Just bought scuba drysuit
 

In lieu of buying some turbo parts for the track car i bought a new drysuit. Just spent $739 for both the suit and the undersuit. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me.
Bare NEW 2009 Next Gen Scuba MED DRYSUIT LOW PRICE!! - eBay (item 150401975376 end time Jan-05-10 21:10:11 PST)

Any other divers on the board?

Advanced open water trained here. Haven't been in years though, miss it. Picked it up because a girlfriend got me interested, and I was actually training with my mom. Diabetes meant it was a liability to train her, so she stopped, and the girlfriend is now an ex. This sad story = no diving partner.

I usually splash once a month but with the drysuit ill be diving once a week for a while. Sad story indeed. I put the turbo project out another month to pay for this. Between the suspension, brakes, and exhaust; it will probably take me a month.

Drysuit FTW, nothing like turning your partner upside down and hitting the inflation valve ;)

Im a pretty avid diver

mosty cave diving here in north florida, but also some spearfishing offshore jacksonville, and occasional trips south for those clear waters

id like to pick up a drysuit one of these days, but im gonna get a set of doubles before i do that.

LOVE Blue Grotto. That is such a fun dive. I've never done the drysuit but I've seen newb's really struggle with them.

You should see some of the biggers stuff, and the stuff with better visibility. Theres a few springs around with water so clear you would think you were floating in air, haha

200+ dives, mostly tropical.

Check out my most memorable dive here:
Our Sabang Canyons Salmon Run (aka the Dive of Death) - ScubaBoard

I have my open water certification but haven't done very many dives. I do enjoy it quite a bit, just never made it a top priority for my free time. I own my wetsuit & personal gear but rent the BC/regs/tanks/gauges. Last time I went was over 3 years ago, on the morning of my wedding day actually. We got married on St. Croix, and while the women were getting gussied up all day my dad & I took the morning to get in a couple of dives. The coral die-off has hit USVI pretty hard, but below 30 feet there was enough color to be interesting, saw a couple morays and a nurse shark, some barracuda.

I've always heard the diving up in the PacNW is really good, but when I lived in Seattle I was a poor grad student and never had the spare cash or time. Would like to try it someday. I'm probably too much of a noob to be jumping into a drysuit though. Is that required up there or do you guys use 7mm suits or what? I tend to get cold pretty easily while diving- still get shivery in 68° water with a 5mm farmer john/jacket.

shiver @ 68 with a 5 mil? :)

I dive in water as cold as 49deg F with a 7 mil and .5 mil skin.

Once you go dry, you will never dive a wetsuit again in water colder than 70 degrees. I've had a DUI drysuit for 12 years and love it. It keeps me toasty warm in the summer diving Lake Superior and in the winter when Ice Diving.

I do sometimes feel guilty when I'm teaching and my students are shivering in their wetsuit while I'm dry and warm:)

Actually I checked my log and the surface temp was 64, and that was before I bought my own suit so I was using a rental that probably didn't have an optimal fit. And in my defense I was fairly slender at the time, competitive swimmer with a low resting pulse. I was fine in ~76 degree pools wearing just my nut-hugger when I was swimming a race, but easy recreational diving didn't do much to warm me up. In group dives with other tourists I was the guy who still had 1800 psi in the tank when the divemaster ended it because the out-of-shape ones, who were no doubt quite warm due to their insulating blubber, had huffed and puffed their tanks down to 1000 psi.

No shit, you dive? I had no idea Scuba Steve!

I brought a Frisbee whenever I dove for this exact reason. Immediately put the wet suit on when I arrived on site and started throwing the disc on the shore. This kept that layer of water steaming hot and I always did fine on long dives in 50* PNW water.

Live in the NW but only dive on warm water vacations. Never been under anywhere a 2-3 mil shorty doesn't keep me warm enough. Someday I'll have to give in and try it up there at the sound. Whole different experience in the colder pacific. I've heard from Curly and others that it's pretty good up there.

The water right now in the sound is about 47*. The warmest it gets is 55 surface temp (when i did my open water) I dove a 7mm semi-dry suit but i am a small person and get cold easy. Im doing my final wetsuit dive this weekend with a co-worker. Drysuit will be here next week! Cant wait!

:):):) I've been diving in many parts of the world, both warm and cold. However, I've always wanted to dive the PNW and never have. I hear it's great and envy you.

Holy fuck I dont know how you guys do that shit. Under water (especially deep natural water and even more so for salt water) is one of my irrational fears. Things like this
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/227/5...b87f827b98.jpg

and this
http://www.dirtytackle.net/wp-conten...02/octopus.jpg

No spank you!

Word

http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages...5/3035.jpg?v=1

http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages...0/3300.jpg?v=1

Octopus are always a treat to see because they dont hang out all day. Usually the highlight of my dive unless i see some 4ft ling cod. I love to dive these cold green waters. Although in the philipines, the vis was absolutely crazy. I could see as far as one could possibly see untill the blue faded out. Probably like 80ft.

Last year I did a whale shark swim out of Cancun. Pretty amazing. Not the cool peaceful spiritual event you think it is though. They are damn fast even though it looks like they are barely moving. It's pretty much a sprint to stay with it. Hard work. No good pics so here's a generic internet pic that's pretty much what it was.

http://dsc.discovery.com/sharks/shar...n-swimming.jpg




And just because I love feeding irrational fears...

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1156/...fb68e0.jpg?v=0
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1285/...4000d2.jpg?v=0
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1145/...cc3eca.jpg?v=0