Kourtjestr
Registered
For me: 45-50*F to 70* - 7mm john - It's what I own. In 80* water: tshirt, bcd, swim trunks....
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I will add one comment about: hoods....
A diver will generally try to wear the least amount of bouyant wetsuit that is necessary for the dive. The more wetsuit you wear, the more lead you need, the more buoyancy change you will experience and more restricted the diver will be. Most people will agree with this premise, although people with big steel tank may NEED more wetsuit..
When thermal protection is a consideration, keeping your head warm is of the utmost importance, since it is poorly insulated with fat, the neck blood vessels are close to the skin surface and it is necessary to keep your brain from cooling to any significant degree.
For these two reasons, it makes sense to wear a hood on most any dive. It is more efficient to put on a hood that might have 1 lb of bouyancy than a thicker jacket that adds 4-5 lbs. I could probably dive without a hood in maybe 65 degree water, but anything below 82, I am generally wearing a hood. I hear many people complain that a hood is restrictive, uncomfortable and blocks their hearing.
Can't do much about the hearing, but if people would choose 2-3 mm hoods that are somewhat loosely fittiing, I think they would find them reasonably comfortable and provide more than enough thermal protection and worth using in cool waters... maybe 68-80 degrees.... Colder than that, you probably really do need a really well fitting and thicker hood.
I like a hood also because it protects from stinging stuff, banging my head, trigger fish and sunburn.
Another issue that most cool water surfers know about, but I rarely "hear" discussed by divers is the following malady, which a hood almost defintely helps.
Surfer's ear - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I read the linked article about surfer's ear and it made me wonder about cold-water diving. I wear a hood for the not-yet-very cold water diving I've done (65º-70º), but I found that if I don't make holes in the hood over my ears then I have a hard time equalizing (the hood "seals" to my ears without the holes). So maybe the hood is/would not be not protecting me too well against surfer's ear (when I eventually dive in colder water).
But I wonder how necessary the wind component is? They seemed to emphasize cold AND windy, although then they did mention that divers were also susceptible (so how important is the wind component, really?).
Also: Do some people not have problems equalizing against a sealed hood?