Dry Suit Course

[skdvr]

Well I just finished up the class room and confined water portion of my dry suit class... I must say that I was quite happy with the instrucror. My class was supposed to be from 6:30pm to 10:30pm and we did not get out of there until just after midnight. Although the instructor did get off onto a few tangents about things he was a very knowledgeable scuba diver that was interesting to listen to. He is a Tech and Cave instructor and he went a lot into the differences in styles of diving and what PADI teaches in the course and how you can adapt those teachings into beter techniques. There was only 2 of us in the class and both has dreams of going to the Tech side someday so he geared it a little in that direction.

I did have small leak in my neck seal that hopefully we will have solved before the quarry dives this weekend. It was not bad with 85* water trickling down my back but 55* water will be a different story. I was diving a 6mm Bare dry suit and at the end of the dive I could not tell if I was completely soaked from what I thought was just a trickle here and there or if it was from sweat while we were doing everything in the pool and poolside.

All in all I had a good time. I am quite tired this mornign but it is fine with be when it is scuba diving that keept me up late.

Phil

[mm_dm]

Was this your own suit or a rental?

[skdvr]

It was a rental... They gave me some neoprene neck rings to use with it this weekend.

Phil

[mm_dm]

That should help. One thing I had to learn was to turn my shoulders along while I turned my neck to keep water from following that little groove as the muscles/tendons tense. If you're already doing that then you should be good to go. Hope the check out dives go well!

[skdvr]

Thanks for the tip I will pay more attention to it this weekend. I am not sure how I was turing my head but I certainly was not thinking about doing like that so I am sure that I was not.

Phil

[quasimoto]

Also watch the wrist seals if you have small wrists. Mine don't leak unless I start doing something with my hands and the tendons pop out. It usually isn't a big leak but it happens. Just pull them up your arm a bit.

[georoc01]

My thing was that they had use do all of the dives with the outtake valve wide open. And occasionally I would get my left shoulder raised and dump the air out of the suit without my realizing what was going on.

[texdiveguy]

Phil.... curious for your reasons for taking the instruction (**I am a believer in continuing ed for specf. purposes)....are you purchasing a dry suit to dive soon....seeing were you live it would be comfy...?

[quasimoto]

Some like to take the class and it isn't a bad idea. Personally I didn't. I dove with a friend that had dove a dry suit for many years and he ran me through it.
Some will teach you to use the drysuit instead of your BC. Didn't work for but I use the theory of..if it isn't broken then don't fix it. My BC wasn't broken.

[skdvr]

Originally Posted by texdiveguy

Phil.... curious for your reasons for taking the instruction (**I am a believer in continuing ed for specf. purposes)....are you purchasing a dry suit to dive soon....seeing were you live it would be comfy...?

Well I would like to have a dry suit already but that probably will not happen until next year (hopefully). I wanted to take the class so that I could rent a drysuit if I wanted to dive one. The water is cold enough here to dive one year round, plus I would like to be able to dive more this winter when the air temp is cold. I work a lot of weekends which limits my diving but in the winter I am not working as much, so that is a godo time for me to be in the water. It will just be much more comfy in a dry suit in the 50* waters. It may be quite warm on the surface in the summertime but I think I could take that trade off...

Phil