COZUMEL - Wetsuit / No Wetsuit?

[n733lk]

Thanks to everyone who responded.

 

[Booyakasha]

My son and I were down there about 3 weeks ago. I wore a 3MM shortie and was fine. My son who is very, very skinny wore a 5mm full and still got a little cold on the second dive. So much depends on how much you are going to dive the DMs were wearing 7mm+ of neoprene, hoods etc as they are in the water so much they never really warm up. Water temps were 82-84 according to my computer.

Enjoy.

B.

 

[Dirty-Dog]

How much exposure protection you need depends on how sensitive you are and how many dives you're doing. That's why you will notice that many dive masters wear more than the tourists.

In Cancun/Cozumel this May, doing 3-4 dives per day, with 82 degree bottom temps, I wore a dive skin. In the cenotes I wore a 3mm full with a 3mm hood.
My wife, on the other hand, wore a 5mm full the entire time, adding a hood for the cenotes. Since she was warm in the cenotes, I am sure she'd have been fine with a 3mm, but all she brought was a skin and her 5mm. She did do one dive in the skin, but was too cold.

I think on average, most people on Cozumel in August would be fine in a skin or, at most, a 3mm. But that's just averages. You know your tolerances better than anybody else possibly could.

I also think that if in doubt, you're better off wearing more than you need. You can always vent a little water through the suit to cool off, but if you're too cold, you're just screwed.

 

[scubadobadoo]

Not only does it depend on your cold tolerance, imo, but it also depends on how much you plan to dive. If you're doing four hours of diving a day for five days, a skin is probably not enough (for me, even a 7mm is not enough). But if you're doing a handful of dives and don't get cold easily, a skin is probably plenty.

It's a pretty huge bummer if you plan to do a bunch of dives and either find that you can't or you're not enjoying them because you're cold. It's a lot easier to cool yourself off if you're too hot (by flushing water through your suit), but not a lot can be done about warming yourself up if you're too cold.

I agree. Adding to that, I use a 3 mil full with a hood all week even in the summer in Coz and could easily use more. Drift diving for me means barely having to fin at all and that means I get cold fast.

Have fun!