And here is...... SATCHMO!!

Good afternoon ,Gerrit. I got that pic of Satchmo,too!! and here's what's on the N.beachcam. Look's a bit overcast..m.

Hi Margarite & Gerrit!
Nice capture Gerrit. I can hear the trumpets...

Diver-Alert!

Looks like she has a loose hose. Did her Octopus fall off?

More divers!

Divers coliding in front of cam. Need traffic control.

I does look like a loose hose...
At least she's not alone anymore!

Visitor!

Howdy, Nice ones Igor and Mike, for some reason I can't download the pics at the moment. Glad you captured the divers. Puter running very slow, gues I got too much open maybe. Annie b.

Good Morning everyone... Meg Ryan here.... thanks for the entertainment from yesterday's thread. See what happens when I go home from work! And what IS that dangling hose in the 11:06 post? Hmmmm

You know these earlier divers have a lot more patience than I do. Just floating infront a camera for 15 minutes, what a waste of air. I would have to set my watch and beoff doing something else in the off time.

Igor and Mike , that is probably a drysuit hose..I leave mine on all year long as well...

Drysuit hose?!?! I wouldn't know anything about that. 82 F. or 28 C. is as low as I go.

Mike, you should talk to Jake or Linda about their new suits....

I dive with a dry suit in Holland almost year round. It's great!

I like warm water and colorful coral. I am not that addicted to diving to go where I need a dry suit. I am satisfied with diving each month this year (98 dives so far this year). I don't need to dive in cold water. I can wait until I can get to some warm water.

Mikey:

Amen to that, brother! If you gotta haul on all that neoprene and then sweat your hoo-hoos off until you get in the water, then feel like the Michelin Man, there's a serious problem!

Sally <--warm water diver & darn proud of it!

Granted, a drysuit is a pain in the butt....

However, there are some great dives in cold water. If I only dove in warm water, then I wouldn't dive as often as I do. I can't afford a trip south every month, so I have to do cold water diving if I want to dive. Sad state of affairs..... but it is my reality.

But then again, I feel as though dealing with all the extra equipment, low visibility, and cold water has made me a better diver. When I drop down on a wreck in Lake Superior at a temperature of 48F and 15 feet visibility, I consider it not only a technical accomplishment, but also an emotional one.

Sometimes I envy the folks who have warm water for every dive. But when I think about the tremendous cold water dives I have had and the additional skills I have attained from them, I treasure my cold water experiences.......

Someday maybe my body will acclimate itself to warm water and shudder at the thought of even 75F temperatures. But for right now, that is not the case. Thus, I will wax the zipper on my drysuit once again.......

-dave.

all i can say is "warm water sucks." you guys are a bunch of woosies

Dave:

You da man! I have a high degree of respect for ANYONE who can do Lake Superior...but for me, to fight equipment and viz is NOT what I'd call fun...and I dive for fun.

Now, I'm stupid enough to get into 7mm neoprene in a shorty and Farmer Jane, Lycra skin, fleece skin and gloves, to dive in Lake Michigan, Traverse Bay and the quarries in Ohio. That's to keep up my skills so that I can dive in the warm water.

True story...we were in a small lake near Ann Arbor with other divers...the viz was like 1.5 feet. We stayed in about 20 minutes, until my sister-in-law almost bumped nose first into a snowmobile. In getting out, we heard one of the other divers say, quite loudly, "And thus ends your sensory deprivation exercise!". Whenever we have a dive like that, that's what we say!

a snow sub? did it swim away?

there's nothing like breaking thru a thermal-cline at 70' and seeing some cocked-eyed great lakes wreck there laying on the bottom, the thermal-cline visible like a spooky cloud layer above...different kind of fun than bonaire...

48 degrees...air doesn't last long at 90'

(thank goodness)

48 degrees-- that's mid summer water in coastal New England.

Glen: Now *that's* worthy of respect!!

Cynde, That is Dr. Woosie. I did dive in an icy quarry this year for my nitrox training. We hit two visible thermoclines at 40 and 70 feet. Not sure how cold it was. My face felt like it was in ice water. My computer's therm reading just said, "TSTC" (Too Stupid To Calculate).

Dr. Doolittle:

The first time I saw a thermocline I didn't know what it was...it looked like shimmering pavement on a hot day...my feet hit it (descending feet first) and THEN I *KNEW*! COLD WATER! I had to ascend a few feet to just above it. I then swam at the bottom of the thermocline, looking at the wreck 15 feet below me. I couldn't go farther...it was TOO cold!

This year, Traverse Bay in Michigan was 68 F at 55 feet....REALLY warm! And 72 on the surface.

Sally <---cold water wimp

ok dr. doolittle, you have reprieved yourself where is cecil with his pic of the snowmobile he and his friends rescued a couple of years ago...sallly, mabye it was the one you bumped your nose into...have to ask, did you feel it when you bumped into it? or were you frozen?

mr. neer, i know you, you probably ran the red light as you had your eyes fixed on the dr. pepper machine next to the yellow school bus, and just beyond the cabin cruiser

no...i observe all stoplights

but...somehow...i am currently enjoying a dr. pepper?

it's christmas!!!

Cynde Loo Hoo (who was no more than two!):

*I* didn't bump into it...my sister-in-law almost did! Hah! I have better navigational skills than that...

Actually, the viz wuz so bad, I didn't see the snowmobile, the bus, the motorcycle...nothing. Not even fish.

Maybe the hose in the pic at 11:06 is supposed to be hooked up to her bc for inflation....

I just won't comment on the water temps....

Some fish that were missed:

Blinded by the light...

tony, i hope not! i have seen someone jump off the boat that way, with nothing but a big canadian destroyer laying at the bottom at 110 feet, in 57 degree water, with a steel tank and too much weight...never saw a DM dive in the water after someone so fast in my life!

ok, to be on subject, wonder where our little tweety went...sigh

That's an awful long hose...... I think it is her octopus hose. Looks like her BC hose is over her left shoulder, and her guages are under her left arm.

My vote is that somehow her octopus regulator came off, either before the dive or during it.

Again, reverting back to my rant on the Diving thread about safety ("Accident at 1000 steps"), looks like another example of a *real good* buddy check. Also, looks like her buddy is keeping a good eye on her. Remember, if the octopus is needed, it will no doubt be needed by her buddy.....

-dave.

Cynde, that pic is one of my all-time favorites...I prefer to think he matured and is swimming around with a big school of blue tangs...just out of site of the reef cam!

i know ginny, i would hate to think of the other option

Dave perhaps she has an octo on her inflater hose.. my drysuit hose is much longer than any other of my hoses so it reaches around under my arm and connects and is comfortable,, I usually tuck mine inside the back my bcd when I am warm water diving and use the metal connection as a tank tapper..

If an octopus regulator, or a primary, came off, wouldn't the rig free flow through that open hose???

Ok, that's it, I've had enough now. Can someone explain to me on tomorrow's thread the difference between a wet suit and a dry suit. I assume it is to do with the water temperature, but being a non diver I am not really sure. And what is a dry suit hose? Annie B. Can't swim, can't dive, but did try to snorkel this year, and it was great. Off to bed now, as it is very late over here. See ya all in the morn.

A wet suit is a 'foam rubber' suit that allows water into the space between your skin and the suit. A dry suit is sealed and is not supposed to let water next to your skin. Dry suits are worn with 'long john' type insulating clothes inside. The thickness of the 'long john' depends on the expected water temperature.

Above water, a wet suit is like a heavy wool coat, it lets you get wet, but keeps you warm as long as the temperture is not too cold. A dry suit is like a good raincoat over the wool coat, it keeps you dry and warm in most conditions.

A dry suit also requires its own training, because you put air into your suit, instead of your BCD vest.
A dry suit also costs roughly $400 to $600 more.

it's the need to put air in the drysuit that results in this random extra hose.

A drysuit can keep you warmer because you wear 1 or more layers of warm snuggies under it, depending on water temp and space in the drysuit. If you didn't add air to the suit, it would compress with the additional pressures at depth and crush out all the air (and thus all the insulation value) in the underthings. THere is an in-valve for air on the chest, and an out-valve on the shoulder. The extra dry-suit training teaches you how to use the suit for buoyancy instead of your BC, and it also teaches you how to recover from going upside-down and getting all your air up in your feet (all the venting is at the head -- if you go upside-down and all the air slides into the feet, you start heading for the surface feet-first, with no immediate way of stopping it, short of a somersault to bring your feet back down where they belong and the vent back to the top end).

A "normal" drysuit has a latex or neoprene seal at the neck and seals at the wrist, and other than your head and hands, you stay dry inside (relatively speaking -- your perspiration does tend to condense on the inside of the suit and give you a bit of moisture, but nothing from outside gets in). We've worn ours in water temps as cold as 36F (1C). We didn't stay warm for long, but we did manage to get in a 30 minute dive before we got too cold for it to be fun anymore.

A "tropical" drysuit, which is what Jake & Linda just ordered, has additional seals at the ankles, so the feet also get wet (allows for foot pocket fins that you need to wear barefoot). It's for those temperature weenies who have so acclimated to warm water that even a 7mm wetsuit can't keep them warm long enough. Give me another couple of years, and I'll need one, too -- I was wearing my 3mm suit with a 2mm vest in Grand Cayman last week, water temp 82, and I was still a bit chilly...

The sea and river kayaking communities have been using non-vented tropical-style drysuits for years to keep paddlers warm and dry on cold, wet days or cold, wet rivers (as opposed to the dry rivers, no doubt... The suit keeps water and wind out.

Faith

Thanks Linnear, John and Faith.

I see the difference now. I did not know that air went into the drysuit, so now I have learned something, and now I can understand a bit more as to why the special training is given. I assume you would need to use heavier weights with the drysuit to counter act the air that is inside it. Thanks once again.

Happy diving everybody. Annie B.

Glen & Freddie: I stand corrected. You are right: if the regulator had come off, there would be air spewing out. As far as the length, I guess it could be for a drysuit. Mine is much shorter than that. I tend to try and keep my hoses close to my body. Old habit from getting hung up multiple times in the crap places I use to dive (and still do sometimes....)

As far as the drysuit, one last comment. It is true that the air is used for insulation purposes, and some of the warmth comes from the under garments. But remember, one of the real contributing factors of why a drysuit keeps you warm is that your body, in theory, never comes in contact with the water. Water - even standing water, or "warm" water inside your wetsuit - removes body heat 20 times faster than air does.

There is one other type of suit. My brother has whats called a "semi-dry" suit. It is much like a wetsuit, but it has neck and wrist seals like a drysuit. The idea is that it lets water in one time, then seals up. The water is heated by your body, just like a wetsuit, but is never re-cycled like what happens with a wetsuit (you know, like everytime you move in a wetsuit, theres a feeling of cold water rushing down your back). In theory, the semi-dry suit is better than a wetsuit because the water stays warm and theres never fresh (cold) water re-introduced to it. I've never tried it, but he seems to like it...... and BTW: the official term is semi-dry suit, but I would call it a semi-wet suit.

-dave.

$400 to $600 more for a dry suit?!!?!? For that I can get a ticket to Bonaire and don't need no stinking dry suit.

So Far I like the sound of a drysuit better.

I'm planning on trying mine out (the tropical dry suit) on Sunday - I'll make sure to pose for the ReefCam and BeachCam if it all works out. Linda tried hers on already, but it doesn't quite fit, so she has to get a different size :-(

I have my New England rubber Viking dry suit here in storage as well (for when I can justify and afford a trip to the Galapagos), but it's way too heavy to use here on Bonaire.

Jake

Annie B, the amount of weight needed for a drysuit varies with the number of layers of warm snuggies underneath... My drysuit is nothing more than a shell under which I can layer a bunch of stuff. Given the layering I use under it, I tend to run about 30 lbs of weight both winter and summer. Dan, using a similar suit, runs about 34 lbs of weight in summer, if I remember correctly, a bit more (36 or so?) in winter. As a comparison, in the Caribbean, with a 3mm suit, we use 16 and 18 lbs respectively...

Faith

(needless to say my legs are in great shape from hauling myself out of the water with that much weight on...

The amount of weight carried also depends on how warm you want to be. Air is pumped into the drysuit to act as an insulator to the cold water. The more warmth and insulation you want, the more that gets pumped into the drysuit.

As air is pumped into the drysuit, you become more bouyant, so more weight would be needed to compensate. Also, typically, as you go deeper the water will be colder, so more air/under garments are needed for warmth. This adds to the bouyancy, so more weight is needed.

I typically wear my drysuit when wreck diving, so I know the depth I'll be at before I enter the water. I can add or remove weights accordingly for that depth and expected water temperatures.

And as said earlier, the drysuit itself is used for bouyancy compensation while under water, so that factor also needs to be added to the equation when calculating required weighting.

And one last thought..... when diving in a drysuit, you really should have a BCD that can lift the weight of yourself and a drysuit full of water. If the drysuit floods, a BCD full of air may not be able to make you positively bouyant - even after dumping your weights. Check the lift factor of your BCD and make sure it can pull you up if for some reason your suit spings a leak or gets ripped and floods with water. Remember, all that water will weigh a lot.......

-dave.

Okay, I gotta chime in with some questions. Just for clarity.

Dave, you say you adjust your weighting based on how deep you're going? I adjust my weights such that I can stay at 20fsw with empty tanks. Why would you add more or less based on your diving depth?

Also, you say that a drysuit full of water would be heavy and you need to make sure you have a bc with enough pounds of lift. Huh?
If you took your dry suit (without you in it), and tossed it in the water, it's going to have a certain buoyancy. Either a little positive or a little negative or (in the word's of Little Red Riding Hood), juuust riiiiight (neutrally buoyant). More on this, in a moment.

If you throw your drysuit (without you in it) into the water and it sinks like a stone, something is probably wrong, eh? If you were crazy enough to go ahead and dive that suit, you would indeed need a bc with enough lbs of lift to raise it to the surface from depth. Since most divers are taught to weight themselves so that they float at eye level (with the surface), with an empty bc (and drysuit in this case), you would probably never dive that drysuit to begin with.

More ramblings on buoyancy: Sometimes having a drysuit that is quite positively buoyant would be great. For example, you're doing freshwater diving with big ol' Pressed Steel 104 c.i. tanks. They are extremely heavy tanks (and negatively buoyant), freshwater is less buoyant than saltwater, so the positively buoyant drysuit would be an excellent offset.

Thoughts?

LHenslee,

When I go deep, the water is typically colder. I add air to my drysuit for warmth and comfort. As you go deeper, the sqeeze also becomes more extreme. Adding air to the drysuit also offsets this, but it's mainly for warmth. The more air that's in the drysuit, the more air my body can warm, and thus the more insulation I have against the cold.

When I add this air, I become more bouyant. To offset this bouyance and remain nuetral, I would have to have more weights in my system, otherwise I would start to float upwards after adding the air. I have to plan ahead and guess (based on experience) how much weight I would be carrying at a certain depth/temperature.

If you were to go to 85 feet, and open the neck seal on your drysuit, let all the air out, and water in, you would become negatively bouyant. A drysuit full of water is going to weigh some pounds. You would be required to drag that water with you to the surface. If you aren't strong enough to kick your way there (and I would bet you wouldn't be), then your BCD had better have enough lift to help pull you up. If for some reason you were unable to assist in the ascent (unconscience or somehow incopacitated), your BC would have to do the entire job, assuming your buddy was there to add air to it.

Not sure regarding your statement about steel tanks and a positively bouyant drysuit to offset it. In the Great Lakes, I typically dive with 120c.i. high pressure steel tanks. Yes, they are heavy and they remain negatively bouyant throughtout the dive (as opposed to 80 C.I. aluminums which tend to become positively bouyant). But I like that because it means that on those dives I carry less lead in my system. But I factor that into the whole equation along with warmth, size of undergarment, etc. I also dive with steel 80s and steel 50s. Those weigh different than the steel 120s, so I have to change my weighting when using those tanks.

Drysuit diving, in my opinion, and in my experience, is a little more technical and requires some forethought. Drysuit diving in the tropics is not the same as drysuit diving in cold water. I maintain that drysuit diving in cold, deep water requires a variance to the way you weight yourself. For both safety and comfort.

But, whether it's cold or warm water, depending on how much air you add to the suit and which type of undergarment you choose to wear, your weighting will change. Also, a BCD with the appropriate lift should be used for an ascent with a suit full of water.

-dave.

Dave,

Thanks for the response. I think that open, frank discussions like this are a great learning opportunity.

It’s ESPECIALLY important (in my humble opinion) that discussions in open forums such as BonaireTalk, be accurate. Hopefully, no sane person would use information from an informal forum (such as this) in activities that, done poorly, could cost them their lives, but you never know.

So, I basically have two areas that are unclear to me:

1) You wear more weight if you’re diving deeper.

Pardon my persistence, but I'm still not understanding. Let's say you need 20 lbs to float at eye level, with the surface, with an empty drysuit and bc. Thus according to PADI, and other certifying agencies, you are properly weighted.

You will NOT need anymore weight if you go to 300fsw or to 100 fsw. However, let's say you put X cubic inches (c.i.) of gas into your drysuit at 300fsw, and that volume of gas is enough to keep you comfortable AND properly buoyant. Sure, at 200fsw you will need more weight to keep that volume of air from shooting you to the surface, that's why you vent air out as you get shallower; at 200fsw you should have less gas in the suit to keep you warm and properly buoyant.

My whole contention is this: The amount of weight needed to keep you properly buoyant and warm at 100fsw is the same amount of weight needed to keep you properly buoyant and warm at 300fsw.

2) Your statement, "Remember, all that water will weigh a lot......."
Saltwater, in saltwater, is by definition neutrally buoyant. Sure, if you took the volume of water your drysuit holds and tried to carry it around (above water) in a tub or something, it would weigh a considerable amount. But if you took that tub and put it in the sea, the only buoyancy factor you're dealing with is that of the tub.
My bottom line on this one: Yes, if your drysuit floods, you need a BC that is capable of surfacing you and your gear without any help from the drysuit. However, your flooded dry suit is NOT suddenly going to weigh a ton. You just won't have it assisting you with buoyancy and, assuming it is negatively buoyant, it will work against you a little bit. Only, a little bit. It will NOT work against you with the same weight of a drysuit full of water on land. Period.

Thanks for the spirited discussion.

You are missing the point on the weights. It really has nothing to do with being neutrally bouyant at the surface.

I add weight when I am diving deeper becuase the water is COLDER. If the water is cold, I have to add air to warm me up. When I add the air, I become more bouyant. Knowing that the water at my target depth is cold and I'll have to add air, I add weights to my system before I enter the water. I start my dive negatively bouyant. When I reach my target depth, in theorey I have added the correct amount of air to warm me, and if I have planned right, the correct amount of weight to keep me neutral.

If you are diving deep, cold water in a drysuit, the dive is sarted negatively bouyant.

Your statement "The amount of weight needed to keep you properly buoyant and warm at 100fsw is the same amount of weight
needed to keep you properly buoyant and warm at 300fsw" is incorrect. It can't be true. In cold water (at depth), air will be added to the drysuit which will cause you to become more positively bouyant. Surface water is typically warmer, so less air would be needed in the drysuit, thus less weight to keep you nuetral.

I have over 300+ dives in a drysuit. I have dove "warm" water in a drysuit and I have dove cold water. I have been in water where on the surface I was nuetrally bouyant with a water temp of 70 degrees. However, when I for to 90 feet and the water was 46 degrees, I was getting cold. When I added air to warm me, I started floating up and could not maintain my neutral position. So I had two options: let the air out and be cold on the dive, or be warm as I floated upward.

Don't confuse PADI open water weighting techniques with drysuit weighting techniques. Different rules apply....

I agree with you that water in water is by definition weightless. But when you enclose that water and are required to move it, there will be weight. If the enclosed water weighs 50 pounds, then you are displacing/moving 50 pounds of weight.

Next time you go diving, take a 30 pound garbage bag to a depth of 50 feet. Open the bag and fill it with water. Close the bag and bring it to the surface. It is by far effortless. The bag will have weight that is being moved and displaced for the distance of the ascent.

Here's another thought..... fill a milk jug with water. Take the jug to a certain depth and let it go. What will happen? Will it float neutrally at that depth or will it sink? I bet it will sink.... Carrying that milk jug to the surface will not be as easy as carrying an "empty" one to the surface.

Not sure how else to explain it....

PADI does preach that when on a boat in a drysuit, you should always have it zipped. In the unlikely event that you would happen to fall over with an unzipped drysuit, the suit would fill with water and drag you down.

And lastly, I love working through problems and issues. And I think this board is a good forum for such things. But I don't appreciate you implying that my posts are inaccurate and could cost someone their life. Anyone who knows me can affirm to the fact that I am VERY committed to safe diving and am safety conscience in all of my activities, whether its motorcycling, shooting, flying, or diving. I study them all and insist on rules and procedures from anyone who participates in these activities alongside me. I ask questions about what I don't know and study mistakes made by others to help me avoid the same mistakes in the future.

I do not appreicate someone implying that I am disseminating false information.

Obviously, you don't have any drysuit experience, but yet you are telling me (PADI certified divemaster with 300+ drysuit dives in COLD water) that I don't know what I'm talking about.

Just because you can't grasp the concept of drysuit diving or the content of my posts does not make me inaccurate.

As Bill O'Rielly says, "I'll give you the last word". I am finished with this thread. I would hate to give out anymore information that might kill someone.

-dave.

Dave,

To be clear, I do not believe you to be inexperienced or hyper-experienced. I don't know you at all. I just thought this would be a forum for a nice "learning" discussion. I do not think you desire/intend to kill anyone.
I am not telling you that you don't know what you're talking about; I'm just asking questions to learn more.

Please don't take my questioning attitude to be an attack. I seek only to learn.

Who is Bill O'Rielly?

Anyhow, I'll respond to your post later, I don't want anyone to infer that I'm saying something I'm not. So, I won't type a quick note back.

Since you are done with this thread, please feel fre to respond to me via e-mail.

Thanks,
Les

Dave,

Since my e-mail address is not posted on my profile, I'll e-mail it to ya.

Les