What's the best way to stay warm wet

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If you are doing multiple dives, an extra pair of gloves is a great investment for the second dive. It really sucks to put on cold wet gloves on the second dive.

Another - perhaps better - option is having a cooler or thermos full of HOT water that you can fill your gloves with prior to your second dive. A lot of people who dive on our boat do this and report far better results with this approach vs diving with a "fresh" set of gloves. (A fresh set of gloves will still fill with cold water pretty quickly, whereas a "wet but hot" pair of gloves take longer to displace the warmth with cold.) This works great for your hood as well.

Also, if you are diving wet be sure to immediately GET OUT OF YOUR SUIT during the surface interval. Wearing a wet wetsuit on land will wick heat away from your body like nothing else. It's not enough to just cover up the wetsuit and hope for the best. Get out, get dry, get warm! Your body temp will have dropped appreciably during your first dive; you need to re-warm it as much as possible before the next dive or you'll be even colder on that one. And stash your wetsuit somewhere warm too, where you can hang it up if possible. At a minimum don't leave it out in the cold or rolled up in a ball somewhere.
 
DUI Drysuite company once a year does a clinic were you can try one out even if you are not drysuit certified. Down here it is in April at Bluewater adventure in Pellum AL. You may check with your LDS to see if they do this clinic up there. You can then work on your byoyancy without freezing. I do not dive dry but am wanting to get one sometime.
 
DUI Drysuite company once a year does a free clinic were you can try one out even if you are not drysuit certified.

May 16,17 - Dutch Springs (Bethlehem, PA)

2010 DUI DOG Rally & Demo Day Calendar

Whites and DiveRite typically have Demo Days up at Dutch Springs each year as well.
 
That is it. This is a good clinic for people wanting to try a drysuite. I originally said free but I belive I was wrong. The cost is very little if any.
 
That's what hooked me. Plenty of instructors on hand to teach you how to dive a drysuit. Whites also has demo days.
 
Contrary to another poster I believe you should take a dry suit course especially if you are not very experienced. I initially found it quite challenging diving dry but a poor fitting suit was a bit of a problem

I dove dry after about 30 dives but the majority of these were warm water dives. I took the course and then went diving on the West Coast over Canadian Thanksgiving. Water temp was 50F, 3 dives / day for 3 days and I was so happy I was diving dry. Amazingly my husband and I were both diving in rented dry suits and we were the driest of the group!

Sure it took some time to adjust -buoyancy being the biggest but I think in part that was because the majority of my previous dives were in warm water - I did certify in cold water though.

We have since bought White Fusion dry suits and we are very happy - and much warmer!

I know budget is an issue but how much will you be paying for additional "wet" wear?

Happy Diving
 
I have an AquaLung Solafx 8mm semi-dry suit. Kept me warm doing a bunch of free diving in May in NJ. Comes with an integrated hood with a bib to keep the water that gets in around your face from getting into the rest of the suit. ~$350 new. My LDS swears by those things. He claims that the Navy dive teams in the area use them during their operations.
Full disclosure: never used it on an actual scuba dive yet, and I've never used a drysuit for the same reasons as you (expensive, more to worry about, i'm not that hardcore yet). Just throwing it out there as a possible option.
 
He claims that the Navy dive teams in the area use them during their operations.

I don't know for 100% certain, but I'm guessing that's a crock of s--t.
 

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