Dry Suit Diving Advice

[ChilliNZ]

Okay but surely it has to be uncomfortable for this effect to happen?

 

[kr2y5]

Okay but surely it has to be uncomfortable for this effect to happen?

From what I've heard, highly likely, but not 100% guaranteed (that you can tell dangerously uncomfortable from just regular uncomfortable). I could be wrong.

 

[rhuntley]

Wicked! Thanks a lot, mate.

Wax it? What do you mean? Yes, I got the SLT one :O So much hating on latex but is that just everyone that has hated on latex so far has been male? Ha!

For your drysuit zipper to perform smoothly, it needs to be waxed with the Orange stuff (or any other drysuit wax) that came with it. Only the inner brass zipper needs to be waxed, not the outer black one.

Just another thing, which you might already know; the zipper is the most expensive part of the suit, and therefore when you are not using your drysuit, you want the zipper to be in its natural state. To store it:

1. Lay the drysuit on the floor zipper down.
2. Cross the legs, and roll them as much as you can.
3. Half knot the arms over top of the legs

Best of luck.

 

[Oldbear]

...

How do you dive in a dry suit? I just know lift left arm to descend (Keep the valve half open).. if all the air goes to your feet (Thank God for Hollis batfins!) then rectify this...
Cheers
Adam

Adam,

I have not seen your other thread yet so if I repeat something I apologize for the repetition.

Air going to your feet. This is a common occurrence for new DS divers. A great Band-Aid are Halcyon gaiters. Gaiter Wraps | Halcyon After about 30-80 dives you might decide that these are no longer needed. But until then they are great. If you get a large air pocket in your feet you risk an uncontrolled ascent feet first. This will be putting you at risk for lung expansion injuries. If you read the link there is all of the promotional info...and it is true. These gaiters are just a great tool for new DS divers and I highly recommend them. In my opinion they helped me cut my learning curve in half when it came to buoyance control with a DS.

The other item I have not seen mentioned on this thread is a Pee-Valve. I use Halcyon's Pee Valve as it can highly recommend. http://www.halcyon.net/files/manuals/streamline-pvalve_08web.pdf There are plenty of past threads on Pee Valves and I am sure you can imagine the true value of one of these little ports.

I am not a fan of Halcyon over Hollis over most other brands of gear. It is just that for these two items Halcyon made the best product.

Good luck with your dives and your DS.

~Oldbear~

 

[Storker]

You might learn something from this post as well; http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/advanced-scuba-discussions/260824-padi-dry-suit-class.html

Most of that thread is a good read. And it's got one of the better discussions I've seen about the air-in-suit vs air-in-wing/BCD issue.

---------- Post added September 23rd, 2014 at 10:57 AM ----------

Air going to your feet. This is a common occurrence for new DS divers. A great Band-Aid are Halcyon gaiters. Gaiter Wraps | Halcyon After about 30-80 dives you might decide that these are no longer needed. But until then they are great. If you get a large air pocket in your feet you risk an uncontrolled ascent feet first. This will be putting you at risk for lung expansion injuries.

I've seen that claim over and over at this board. Weird thing is, I've never heard anyone complaining about such a problem around here, where practically everyone dives dry. Yes, some of the folks I meet use gaiters, but that's usually if they've got thin lower legs so they get a lot of "dead" volume around their lower legs and ankles. Like my son, who's got skinny legs and found that gaiters help with floaty feet. If you (like me...) have legs that require loose fit type of jeans, I'd say that the air-in-legs issue is way overblown and gaiters are not worth the money.

And (also around here) a feet-first ascent or two is more or less expected during the first dives

 

[DeepSeaExplorer]

Don't use your drysuit for buoyancy. Put just enough air in the suit to keep it from limiting the range of motion in your arms. Then use your BC/wing to control your buoyancy. The suit is just supposed to hold air/gas for insulation, not constantly adding and venting gas for buoyancy. When descending, raise your arms over your head as the suit tightens, otherwise you may loose the range of motion necessary to reach your valves. I put in just enough gas to keep it from getting painful. If you're real comfortable, you probably have too much air in the suit. That air bubble in the suit has to be managed and the smaller the bubble the easier it is to do. I add air while descending to keep off the squeeze, but once I get to the bottom, I never add air to the suit. I'm shrink wrapped - and I like it that way... :cool2: When I get back to the deco stop, only then do I add air for comfort and warmth.

Then be careful about going too head-down or the bubble will go to your feet. If that happens go to a 45 degree heads-up position and straighten your legs to get the bubble to move North again.

I use gaiters and those trident feet things. All suits fit differently and mine is loose on the calves, so the gaiters and tridents are permanent accessories. When cave diving, it's not always possible to stay horizontal. Sometimes you have to go head down to follow the cave.

 

[Oldbear]

...
I've seen that claim over and over at this board. Weird thing is, I've never heard anyone complaining about such a problem around here, where practically everyone dives dry...

And (also around here) a feet-first ascent or two is more or less expected during the first dives

Stoker,

I have two hypotheses why you do not see as many dry suit divers needing gaiters:

1) As you mentioned "practically everyone dives dry" where you dive in Norway. I would dive dry too. I think you guys are just better at it because you learn to dive dry from the beginning of your dive career. Thus you learn quickly to avoid air in the feet. Where I learned to dive dry was in Colorado, US, dry suit diving comes along years later after learning the basic dive theories. In Colorado most divers learn to dive in a swimming pool and then go on vacation to Cozumel or Roatan...nice bright sunny locations. No dry suits and no worries about where their air goes. So when we learn to dive dry most of us have no thought about such events like feet first ascents. So when we get into a nice horizontal dive posture with our legs at a 90° sticking straight up in towards the surface we do not think about the air going to the feet. We have to unlearn some bad habits and learn how to control the air movement within the dry suit. This is were the gaiters help the new dry suit diver learn that air movement control quickly.

The other hypothesis:

2) Norwegians are just darn good dry suit divers with no fear of "cooler" temperature waters; able to adapt to the Nordic Environment in all manners know to man.

~Oldbear~

 

[Storker]

I think I prefer your hypothesis #2

---------- Post added September 23rd, 2014 at 12:23 PM ----------

On a slightly more serious note:

No dry suits and no worries about where their air goes.

This is, IMO, an important point. One of the tricks of diving a DS comfortably is to anticipate and predict changes in buoyancy and trim. Nip any changes in the bud; if you're getting a little light, vent. If your feet start to get a bit too floaty, adjust trim to move the air a bit North. Particularly with thick winter undergarments, the air takes moves rather slowly underneath your suit.

That said, I'm a UW photographer, and sometimes I stand on my head, feet up, if that's required to get the shot I want. It's totally doable and really no big deal if you're comfortable in your DS.

---------- Post added September 23rd, 2014 at 12:43 PM ----------

And, just to cheer up the OP and anyone else who's having problems adjusting to a DS: Even changing the type of DS - say from a neoprene suit to a trilam suit - can be a rather humbling experience :blush:

 

[Divegoose]

I started using a dry suit very early in my diving career. I can say that once you go dry, you will never go back to a wetsuit for cold water diving. The only time I wear a wetsuit now is when I am in the Caribbean. For the first few drysuit dives, I had a divemaster from the shop working with me, and all the dives were shallow. The big problem I had was getting too much air in the legs, and winding up inverted. I solved this by adding a pair of ankle weights.

Like othes have mentioned, once I get the suit on and zipped up, I crouch to force as much air out of the suit as possible. This makes descents much easier. Once I start to descend deeper I add a bit of air to the suit, but just enough to prevent suit squeeze. I use my BC to maintain neutral buoyancy. The exhaust valve is always wide open, and all I have to do is raise my left arm to dump air.

Over the years I have owned 4 different dry suits. After using neoprene for the first two, I decided to try a bi-lam. Nice suit but I had to bulk up on under garments during the winter months. Once the bi-lam required replacement I went back to a neoprene suit. Less undergarments, and is warmer than the bi-lam. As it was made locally by Seatux, I can get repairs done in a timely manner - usually in a couple of days - versus having to send the suit away for a couple of weeks.

Best of luck with the dry suit. Dive safe !!

 

[SanDiegoSidemount]

Air in the feet is not so much of a problem with Whites Fusions. The stretch of the suit's "skin" tends to keep this under control without a need for gaiters.

It's always possible to fill up the feet if you force the issue: gaiters, Fusion or not. If this happens, the "tuck and roll" technique linked to above is essential to learn and practice.