Photographer's dilemma - equalizing pressure in dry gloves?

[John Rawlings]

Can't believe all the people who are saying just get rid of the wrist seals. Maybe y'all have been lucky to have never had a glove flood ... but drygloves DO flood ... either because a bit of something gets caught on an o-ring or because you get a hole or cut in the glove.

Anybody who's never had a full-suit flood in local waters ... particularly in winter ... just don't know what you're missing. I guarantee it'll happen to you just once ... and then you'll figure out a way to get those wrist seals back on your suit.

Ain't fun when you have to take off your suit and turn it upside down to dump the water outta the boots ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Agreed! That's not EVEN mentioning if you have such a flood with a decompression obligation and subsequently must spend that time getting wetter and colder by the second....and, I might add, getting colder hinders decompression.

It's a heck of a lot easier to handle one cold, wet hand than it is to handle a cold wet arm, torso and crotch! Get rid of the wrist seals? No way!

- John

[Joshua Smith]

Hey, I do it that way, and so do some of my tech-diving buddies. I've never had a catastrophic suit flood from a glove leak. If the glove leaks, it's generally on the front end of a dive, allowing me to avoid a huge deco obligation. I've done pretty much ALL of my deep diving with no wrist seals.

[Grateful Diver]

Hey, I do it that way, and so do some of my tech-diving buddies. I've never had a catastrophic suit flood from a glove leak. If the glove leaks, it's generally on the front end of a dive, allowing me to avoid a huge deco obligation. I've done pretty much ALL of my deep diving with no wrist seals.

S'cool ... just hope ya don't snag that glove pulling yourself along on the Governor ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[John Rawlings]

Hey, I do it that way, and so do some of my tech-diving buddies. I've never had a catastrophic suit flood from a glove leak. If the glove leaks, it's generally on the front end of a dive, allowing me to avoid a huge deco obligation. I've done pretty much ALL of my deep diving with no wrist seals.

That may very well be so....for you....so far. But, as you know, I'm a big believer in "to each his own" when it comes to diving.

"Generally" doesn't do it for me. Having had a catastrophic suit flood, I would prefer to avoid them in the future, so I choose to have wrist seals. Trust me, walking a quarter mile up a beach or trying to get up a dive ladder into a boat is one heckuva lot harder when you have several gallons of water inside each leg.

A lot depends on the dry glove system that you use. You use thicker neoprene gloves where the only likely leak point is where they connect to the suit. Hence, you are correct in stating that a leak is likely to happen at the begining of the dive. However, from his comments I believe that the OP, like me, uses rubber gloves that are pulled over solid cuffs, with water pressure providing the seal. As an underwater photographer, I can't tell you the number of times I've been looking through my viewfinder and foolishly reached out with a gloved hand to steady myself on a wall in the current and inadvertently come in contact with a barnacle or a sea urchin. Rubber gloves do not play well with such sharp things.

I prefer to err on the side of caution, so the wrist seals are staying put on my suit.

- John

[eliseaboo]

I seem to be the only one who does this, but on shallow dives (like, 30-40 feet or so) I don't put anything in my wrist seal. The liners I use are nice fluffy fleece, so they trap enough air and on shallow dives it doesn't seem to compress very much, at least not enough to make my hands cold. Now, I have had a few dives where I did get a nice glove squeeze, but it seems like in general I can wiggle my wrist enough to let a little air in, and with the seal it won't leak back out as soon as I put my hand back down. YMMV of course.

[Norris]

I am also for just losing the wrist seals for an easy hand insertion. I am a recreational diver and even a bad glove leak was only slightly up to the middle of my forearm and just moist. If you have a piece of bungee, surgical tubing, string, or whatever for breathing your gloves, doesnt water have a free pass through the very same opening, should a glove leak happen?

[spatman]

If you have a piece of bungee, surgical tubing, string, or whatever for breathing your gloves, doesnt water have a free pass through the very same opening, should a glove leak happen?

well, it's a much smaller hole for the water to pass through, and in an extreme circumstance you could remove the glove and tube/bungee to prevent further flooding...

[airsix]

It's possible for a glove to pull/blow off it's ring. BTDT
Without a wrist seal that would be a pretty rapid suit flood. I like the redundancy there because IMHO the glove is the weakest part of the suit and most likely to get damaged or dislodged.

[Norris]

Great points Matt and Airsix. Mine don't just slip on they also have an o-ring for redundancy so I dont worry about it popping off much. If I was doing deco obligatory dives I think the inner seal would be a necessary addition as to sit for 30-60 minutes on a deco stop with a nasty glove leak would be a nightmare. Thanks for answering!

[Joshua Smith]

Hey, I do it that way, and so do some of my tech-diving buddies. I've never had a catastrophic suit flood from a glove leak. If the glove leaks, it's generally on the front end of a dive, allowing me to avoid a huge deco obligation. I've done pretty much ALL of my deep diving with no wrist seals.

S'cool ... just hope ya don't snag that glove pulling yourself along on the Governor ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

"Pulling myself along?" I just hover and frog kick, dude!

[Joshua Smith]

Hey, I do it that way, and so do some of my tech-diving buddies. I've never had a catastrophic suit flood from a glove leak. If the glove leaks, it's generally on the front end of a dive, allowing me to avoid a huge deco obligation. I've done pretty much ALL of my deep diving with no wrist seals.

That may very well be so....for you....so far. But, as you know, I'm a big believer in "to each his own" when it comes to diving.

"Generally" doesn't do it for me. Having had a catastrophic suit flood, I would prefer to avoid them in the future, so I choose to have wrist seals. Trust me, walking a quarter mile up a beach or trying to get up a dive ladder into a boat is one heckuva lot harder when you have several gallons of water inside each leg.

A lot depends on the dry glove system that you use. You use thicker neoprene gloves where the only likely leak point is where they connect to the suit. Hence, you are correct in stating that a leak is likely to happen at the begining of the dive. However, from his comments I believe that the OP, like me, uses rubber gloves that are pulled over solid cuffs, with water pressure providing the seal. As an underwater photographer, I can't tell you the number of times I've been looking through my viewfinder and foolishly reached out with a gloved hand to steady myself on a wall in the current and inadvertently come in contact with a barnacle or a sea urchin. Rubber gloves do not play well with such sharp things.

I prefer to err on the side of caution, so the wrist seals are staying put on my suit.

- John

Point taken. If I had the same gloves most people use, I probably wouldn't go without wrist seals. But I really like not having them- I've had a couple hand squeezes that were extremely problematic in the past.

[SeattleYates]

...Here's another vote for a simple small length of bungee with a knot. Just slide the bungee (about 4 inches) under the seal so that the knot rests just at the base of your palm. The bungee won't collapse like surgical tubing, so you have a nice gap to allow gas into your gloves. It's also soft, though, so you won't be irritated by it like you would a straw or anything else thats stiff.

I have the exact same style of dry gloves that you have (simple pull-overs on Viking rings) and this simple bungie/knot system works like a champ! I take a lot of pics, both shallow and deep, and it works well.
- John

OK, I did a dive this morning and tried on one hand pulling some of the undergarment through the seal with the thumb loop, and on the other hand used a piece of bungee (knotted on one end and that end in my base of my palm as was recommended).

I didn't like the undergarment route for two reasons. First, it was uncomfortable because of the pull on the undergarment, which made me worry that it was going to pull back through and break the seal (of course, that could just be my particular undergarment - YMMV). The second reason was that, upon reflection, although this method DID let air into the glove to help equalize it, it occurred to me that if I had a glove leak, I wouldn't know how to get the fabric back inside the seal to stop the flow of water into the suit!

The other hand had the bungee, and I'M SOLD!!!! I couldn't even feel the bungee during the dive, yet it made equalizing (i.e., getting air into the glove) easy peasy - just a slight raising of the hand and it was almost instantaneous! And of course, it would be simple to pull it through into the glove by the knot in the event of a leak. I'm sure some of the tubing that people recommended would also work, but I don't see how a) it could be more comfortable, and b) it could be any more effective at the job.

So thanks to all for the useful suggestions and discussion (for a minute there I considered cutting off the seals!). My problem is solved, and my total cash outlay? $0 (I just cut up an old bungee I had lying around)! Can't beat that!

[John Rawlings]

My problem is solved, and my total cash outlay? $0 (I just cut up an old bungee I had lying around)! Can't beat that!

Cost is another big advantage to the "knotted-bungie" system!

[LCF]

I don't do anything to equalize my gloves, even on deco dives. But then, I have horrible tendons and always get very wet if I dive without my dry gloves.

I have had a suit flood, and you don't have to be deep OR have a deco obligation to be in a world of hurt. All you have to do is be 30 minutes swimming time from home. I can guarantee you that 30 minutes of swimming a suit full of ice water is a very unpleasant experience.

I did have one time where I had some undergarment pulled out under my seal -- I didn't want to fuss with it, so I did the dive, thinking, "Oh, my dry gloves will protect me." Well, I had a seepy kind of leak through the glove rings, and by the end of an hour's dive, I was SOAKED. Not only do I have my wrist seals under my gloves, but I am now VERY careful to make sure that they are lying flat and smooth before I get in the water.

[Tangfish]

You guys who like the redundancy of wrist seals under dry gloves, you should install double neck seals too!

[cardiver]

You guys who like the redundancy of wrist seals under dry gloves, you should install double neck seals too!

I can't wait to pick up my new suit this week and install my DC rings, sans wrist seals!