Cold water diving advice

[Rhone Man]

I noticed the other day that a number of BSAC clubs run mini-courses for 'vacation divers' who want to try diving in the UK.

What advice would people give to divers who are used to warm clear water, but who were contemplating a dive in cold green northern waters?

 

[Eau_Girl]

I would definitely advise using a drysuit instead of a semi-dry. Yes, of course that means learning how to use a dry suit, but it will make you much more comfortable and happier in the long run.

Also start out with easy type dives possible in a training lake or quarry. 10m in murky soup can disorient people used to clear blue water. Better to ease into it.

Also have access to a nice cup of tea or coffee as soon as you get out of the water!

 

[Kingpatzer]

Consider comfort to be a necessity of planning. How and where will you change? Will you want warm food? etc.

Simple things like a small camp stove and coffee pot can make things much easier to deal with.

When first getting into the water, be prepared for a bit of shock as the cold water hits your face and hands, and if in a wet suit, everything else. It will get better quickly enough (faster if you use a dry suit!) but the initial experience can be disorienting.

Good gloves and a quality hood go a long way to making a dive more physically enjoyable!

You will lose more body heat, so have some high energy foods available to give you the calories you need during your surface interval. I like gorp.

On very cold days consider a portable propane heater.

Accept that there are higher gear demands for cold water diving, particularly late in the season or when you're dealing with ice.

Consider reading up on the local flora and fauna. The interesting things to see are often a bit more difficult to discover in a cold water environment. That doesn't mean there's nothing to see, but it might take a bit more work on your part to figure out what interests you beyond the diving experience. I'm personally fascinated by the trails snails make in silt -- their almost a form of abstract art, and what snail populations have to say about lake/quarry health. Yeah, it's geeky, but that interest gives me both surface reading material to keep me going between dives, and a real desire to see something under the water that will be different each and every dive. I know people who have a real interest in the geology, crayfish, freshwater plants, and on and on.

When planning your dive, be prepared to consider how water temperature will effect your gas supply. That 3000 psi fill from a store where the fill room is at 22*C will drop down to 2900 psi when the water temp is 10*C, and to 2800 when the temp is 3.8*C (ice diving conditions in fresh water).

 

[shoredivr]

What Eau Girl said. Especially about trying out a dive in shallow conditions first to get used to new equipment. Say Stoney Cove?

Also, if you've not dived with a hood before, or thick gloves, that may take some getting used to. Fins may be a different size to go along with the larger boots.

Your weighting will be different, too, with whatever exposure protection you choose (drysuit or thick wetsuit).

 

[rstofer]

Skip it...

Richard

 

[piikki]

Also, if you've not dived with a hood before

This is one of the things I hear surprisingly often... Not only that it is uncomfortable and/or claustrophobic but some people feel like suffocating, and it effects their breathing because of the constriction (real or imagined) on the neck.

One very important thing is NOT to get cold before/between the dives. Do not let your hands freeze in the breeze etc and start the dive already at disadvantage. Also, take into account that your reactions and movements will be slowed down. In really cold water I want to give my body/face a few moments right below surface to get used to the shock before getting any deeper.

Make sure your equipment is good for cold and your navigation skills are sharp, you’d hate to have a failure in cold and murk and get further disoriented. Expect to burn more gas, so take it into account in your planning.

Pick an easy and interesting site for first visit, so you’ll see how much fun it can be.

 

[TSandM]

I go back and forth between cold water and warm reasonably often. The things that strike me hardest when I get back in the cold water are the total weight of the gear, and the restricted mobility with the thick undergarments. If you were to contemplate doing this, I'd highly recommend doing some dives in thick gloves at home, just to get used to how much harder it is to do anything while wearing them. You can't really practice with heavy undergarments or a ton of weight

If you dive wet in cold water, you have to remember the much greater expansion of your exposure protection as you ascend, and be ready to compensate for it. Diving dry is a whole different beast (but it is my current opinion that, if more warm water divers tried diving dry in warm water, we'd have a lot of drysuit divers in the tropics. It's SO much nicer!)

Low visibility really bothers some folks, and ascents and descents where you have no reference to the surface or the bottom at all are more challenging. But I suspect you have done those already, even in the tropics, with the tech training.

 

[paddler3d]

Diving the cold vs. the warm, clear, blue waters is a bit more gear intensive with the exposure protection.

If you're not used to it, diving with gloves and hoods can be a challenge.

The headache will go away shortly.

Don't push it. When you start to feel cold, you're nearing the end of your dive. You can go from tolerable to cold in a short time.

Make sure your mask seal is under your hood, not on it.

Plan for a higher SAC or RMV.

Get out of the wet stuff in the warm dry stuff as soon as possible.

Make sure you've got some form of heat source, car, portable heaters, so on so forth.

The cold is going to make you want to pee. Don't dehydrate yourself, but make sure you're as empty as possible before you gear up!

Have fun!

 

[northen diver]

I noticed the other day that a number of BSAC clubs run mini-courses for 'vacation divers' who want to try diving in the UK.

What advice would people give to divers who are used to warm clear water, but who were contemplating a dive in cold green northern waters?

Equipment considerations such as cold water regulators, drysuits/7mm wetsuits complete with full hoods, gloves and booties ( I use neoprene socks or wool socks in my wet boots). I wear polypro underwear, then a lycra suit under my wet suit when I dive. The lycra suit holds my polypro in place while donning my wet suit. Increase the amount of exposed metal such as removing hose protectors. Adjust your regulator to the manufactuer recommended lower end of the IP pressures to help reduce free flows.
Procedures considerations such as dont breath on your regulator until submersed. Dont purge your regulator in the cold. Dont overbreath your regulator on the dive. Store your equipment in a warm enviroment until ready to dive.
Conserve your body heat in between your dives, such as keeping your hands and head covered and warm. Use a warming station in between dives. If diving wet, use a raincoat or sometype of wind protection (nylon) to block the wind against your body. Use air fills from a trusted source to reduce moiture in your breathing gas. Eat a big warm breakfast with high carbohydrate the morning of the dive. Drink plenty of warm drinks with little caffine in it. Keep warm food on hand through out the day of diving. Know how to reconize hypothermia, paying close attention to your hands and feet with getting cold and loosing dexterity. Know your buddy and look for odd or out of charicter behaviors such as slurge speech, shivering, unable to pull him/herself up onto the ladder. Limit your dives to 20 minutes if diving wet. Dont take a hot shower or hot tub after your dives.

 

[Peter Guy]

My add is make sure you have a good light (21 watt HID?) because cold usually also means dark w/low viz. Using a light to stay in touch with your team is the way to go.