, I'd get to dive a whole lot more!!

The suit fit pefectly and had no leaks. I didn't even have to trim the seals. It served me well.

After a year, I bought the Drysuit that I wanted and sold the Bare on e-bay for what I paid for it. The buyer was doing the same thing. He wanted a suit to hold him over 'til he could get the one he wanted.

Best of luck with your new Drysuit!!

 

[LavaSurfer]

Not a great adventure but I got the suit wet.


We had a class and after humping 20 tanks, BC's, Regs etc into the indoor pool building and sweating my balls off I got into the suit. Before the students arrived I had ½ hour so I took advantage of the time. The humor of it was we also had the pool sessions going on for a Rescue course so I told them that they might get to rescue me from Heat exhaustion

It seemed the seals were all about right and as soon as I was in the water the air all rushed to the top and I burped it out the neck seal. I tried to go down and couldn’t I had my SS backplate 6# and two 2# on the straps. I thought this was a good place to start since all I was wearing was a sweatshirt and sweatpants. Finally I had someone hand me 10#’s and I went down. Then I remembered, let the air out of my BC. DOH! I did that and put the 10# back on the edge of the pool. First important lesson learned New equipment, new task loading, things to remember. This is why we practice new gear in a safe place first.

After that I was cruising the bottom in style. The squeeze at 8-10 feet really surprised me and I learned quickly to add air and relieve the squeeze. I was wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants so I wasn't roasting but it was warm, too warm. The water temp is 87. I tried several times to get in that dreaded feet up position but it never happened. I was little light in the feet but I could always swim out of it. I assume when I hit the cold water and am wearing more clothing and a thick dive suit, more weight, more air in the suit and it will all be a new ballgame.

After ½ hour I climbed out of the pool and doffed the suit and I was soaked. At first I thought damn, it leaks then I realized that I was soaked around the arm pits, back and waste. I was sweating like a pig! The only place I think I actually leaked was around the neck seal and that was when I made an adjustment under water to the neck and felt a small rush of water come in. Not much but noticeable. Note to self, don’t mess with the seals under water!

All in all it was a fun first experience in the suit and I am glad I did this first test in a pool and not in 45 degree water as there were way too many small mistakes. I have a class scheduled and my checkout dives are in March at the local mud hole.

 

[timle]

Yeah I had some "is my dry suit leaking" moments trying my suit in the pool to finally figure out no the pool is warm and you can sweat underwater without knowing it at all.

I also read about people adding too much air so on my first dive to any real depth I over compensated by adding very little. Got a few dry suit hickeys and at my max depth the exhaust valve actually let some water in - which quit as soon as I added some air. I add a bit more air now and avoid the hickeys but still not enough to have large ammounts moving around.

 

[muddiver]

Oh you think adjusting your neck seal underwater is fun, I've had to pull my helmet off a couple of time to either fix the damm neck seal or when I was borrowing one I couldn't stand this one long hair that was tickeling me in the nose. I have short hair, so it obviously wasn't mine.

Anyway, flooded hat from rolled neck seal is the same as flooded dry suit.