OW Checkout in a Dry Suit

[Lead_carrier]

Can't say I'm shocked. In Norway, all OW checkout dives are done in dry suits.

We used wet suits for the confined water dive as dry suits would have been way too warm for the pool.

They shouldn't have been too warm in the pool if you didn't use woolies or other thermal protection.

 

[Bobbin-along]

I'm going to reserve judgement on the instructor until more details are provided.

Confined water has a pretty common definition within each agency, and for many, confined water is defined as equivalent to pool clarity, shallow waters, and no hazards in the training area for a diver. There's no specification for temperature of the water, so confined water could mean a quarry if the other specifications are met. Most pools with all the funk in the water have like a 20-25' vis, which could be typical vis in some dive areas. Then again there are places where all diving is done in the dive site, there is no pool for training. The waters are clean, the area is well marked, and no hazards exist for the divers. I'm cool with actual aquatic systems for dive training as for me, fish poop is far less offensive that what is found at the bottom of a pool. As long as the first dive or so is shallow, it's no big deal.

When it comes to learning, I believe that humans are far more capable than we give them credit for.

 

[DeepSeaExplorer]

On the other hand, trying to learn a dry suit in a shallow pool probably makes things more difficult than they need to be.

A quarry is confined water. So if done properly, I don't see an issue.

 

[nereas]

They shouldn't have been too warm in the pool if you didn't use woolies or other thermal protection.

I agree, as well. When you wear your drysuit in a pool, just wear thin long underwear to prevent chafing, instead of the woolies (which are not really made out of wool, but we often still call them that).

 

[Lead_carrier]

On the other hand, trying to learn a dry suit in a shallow pool probably makes things more difficult than they need to be.

A quarry is confined water. So if done properly, I don't see an issue.

Only certain parts of a quarry are confined water. Most quarries that I've taught at have a "confined" area marked off. It would definitely be easier to learn in 15 ft of quarry than 8 ft of pool.

 

[String]

Wouldnt class a quarry here as confined.

Thick mud/very silty bottom. Visibility 10ft or so max. Water is 15-25c colder than a pool.

 

[caseybird]

Maybe the instuctor meant semi-dry?

 

[String]

Not convinced i'd want students straight into open water without having tried any suit, wet OR dry in the pool first.

The extra material, the extra lead, the hood, the gloves, the buoyancy changes, the restrictive feeling and so on. Any exposure protection would benefit to a quick familiarisation in the pool before open water.

 

[LouieLouie]

They shouldn't have been too warm in the pool if you didn't use woolies or other thermal protection.

Actually, I think the real reason was to avoid exposing expensive dry suits to the chlorine in the pool.

Pretty much everyone dive dry here, so it wouldn't make much sense to do the checkout dives in wetsuits. However, in my opinion, it would be pointless to do the pool dive in a dry suit as 9 fsw is not deep enough to truly experience the buoyancy challenges of a dry suit. In case of any difficulties whatsoever, one would surface before inverting or even realizing what happened. On the other hand, the first open water dives we did were to 18 fsw and were very useful in this respect. A few students actually did invert and surface somewhat out of control, but in the end we all learned how to recover from airy legs.

Of course, no students were allowed to progress to deeper dives without acceptable buoyancy control.

 

[Tigerman]

Can't say I'm shocked. In Norway, all OW checkout dives are done in dry suits.

We used wet suits for the confined water dive as dry suits would have been way too warm for the pool.

Sorry, but thats simply wrong.

Its not uncommon to do the checkout dives in drysuit, however its NOT a fact that all OW classes do it. We did all our dives in wetsuit for my class and the classes that use drysuits on the checkout dives usually also use drysuits for the rest of the class, maybe with exception of the pool.