Flip me over, I'm dry...

I finally bought a dry suit (used, DUI, neoprene) from my LDS. After hours of reading on this board and talking to other divers, I have decided not to take the class, but get help from an experienced buddy and some pool work. I will train using my BC as a BC and my exposure suit as an exposure suit. The big topic with new dry suit divers seems to be the famous feet-first, uncontrolled assent. The instructor I bought the suit from said that if you start to go feet up, fin hard to the bottom and push off a solid surface to right yourself. I’ve heard of other ways to right yourself, in the event you’re 40 feet above the bottom, etc.
So here’s the question: What is the best way to right yourself should you begin a feet first assent? Assume you’re not overweighed and you’re not using your dry suit as a BC.

Question two: Is there a way to zip up your own suit if you have a back/shoulder zipper?

Reinverting yourself is pretty simple and shouldn't ever need to involve the bottom. You bend at the waist (a sort of upside-down situp) and get your feet under you by finning. It's really one of those things that if you do much diving, you'll end up practicing on every dive. When lobstering, I frequently find myself inverted.

Rick Inman once bubbled...
Question two: Is there a way to zip up your own suit if you have a back/shoulder zipper?

Click to expand...

I have never seen it done, but here are a couple of personal theories:

1. Similar to the back-entry 3mm westsuits, add a very long "rope" to the drysuit zipper.

2. Some very flexible yoga folks might be able to do it on their own.

Which reminds me of a funny story. One diver I met had a self-donning (zipper in the front) dry suit, but needed others' assitance to close it up; reason: his belly was so large, he couldn't see the end of his zip and wether or not he had a perfect seal

for question one - tuck and roll, pull your legs towards your body and do a "forward summersault when your legs are pointing at the bottom straighten them - all the air is now in the neck area.

as for Q 2: Yes, but it's hard on a very expensive zipper. my fav way is to use the seatbelt from my car through the loop on the zipper turn my back to the car and "hug a tree" then just roll to close the thing. same way works to unzip. i know a guy who built a wooden arm that he could reach across his back with and do the same ( he had a "T" handle zipper ). i warn you against useing a door knob to do this - if things get stuck it's a Very uncomforatble possition to be in.

You've already got the answer to getting right side up so I'll go to the second part.

I'm older than dirt and fat to boot and certainly no yogurt (?), but after I spent a little time working on it I found that I could actually zip and unzip my backzip suit with no special aids. I have to change grips a couple of times, and I stop and feel ahead to make sure nothing's caught in the zipper, but it's definitely doable. I make sure I keep the zip well-waxed.

But if that doesn't work, and you have a DIR Ford dive van, you can mount shoulder height hooks by the side mirrors and use them to hook the zipper tongue. I saw this done in Akumal, but Christoph assured me it has to be a white van. I've also heard that some folks have permanently mounted hooks in trees at their favourite dive quarries for this purpose. At Gilboa they're all close to the porta-potties for some reason.

JohnF

As others said, the tuck and roll is the easiest way of getting out of an inversion.
Unless of course its feet first at the surface in which case inflating your BC will solve the problem.

Practice doing rolls and such in a pool without the dry suit first. One thing you will notice is that if your weight isnt balanced you'll end up sideways and so on.
My first pool session i had a weight stuffed into a pocket and had this problem. You quickly learn how to properly balance yourself.

Basically its, bring your knees to your chest, curl down and roll - use the arms if needed for stabilisation and to get the move going.

Once you can do it without dry suit, try it in a pool with one.

As with all drills, its a good idea to practice the skills to keep them current, take the dry suit in a pool or 6m piece of water, deliberately go inverted (NOT positive buoyant, neutral!) and practice recovery. Your buddy can help here greatly.

After a while you'll get to recognise the floaty feet feeling before it results in inversion and deal with it by just kicking down or tucking legs up.

There should never be a need to find the bottom and push off something - what if it happened on a wall dive that drops to 90m+ ?

Its also worth noting that feet first doesnt neccesarily mean uncontrolled ascent - its not uncommon to be flipped and still be neutral or near enough. Feet first uncontrolled ascent usually hints at too much air in the drysuit, poor weighting or a slightly leaky inflate valve.

The problems are worse if the suit doesnt fit correctly, example is boots being too big for the user giving air more space to migrate. Fit is fairly critical.

On a singles setup a drysuit can be used quite happily for buoyancy. If the weighting is correct you will not have a huge bubble of moving air in the suit causing problems.
I tend to fund simply removing squeeze makes me just about neutral and its fine tuning after that.
Obviously the extra weight of twins/stages etc means you'd be asking too much from the suit.

My normal singles dive profile is, inflate BC, roll backwards off boat, meet up with buddy, quick check, signal, dump all air of out BC to sink. During the dive the BC isnt touched at all and then reinflated when i hit the surface to keep my stable whilst bobbing around waiting for the boat to appear.

Ive been buddied once with a person that made an uncontrolled feet first ascent. The person was trying to use the suit for squeeze and BC for buoyancy, got inverted, couldnt dump BC quick enough (or dry suit at all) and quickly spiralled into an out of control ascent to the surface from 20m. Luckily this was at the start of the dive and no injuries resulted.

This isnt intended to start a flame war of suit v jacket for buoyancy, simply personal experience and preference (something i believe all divers would be wise doing - trying different methods and making their own minds up as to what suits them best).

YOU NEED TO TAKE A DRYSUIT CLASS.

The mere fact that you asked the question, and then got an off-the-wall answer about how to counteract an inverted, feet-up position in a drysuit, beggs you to take a drysuit class.

In the NAUI class, you will spend time in the pool, practicing the tuck-and-roll. You will do it a lot, until it becomes second nature.

PADI also teaches a drysuit specialty class with an excellent video too.

I am sure any instructor in any agency has a version of a drysuit class. The cost is anywhere from $50 up. Some instructors take you to the ocean as well, and teach you how to equalize your suit in conjunction with power-inflating your B/C on the way down an anchor line and back up again. It could save your life to learn how to do it the right way. You have a higher risk of an uncontrolled ascent and a subsequent AGE (arterial gas embolism) with a drysuit if you are not properly trained in drysuit diving.

Here is my system, to give you a sense of what you now need to learn.

* Squeeze the excess air out of the suit by crouching into a fetal-like position after you have zipped up and before donning your dive gear

* Don your scuba gear and plug and test your power inflator hose to your drysuit

* Open your dump valve on your shoulder all the way

* Partially inflate your B/C then enter the water, beach or boat dive

* Perform your predive checks (signal to your buddy, azimuth setting, computer setting, switch from snorkel to reg, clear ears, shake your arm if needed to dump air from your suit, raise your deflator hose, signal down, dump some air from your B/C, exhale completely from your lungs and begin to breathe slow and regularly.

* Stop dumping air from your B/C once you start to descend underwater; usually at this point I have just enough air in my B/C to compensate for the 5 lbs neg buoyancy of the compressed air in my full tank

* Close your dump valve on your shoulder of your suit as you descend

* Control your descent by first counteracting the suit squeeze from your drysuit, then adding air to your B/C if needed to further slow your descent, while clearing your ears on the way down

* You should be able to operate your B/C powerinflator and your suit powerinflator with the same hand, your left hand, if your B/C hose is long enough

* Keep your right hand on the anchor line of the boat, especially at first, while you learn how to powerinflate both the suit and B/C on descent

* At my MOD (max depth), I like to open my suit dump valve 1/4 turn, just as a safety measure; this keeps the air inside the suit fairly well until I am ready to ascend

* I usually keep a minimal amount of air in my suit, just enough to counteract suit squeeze.

* I use my B/C to otherwise control my underwater buoyancy at MOD

* When ready to ascend, perform your normal ascent procedures (signal to your buddy, check your computer, open the dump valve on your suit all the way, raise your B/C deflator hose, signal up to your buddy, kick slowly to begin your ascent, shake air out of your arm to deflate your suit, and deflate you B/C as needed for a controlled ascent.

* Keep your right hand on the anchor line as you ascend, to control your ascent, until you become more experienced with your drysuit.

* Inflate your B/C all the way once you are at the surface to establish permanent positive buoyancy.


I have never had to tuck and roll in the ocean, because I keep a minimum of air in my drysuit, just enough to avoid suit squeeze, and because my trim keeps me perfectly horizontal in the water while scuba diving.

Lobster divers sometimes get turned face down and fins up, while chasing a bug, and if they have a lot of air in their drysuits, then the air could shift to their feet, pop off their fins, and send them rocketing to the surface. In a situation like that, you would have to quickly tuck and roll, vent the excess air, then swim with your hands to find your fins again.

The alternative is to wear a wetsuit while you bug hunt, to avoid the risk of a heads-down fins-up uncontrolled ascent in a drysuit. Good horizontal trim on any dive is the best prevention of a feet-up fin-less uncontrolled ascent in a drysuit.

The best way to learn any new scuba skill is with an instructor, not on your own. Experience alone is an unforgiving teacher that gives the test first before the lesson.

Two more questions:
Took it out yesterday at 9am for my 1st dry suit dive/training. Walked out and before I was knee deep found a leak at my right ankle (remember, used dry suit). Aaaugh! So I called the dive and drove right back to the LDS. Well, his wife was there and said that she would have him fix it when he gets back next week. I said, forget that. Give me a dry suit repair lesson and sell me the glue and I'll fix it. I need to learn to fix my own suit anyway. She gave me the lesson and gave me the glue and the accelerator for free.
I went home, stuck pop cans in the wrist seals and my tank in the neck seal, filled up the suit with air, sprayed the suspected area with soapy water and sure enough, there was the leak (actually, leaks) at the ankle seam.
I let the suit dry, glues the leaks and let it dry. At 5pm I was ready to go again, so I went back out to dive, and sure enough, the leak was GONE!
I played with my weights for a while and ended up adding 6 pounds (I may end up dropping 2 of these when I get better at the suit). I practiced the feet-full-of-air-accent-flip-over for a while. No problem. Very easy once you get the feel for it. Kinda' fun, too, doing the flip.
At the end of the dive I found out that I still have a leak in the chest area, which I will fix today. Also, the boots seem just a little too big, so I will wear some thick socks next time. The neck seal is perfect, but the wrists are a little tight, so I'll take off one stripe.
Here are my current questions:

1) My trim was not good. I felt like I was swimming a little too head down. Do I need ankle weights or will I be able to make adjustments to this with experience?

2) How much squeeze is too much? When it got too tight I would give a quick spizzt-spizzt and - even though it was still tight - it would not be uncomfortable. However, after the dive, I have seam stripes that stayed for about 2 hours. Didn't bother me. But it might be an indication that my suit was too tight. Well?

Thanks for all the great help!

...when are you coming over here to dive next?