So you think its a good idea to dive a drysuit without training ?

[BobK]

If you read this you may understand why, I do not agree !

A long long time ago in a place far, far away ......................... well Malta actually :-)

At the time 'everybody' did their initial open water training in wetsuits. My diving, upto this point had consisted of
freshwater diving in Coniston, Eccelston Delph, Kirby Lonsdale, Hodge Close, and the salty stuff at St Abbs, and Oban.
I had just over 30 dives under my belt, and had just qualified as a Sports Diver. Out of 25ish members in my club, only 4 or so had drysuits. Stab jackets were pretty new on the market, and most people, were using ABLJ's (horse collars) for buoyancy control.

I think it was probably our 4th diving day. Up to this point, it had been a fantastic holiday. The high point had been
the dive starting from the 'inland sea' on Gozo, out through the 'crack/tunnel' to the open sea down to 35m for the
first time.

It was February and the temperature was like a British Summer. The wetsuit was ok, but Phil our instructor had
brought his drysuit and his wifes with him. Phil suggested that I might like to have a go in a drysuit ! I had not really had much to do with drysuits up to that point. Nearly all of my kit was secondhand, and drysuits were pretty expensive. So I thought I decided to give it a go, my instructor said it would be Ok :-)

The suit was not a perfect fit, so there was probably some 'extra' room for air. As the suit had its 'inflate' right in the
centre of the chest, I also had to borrow a stab jacket (BC) that I had never used before either. The briefing from memory, was reasonably thorough, and the suit had a 'cuff' dump. So if I had any problems with ascending to fast, just stick my arm up, and air would dump. No problem - What could go wrong ? The BC was just for surface use, so do not put air it I was told. We did a 'weight check in a few metres of water, and then added a few pounds to my weight belt.

Three of us, then went off for a dive to 25m, on a gently sloping bottom. The descent and bottom phase were uneventful, I just added air to keep me 'comfortable' and off the bottom. I was a little 'apprehensive', but the dive was going fine, nothing to worry about at all.

We turned around with about 100 bar left in my tank. I started of back up the slope. I felt myself getting light, and
dumped a raft of air by sticking my arm up as instructed, without going to far up ! I think we had got to 20m, and then
I had another unintended 'ascent', this time I did not feel anywhere near under control, again I dumped a load of air,
and got back to the bottom. However my breathing rate had started to soar. I was VERY uncomfortable, and not at all happy. All those lectures about rapid acents and burst lung started to race through my mind.

Phil checked my gauge, I had about 70 bar. No problem, still well within the 'No stop' limits. We carried on with the
ascent and reached about 15m, when my 'boots' went light. I started to ascend 'feet first'. 'Oh Shit, oh shit, oh shit !!!!'.
Somehow I managed to get out of the inversion, and stuck my arm up, I had shot up at least 8 metres, before I came crashing back down again.

Then I felt my reg go tight, I managed to get half a breath and realised I had run out of air ! 'Oh f*ck, oh f*ck, oh F*ck',
but my training kicked in, and I gave a classic out of air signal to my two 'ASTONISHED' buddies, both of whom it later
turned out thought I was taking the P$ss.

At this time, out of air training was all 'buddy breathing'. Luckily for me Phil, always had the latest kit, and I
was offered one those new fangled scubapro Air-II's (combined BC inflator & 2nd stage). After I had calmed down a little
we made a direct ascent to the surface, with Phil controlling my suit buoyancy in a CBL. We sheephishly got dekitted, as we had been 'spotted' by some other divers, but I will never forget that day.

So what did I learn :-
1) Get some drysuit training.
2) Never try more than one piece of new kit at a time (stab & drysuit)
3) Never go deeper than a few metres, when trying out a drysuit for the first time.
4) Build your experience slowly.

[Tazzie]

Unfortuantely in my experience you have to get below 10m to try a drysuit out properly.

Without getting the change in pressure you can't tell if everything is working properly as I found out weekend before last when yet again my drysuit failed

[Tonio Anastasi]

So what did I learn :-
1) Get some drysuit training.
2) Never try more than one piece of new kit at a time (stab & drysuit)
3) Never go deeper than a few metres, when trying out a drysuit for the first time.
4) Build your experience slowly
I had made the same mistake in the realm of long long ago, when I'd decided to get my first drysuit.
Just followed a quick breifing from my colleagues and went in. HAd alot of problems and was more focused on the problems of the drysuit then on my charges.
Nothing as such happened, but the potential for things to have gone wrong is, in retrospect frieghtening
Good lesson learned, but it can also be applied to other diving eqiuipment a new mask, a new reg, new fins even. They are all small things but could all lead to problems. So a 30M dive would not be thee right place to try them.
What I sometimes also see from people on holiday, who bring their personal equipment, is just serviced regulators mulfuntioning.
So maybe a good idea would be a quick jump in a pool to test the reg before going on holiday.

Tonio Anastasi
BSAC AI505
POWSI612103.

[Mark Chase]

Going from a wet suit to a dry suit is a major change in diving. Self teaching is fine but self teaching in 30m of water is not. 6m of water is where you should learn how to fly a dry suit and thats regardless of self teaching or being taught.

Sorry if this sounds harsh but doing the first ever dry suit dive in 30m is
asking for trouble. The chap who lent you the suit was pretty irresponsible (Surley he knew what it would be like)

I went the self teach rout in Stony cove. It was a quite amusing story, ill try and dig it out. The only dry suit qualified diver in out little party had a rapid ascent and got bent.


ATB


Mark Chase

[David]

Originally Posted by BobK

If you read this you may understand why, I do not agree !


It was February and the temperature was like a British Summer. The wetsuit was ok, but Phil our instructor had
brought his drysuit and his wifes with him. Phil suggested that I might like to have a go in a drysuit !

The suit was not a perfect fit, so there was probably some 'extra' room for air. As the suit had its 'inflate' right in the
centre of the chest, I also had to borrow a stab jacket (BC) that I had never used before either.

The briefing from memory, was reasonably thorough, and the suit had a 'cuff' dump.


Three of us, then went off for a dive to 25m, on a gently sloping bottom. The descent and bottom phase were uneventful, I just added air to keep me 'comfortable' and off the bottom.

I was a little 'apprehensive', but the dive was going fine, nothing to worry about at all.


So what did I learn :-
1) Get some drysuit training.
2) Never try more than one piece of new kit at a time (stab & drysuit)
3) Never go deeper than a few metres, when trying out a drysuit for the first time.
4) Build your experience slowly.

I am sorry to say this in an open forum but you, your instructor and his girlfriend are all nuts.......... why would any one make a 25 meter dive with badly fitting kit their first test dive of anything....I am not to sure I would want to test a new diving buddy to 25 meters on a first dive unless his kit and skill seemed to be backuped by his log book and bragging. :-)

No I never got a any drysuit tranning but I did put myself in a 4 meter pond
to do a weight check and invert myself as many times as it takes to get very bored to know I could right myself on my next deeper dive to 6 meters.

so drysuit training is not realy needed but, any training will shorten the time needed to gain the skill needed to dive safely. So I would prefer to dive with a diver who had has some training to suit dives were doing. :-)

David

[David]

Originally Posted by Mark Chase

I went the self teach rout in Stony cove. It was a quite amusing story, ill try and dig it out. The only dry suit qualified diver in out little party had a rapid ascent and got bent.

Mark Chase

:-)

David

[StephenT]

________
So what did I learn :-
1) Get some drysuit training.
2) Never try more than one piece of new kit at a time (stab & drysuit)
3) Never go deeper than a few metres, when trying out a drysuit for the first time.
4) Build your experience slowly.
_______

hmm what you could of learned

1) it's not a good idea to try a ill-fitting drysuit. You want to keep air migration to a minimum.
2) Never go deeper than a few metres when trying life saving equipment for the first time... including bc/drysuit/regs whatever.
3). Sort out the intial problems, and don't keep continuing the dive, just because you think you have temporarily solved it. accident pit?
4). Get a dry suit orientation.

[BobK]

Originally Posted by David

....I am not to sure I would want to test a new diving buddy to 25 meters on a first dive unless his kit and skill seemed to be backuped by his log book and bragging. :-)

David

Not sure, where you got this from ! This was an instructor, who I was familiar with and trusted.

In hindsight it was a stupid thing to do, that is the WHOLE point of the post !

[David]

Originally Posted by BobK

Not sure, where you got this from ! This was an instructor, who I was familiar with and trusted.
In hindsight it was a stupid thing to do, that is the WHOLE point of the post !

I was just saying about testing new kit I tend to want to test new kit shallower than deeper including new buddies I have not dived with :-)

The point of posting most of the time is to help others learn from our mistakes.
If we started a poll on who had NOT made a mistake when diveing it would be empty I guess.

David

[BobK]

Originally Posted by David

The point of posting most of the time is to help others learn from our mistakes. If we started a poll on who had NOT made a mistake when diveing it would be empty I guess.

David