How to Dive in a Drysuit
Drysuits are designed to use the air in the scuba system to keep the wearer dry and therefore warmer in frigid waters. Drysuits allow divers can explore the icy waters of the northern lakes or Arctic and Antarctic seas. Drysuits, though, add yet another piece of gear to the scuba diver's kit--a piece of gear that requires its own fussy maintenance and attention during a dive.
Other People Are Reading
Things You'll Need
- Air cylinder with scuba regulator
- Buoyancy control device
- Weight belt or integrated weights.
Instructions
-
-
1
Wear the minimum number of weights. Less weight means you need less air at a given depth to control your buoyancy, and having less air in your buoyancy control device and/or your drysuit makes your overall buoyancy easier to control, especially in the event of an accident.
-
2
Plan your dive to make the minimum number of ascents and descents. Dry suits do not use a lot of air, but a long series of ascents and descents means injecting, venting, then injecting air again into the suit. The air use adds up, so avoid it by minimizing those ups and downs.
-
-
3
Press the inflator on the drysuit as needed while you descend. This adds air to the suit, pushing back against the ambient water pressure and keeping the water out of your suit. Keep in mind you added air to the drysuit if you also add air to your BCD to further adjust your buoyancy. If you add too much to one or the other, you will become positively buoyant and start ascending.
-
4
Vent air from your drysuit if you ascend. As the ambient pressure decreases, the air in the suit will expand, making the suit harder to move in and causing a more rapid ascent. Some suits have automatic pressure release valves, so manual venting is unnecessary. If yours does not, raise your arm and activate the valve on your wrist.
-
5
Inflate your BCD and not your drysuit to float on the surface. Drysuits usually do not have the buoyancy to fully support you on the surface, and inflating them so much constrains your movement and stresses the seals. Your BCD is meant to serve as a flotation device, so use it instead.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Wear warm clothes under the drysuit. Remember that the main purpose of the drysuit is to keep water out. While the neoprene itself has certain warming characteristics, this is not enough for the chilly waters for which drysuits are needed. Some divers wear rashguards, others go with a t-shirt and shorts, while still others use thermal underwear. Let taste and the local diving conditions guide your undergarment choices.
Perform basic drysuit maintenance tasks, such as coating the seals with silicon and waxing up the zippers sometime before the dive. This could be done the night before or on the dock, but it needs to be done before you put on the drysuit.
Drysuits are bulkier than wetsuits, so keep this in mind when attempting dives in tight places, such as wrecks or caves, for the first time.
Proper use of a drysuit is essential to avoid an uncontrolled ascent to the surface, with its attendant risks of decompression sickness or pulmonary barotrauma, or the bursting of the lungs due to expanding air. Most dive schools in areas marked by cold water offer drysuit training classes, so consider taking one before buying a drysuit.
References
- Photo Credit sea rescue drysuit image by Jeff Dalton from Fotolia.com
