So, how cold is it... really?

[Raydar]

Oh NWDC is not sexist. Both the men and women have a twisted sense of humor. It's an required taste...

Fixt!

[Berritt]

I got cold... in the heated pool. Uh oh.

Hopefully it was because I'd just eaten dinner and all my blood was in my belly.

[kat]

part of it is how stationary you are, also they usually put you in a 3mm for pool sessions. i used the bottom of my 7mm wetsuit and was much happier. you will be fine. yes it is cold in the sound, but it is pretty far down on the list as far as what you will be thinking about when you are actually diving.

[Joshua Smith]

.....but it my sense of humor offends anyone, especially our 80 year old members, please delete my poor joke.

Well, John R. DID call me up to complain about this; but he calls me to complain about something pretty much every day. And, as usual, he forgot what he was so steamed up about after a minute or two, and it just wound back into his usual rant about hippies and teenagers ruining the country, or something. So, I think you're OK for now.

[loanwolf]

Lake cresent

43 deg below 200', 45 deg in mid water, 60 deg on top.

Much warmer than I expected for this time of year.

Vis 100'

[LCF]

Berrit, did you have a wetsuit on in the pool? I got thrown out of my first pool session for shivering, but I was much better in a wetsuit for the subsequent ones.

[Berritt]

No wetsuit. I didn't shiver until I got out, but I was kind of cold in the pool, but not until the very end.

[Dashrynn]

No wetsuit. I didn't shiver until I got out, but I was kind of cold in the pool, but not until the very end.

same thing happened to me in a heated pool, i shivered (in my shorts) but pulled through it. You will be fine but i would A: buy a good drysuit and B: use a 3 mm wetsuit next time.

[kat]

boy, if you can do a pool session without a wetsuit, you will be fine. like i said, 7mm, then i was happy. floaty and happy.

[Waynne Fowler]

I'm like Kat... 86 degree pool and I ware a 5mm... after 2 hours or so.. I'm cold... I'm not built for it, and I hate, hate, HATE getting cold.. but I suspect that you'll do FAR better than you imagine Berritt. Instructors here are no strangers to students having to deal with the cold. They always plan around the idea that students will begin to get cold during training. It's why the dives tend to be fairly short. When we have folks who are a bit scared of the cold they almost always come out of the water impressed at how well they did and how much they DIDN'T freeze... even in the dead of winter.

You're gonna do just fine girl.

[ljjames]

ya, one of the things people forget is that its easy to get chilled in ANY water if you don't have adequate exposure protection. At the very least always wear a full 3mm suit in the pool.

[nwscubamom]

Hey Berritt!

I'm a bit late to the party here, but have some ideas that might help.

I did 150 dives in a wetsuit in the cold Pacific NW waters until I bought my first drysuit. (After buying all my other scuba gear I just couldn't justify another huge expenditure). I did not get cold until well after a 100 dives on the suit.

The wetsuit consisted of a 7mm farmer john (the overalls type bottoms but covers your chest) and then on top of that, a 7mm jacket (long sleeved with short legs). So, the bottom line is with both of those on, you wind up with 14mm of exposure protection over your central body core area - which is a lot more substantial than the 7mm full suit some have been talking about here. While you can get away with a 7mm full suit in part of California, you'd freeze with that on here.

People have talked a bit about putting warm water into your suit between dives. That's a great thing! But here's something that worked REALLY well for me and reduced the SHOCK of the cold water first seeping into your suit.

PUT WARM WATER DOWN YOUR SUIT BEFORE YOU GET INTO THE WATER. Really work it down into your legs, sleeves, back, etc. What this does is create that layer of warm water between your skin and your suit - and your body didn't have to warm it up. When you get into the water, the warm layer of water is ALREADY there. Voila, no cold shock!

And then yes, definitely keep warm and out of the wind between dives, and put warm water down your suit then as well.

Third hint - I'll PM you about that one.

- Janna

[ArcticDiver]

There are two aspects to coping with the cold: Mental and Physical. Used to be I spent a lot of time in the cold and I had a lot of body insulation. Those are not in my life now. To address both I'm using the pretty well established idea of desensitization. Do something enough and neither your mind, nor your body are surprised or shocked by the event. While it isn't exactly the same I think spending time in the pool might work.

I've started hitting the pool a couple times a week wearing nothing but a swim suit. Pool water is generally in the +80F range but I try to stay in for an hour or so. I've noticed I'm not nearly as shocked or as cold as I was initially. Of course, this isn't diving since I'm moving a lot more. But then I am not wearing as much either.

Will I regain my ability to handle cold? Don't know. But, my body and mind seem to be learning how to cope better. Ice is almost off our lakes so the real test won't happen until the end of this month or the beginning of next.

You might want to give it a try to see if desensitization helps. If nothing else it will be more time in water getting wet.

[nice-diver]

You'll never know until you do it.

It won't matter if You are the one that wants to scuba dive, desire to scuba dive overcomes alot of mental roadblocks.

Buy a custom 14mm hood from california.

Try dry gloves with a wetsuit.

Neoprene drysuit has built in insulating properties. (I thought I was still a medium, seems that I am a L/XL now. I was always warm in sweat pants and a sleeveless fleece vest and tank top in my neoprene drysuit)

Its worth it.