Learning the Drysuit. How was it for you?

[Ste Wart]

IMO learning to dive with a drysuit is overly exaggerated if you are already a proficient diver in terms of buoyancy and ascent rates. Open the valve and go diving! It that simple. The day I received my drysuit I muddled around in 30 ft of water for 3min and then continued on a 40min deco dive fully kitted with stages.

That's fine, but a little too cavalier for my liking. I need to understand the intricacies of the suit before I start going back to deco-diving. Add in Colder temperatures, the need for helium in dark UK waters, stronger tidal ranges and figuring out perfect weighting for either Twin Fabers or Euros then I would need more than one dive to start getting comfortable with a deco schedule.

Divers that struggle with drysuits (generally speaking) have bad buoyancy, use wrong size suites, try to use the suit as buoyancy compensator, exceed 30ft p/m ascent rates, or have extremely bad breathing patterns.

I would be seriously surprised if you struggled with a drysuit!!

I have photos of me in my drysuit, my trim is fine, any my breathing spot on (SAC abnormally low as per normal). However I've tried to describe the sensations of diving in drysuit, rather than mistakes. As of yet I haven't been shot to the surface, but I have had the warning from my suit and reacted to it, when compared to wetty this is a new sensation, problem would be if I wasn't comfortable diving dry, I am, its just new and I shared that experience.

 

[ajduplessis]

Intricacies???? They suit keeps water out and have the same buoyancy dynamics as a wing. The only other "intricacy" is a configurable dump valve and additional thermal protection? Not sure what you are looking for?

 

[BabyDuck]

i love my drysuit.

mostly.

i did two dives in it in the quarry on new year's day the year i got it, then took it to florida. i took adv nitrox and full cave, but took them wet because i didn't want to have to also pay attention to a new suit. i'm all about bandwidth preservation!

which was a good thing. jeez, the first dive with it for real was exhausting. i still had my lg jets and was like a struggling bumblebee, kicking and kicking and not going anywhere. xl to the rescue!

i needed so much weight in it, for about 20-30 dives, and then i didn't anymore. it was like magic. weighting - you need what you need until you don't anymore. it is always a moving target.

but now i'm in a fight with it. the inflate is auto inflating, so i haven't been hooking it up. i just close the valve on the surface to preserve some air in it and get drysuit hickeys at depth. the valve will get fixed sometime...

and i dive the exhaust mostly open. i close a few clicks because while it is hard to dump air, it is quick to take in water. grr.

if it weren't for the intake & exhaust issues, i'd love the suit. oh, and it has shrunk in the last year or so, dammit.

 

[Ste Wart]

Intricacies???? They suit keeps water out and have the same buoyancy dynamics as a wing.
The only other "intricacy" is a configurable dump valve and additional thermal protection? Not sure what you are looking for?

The limits of my suit. A lot of my work requires me to be head down in a hole. Now without wearing ankle weights or gaiters, how do I regulate warmth against inversion? It's a balance I want to find, without resorting to using either of the two things mentioned. Now floating around in perfect trim is easy. Trying to excavate at a 60 degree angle is a bit harder.

 

[rhwestfall]

why are you opposed to using gaiters?

 

[Ste Wart]

why are you opposed to using gaiters?

I'll send you a copy of my bank statement.

Grad student + kit maintenance = no money.

 

[rhwestfall]

a couple elastic bands and buckles = gaiters without the corporate profit margin. Skip a nights festivities and its a done deal.

 

[Ste Wart]

a couple elastic bands and buckles = gaiters without the corporate profit margin.

Practical :thumbs-up:

Skip a nights festivities and its a done deal.

Those look like words but they make no sense

 

[TSandM]

And gaiters won't totally fix the issue, if you really HAVE to go inverted.

The one place where I dive my suit as squeezed as I can stand it is in caves. Caves sometimes just require you to negotiate something head-down, and if you have a lot of gas in the suit, it all ends up in the feet -- even with gaiters. And too much gas in the feet, depending on the suit, can result in a loss of your boots and your fins. Even if it doesn't, if you can't find a place to put your feet down and move the bubble, you're stuck with these floaty feet, which means you can't STOP.

I love people to whom things come easily, who say it ought to be so for everyone. I don't think there's a darned thing in diving that came easily to me, but it all got mastered. I also think it's very useful for someone to read that a diver with as much experience as the wart can find a major equipment change to require some time to dial in, because for most of us, it does.

 

[tracydr]

Hi Tracy,

I never ever put my drysuit in the pool...but that is my personal preference. Don't want to risk any chlorine damage.

First drysuit experience was terrible, but not really the diving part, that part just felt a bit weird but no real issues. The choking sensation out of the water part is what freaked me out at first. I remember my first trip (confesion, didn't even take it in the pool prior) with it and I was DM'ing. We had to have it zipped in case we had to go in the water. I took bow watch because I was about to freak out and wanted to do it away from the customers. Looking out at the beautiful ocean and I kept going back and forth from..."cool, sun sparkling on ocean looks neat" to " this suit sucks...I hate it". Tears started to welll up and next thing I know, I heard someone on the bow behind me...turned and it was Marty Snyderman! He saw the tears and said.."new drysuit?" Hands pulling at neck seal probably gave it away He gave me some tips and told me it will get better and not to throw it away. That was nice of him.

Have been diving dry almost exclusively ever since, but I did get a different suit a few years later which made a ton of difference.

Thanks, Karen!
Yes, the tight neck seal actually freaked me out at first. Actually, when I first tried it on, before it had been trimmed, I felt like I was going to pass out and I couldn't get it off fast enough.
The hood from Diving Concepts was too tight and that was also a claustrophobic feeling. When I bought a different hood that fit better I was much happier.
Thanks for sharing! Sometimes, I feel like I must be wimpy but then I hear from other people that they had similar experiences and it really makes me feel so much better.
I'll keep the suit out of the pool and just try to find buddies to go to the lake as much as possible when it starts to cool off.
I just got my undergarment and I'm dying to give it a try. Hoping that we get to go back to Catalina this month. I got the Bare T-100, plus some smart wool tops, bottoms and socks.

BTW, for anybody who wears a size small, Scuba Toys has an amazing sale on the T100 right now, $169, which is almost $200 off! It fits me like it was custom made, I'm so excited! I know it's not real heavy but I think for the 50-60 degree waters of S. Ca and Lake Pleasant, along with my smart wool liners, that it should work well. I figure, I can always add a polar fleece vest if I need a little extra core warmth but this looks actually pretty thick, like it will be pretty warm.
Tracy