Beat The Heat!

Here we are in the prime dive season, at least in the northern hemisphere and lots of us are feeling the heat. Often when diving wet or dry divers become intolerably hot. This leads to needless stress and can spiral into some nasty effects.

We always keep a stash of 1/2 liter bottles of tap water in the dive mobile. The primary use is for after dive rinsing but they play a critical pre-dive role. When diving wet we will pour one or 2 into the collar of the wetsuit. If the weight belt is in place much of the water will form a jacket around the abdomen and serve to sink lots of heat from your body, breaking the stress cycle. The bonus is that you enter the water with a suit primed with warm water.

When diving dry, don the hood, tip your head back and pour it in above the forehead. This will also break the stress in a big way.

I hope others will post their strategies for gearing up safely in summer heat.

Pete

Lose the wetsuit and hood and dive in swimming trunks and rash guard. Problem solved.

Thank you for the tip, Pete! We just did our first OW class in (for us) warm weather, and I realized I have all kinds of strategies to keep folks warm, but not much about keeping them COOL! We've just encouraged divers, once they are in all their neoprene, to go down and do a quick dip in the water before coming back to finish getting into their gear -- and also to delay getting dressed until EVERYTHING else is ready to go. (And I'm careful about that for my own diving, too -- sometimes I'm dressing and gearing up dry in 100 degree/90% humidity weather in Mexico, and heat exhaustion is a real risk.)

Garrobo:

Lose the wetsuit and hood and dive in swimming trunks and rash guard. Problem solved.

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They dive NE. Atlantic Ocean, water temps are not warm enough to do that. right now your water temp for say Fall River is only 74F, if you go down to New London Ct. its about 66F.

One of my ways I keep cool when diving in the Florida heat boils down to 3 words: hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. I try to drink at least 20oz of plain old water 30-60min before entering the water & usually down a 64oz bottle of Gatorade when I'm out of the water & unzipped for a longer surface interval. Also, waiting until you're gear is completely ready to go before pulling up the top half of my wetsuit & zipping up helps too. (I've been diving in 72deg spring water but the air temp has been in the mid 90's.)

Most (indoor) swimming pools I've been in are kept at around 79-81 degrees. That's why I figure that if you are diving in 75 degree waters that you really don't need much protection as far as temperature goes. Whatever, if you are getting too hot it's pretty simple to me that you are wearing to much neoprene.

Garrobo, there is a big difference between swimming and diving, in terms of level of exertion. Although I don't like getting in very much, I can swim for 20 minutes in 75 degree water and not be blue-lipped when I come out . . . but I was SWIMMING. Diving involves a lot more floating and a lot less muscle activity, and people get cold fast when they aren't moving. I think it's relatively unusual for someone to spend an hour or more in a swimming pool doing a great deal of nothing, but an hour's dive isn't unusual.

I do think people underestimate how cold they get while diving, and how much it impacts the ability to function and to think.

Being overheated in neoprene is generally a function of having it on on LAND, where the rate of heat loss is much less than in water. In Puget Sound, the 50 degree water demands a lot of neoprene for insulation -- NOBODY can dive here without a thick suit -- but even our gentle summer temperatures in the 70s can result in a diver overheating badly before getting in the water. Pete's tips are spot-on, and much more useful than telling the bewildered Puget Sound or Southern California diver that he can't use enough exposure protection to stay warm in the water, because he gets hot on land!

TSandM:

Thank you for the tip, Pete! We just did our first OW class in (for us) warm weather, and I realized I have all kinds of strategies to keep folks warm, but not much about keeping them COOL!

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Oh, but you do, Lynne ... recall a few years back when a friend of yours introduced you to the notion of bringing gallon jugs of hot water in a cooler for keeping warm in winter? Well, take those same jugs and fill them with cold water for the hot weather. Dump it over your head and get the whole suit wet.

Works like a champ ... when the sun is hot, evaporation is your friend ...

Another winter/summer adaptation is the pop-up canopy many PNW divers consider an important part of their shore-diving kit. In summer, it's for shade ... keeping the sun off of you while dressing can make a huge difference ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Yes, a shaddy staging are is a blessing.

Prepping to dive in +/-50F water for an hour+ when it's blazing sun and 80+F during set-up is often the reality. Did I mention the walk to the entry?

Being in sync with your buddy is also a huge help.

Pete

Garrobo:

Most (indoor) swimming pools I've been in are kept at around 79-81 degrees. That's why I figure that if you are diving in 75 degree waters that you really don't need much protection as far as temperature goes. Whatever, if you are getting too hot it's pretty simple to me that you are wearing to much neoprene.

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I'm talking about safeny making it to cold water when it's hot topside.

Actually your pool logic may be flawed. Most pool work is aerobic and you're buring energy, making body heat. Diving in good form is very low in work, producing less body heat and you can easily find yourself underdressed even in somewhat warmer water.

Pete