Yeeeeha! Nailer's goin' DRY!

RSdancey · Post by **RSdancey** » Wed Jun 28, 2006 6:16 pm

You need far more weight in a wetsuit than you do in a drysuit.

Reason:

Neoprene compresses with depth. At the surface, it is quite bouyant. In order to make a controlled descent and hold a safety stop in the 20-5 fsw range, you need to carry a lot of weight to offset the boyancy of the suit.

At depth, the suit compresses, and you need less weight; unfortunately, you'll be carrying it anyway; as a result, you will need more air in your BC than you would need in a drysuit, and that air bubble tends to make you unstable; meaning it's hard to hold pitch, yaw, and depth.

That's the #1 reason I bought a drysuit; better depth control. The warmth factor was a distant second consideration.

Zen Diver v1 · Post by **Zen Diver v1** » Wed Jun 28, 2006 7:14 pm

Did your shop offer some kind of dry suit orientation or class? Most do, and it's a great idea to do one before getting into open water. There's more to a dry suit than weighting.

-Valerie

Joshua Smith · Post by **Joshua Smith** » Wed Jun 28, 2006 9:51 pm

Zen Diver wrote:Did your shop offer some kind of dry suit orientation or class? Most do, and it's a great idea to do one before getting into open water. There's more to a dry suit than weighting.

-Valerie

Ah, heck, I just pulled the silly thing on and headed down to 80 fsw with Diverdown! Nothing to it!

Actually, he gave me a good briefing on shore, and we did a couple shallow water drills first. 1st dive was kind of uncomfortable for me, I just felt really awkward. The second dive was great, though! I don't have buoyancy down as well as I did in my wetsuit yet, but I did MUCH better on my second dive. I think I'm going to like this "dry" stuff. Although I had a leak in my neck seal, and wasn't quite "dry" when I got out of it. I never felt a thing, though. I had no idea. Thanks again for the babysitting, DD!

Tangfish · Post by **Tangfish** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 5:54 pm

That's great that you're diving dry Nailer, you're going to like it a lot once you get used to feeling like you're in a hefty bag in the beginning. We can work on your buoyancy some more when we get to HC. I will make you do some looptie loops.