Warming between dives?

[divediva73]

I would say take the wet wetsuit off towel dry off, drink something warm and cover up with something warm and dry (head and body). It's your core body temp you need to warm up. Pouring warm liquid into your suit will only make you colder faster as it is your body's natural reaction to expand your blood vessels closest to the skin to cool you off. Hence this is why your skin turns red when your hot. If you expose yourself to cold water soon after doing that...your dive will be short and you will get cold fast.

 

[TMHeimer]

I dive wet in SoCal all year round and will regularly make 3 or 4 dives. I've never skipped a dive because of being cold. But our water doesn't usually go below 52 and air temp is usually above 60 often with sun. The water temp doesn't bother me as much as being on top when air temp is below 65 and there is no sun. On those days I take off the top of my farmer john (but do leave on my hooded vest), dry off quickly and put on my dive coat and beanie. I have a cup of hot chocolate or even just plain hot water to get warmth inside me. Soup is good when available. I try to stay inside the enclosed galley instead of the open deck. I never pour hot water in my suit but have on occasion used hot water on my gloves right before putting them on. I do think a drysuit is in my future though if I would only stop buying camera gear or dive computers (bought both a Cobalt and VT 3 as a backup in the past 6 months).

Right. Key is you gotta have one thing warm. In May/June here the water is still in the 40s (sometimes low 40s), but if you pick a warm sunny windless day of 60F weather you're laughin'. The ocean can still be 55F or so in mid Nov. but the air is 50 if you're very lucky. This is when you go back in the water to get WARM. Then there's February-April-- the land of ONE 20-20 dive no matter who you are.

 

[Anthony Appleyard]

I saw a diver who went to a dive site in a lorry (USA: truck) and he ran its engine and warmed his hands in its exhaust.

Warning: it makes the hands smell of diesel exhaust.

 

[SBH20Man]

Waterproof Parka | Surf Coat | Boat Coat | Swim Parka | Surf-fur.com

Most comfortable dive/surf jacket I've ever had. Thick polar fleece with a wind proof/water proof lining sandwiched in the middle. I even wear it over my wet suit to drive home sometimes, since the water won't soak through into my leather car upholstery.

When its REALLY cold and I want to spend a lot of time in the water, I'll bring a 5 gallon Igloo jug full of hot water on the boat with me. In between dives, I pour a bit of hot water into my suit, then put on the Surf Fur, then eat a snack or whatever for a little deco time. By the time I get back in, I'm usually toasty warm.

 

[spc751]

After reading all these replys I decided that diving wet is TOO much work. I will stick with diving dry.

 

[ScubaDubaDave]

I dove with an op on KONA that had powdered soup and hot chocolate packets along with thermos of hot water. Both of these worked well for warm up. OK, so water wasn't in the 40s but for night dives with 3/4mm wet suit it was still a big help.

 

[chillyinCanada]

To me, you wetsuit 40 degree divers are all about half-crazy. How can you be good buddies, or even be sure you can take care of yourself if you aren't warm and/or dry? All the advice you guys are offering one another here, I do on the day dive boats when it is 70-80 degrees, as in wear a windbreaker, chammyz, etc. (OK, well, I don't pour hot water over myself . . not saying about that other thing)

 

[Ulfhedinn]

I dive dry but the wife wear a <surf-fur.com> between dives. I do wear a wool beanie and gloves in the winter though.

 

[Ana]

Like other's have said, wetsuit for 40F sounds a bit crazy to me, but if I was to scale it up to "my definition" of cold, which is more on the range of "anything lower than seventy-a-lot"

I've discovered that it may be nice to get out of a cold wet wetsuit but is torture to put on that same wet wetsuit.
I may do it on special occasions, but if it is going to become a routine I will have 2 wetsuits and for the 2nd dive I will put on a dry wetsuit.

Really I've decided that tolerating cold is not for me, but before reaching this decision, I found that a good wind-proof boat coat makes a huge difference, making sure is long (around knee length). If the vessel doesn't have a way to heat something (propane grill/stove,microwave or similar) then TWO thermos, one with strong dark chocolate homemade beverage, not just hot water with some powder, the real thing. The 2nd thermos with fatty broth, made out of whatever creature you like best (chicken-fish-caw-sheep-your/favorite) that broth I'd take it as is, or use it to cook thin noodles, the kind that takes only 3minutes or so.

I no longer eat much carbs, or use a wet suit when temperatures drop, and have a heater in the boat. But I still take thermos with me for the surface intervals if the plan calls for more than one dive.

 

[Ernesto]

When I use to dive pre drysuit on the west coast of Canada, I use to remove the top half of the wetsuit and put on a warm fleece. Also my toque (very Canadian of me) went on immediately and warm gloves. And if possible, stand in the sun, which is not always possible in British Columbia in the winter.
When I use to DM classes I saw a lot of students using the warm water poured inside the wetsuit. This works great but use extreme care with the water temperature. I once saw a guy pour it down, and it was too hot. By the time we got his booties off he had severe burns on both feet.
But, yes, in my wetsuit days I could do two dives easily with a decent surface interval. Actually better than now if my drysuit leaks.