I was curious if any of you other divers with SCI dive in dry suits? I was told by someone that it is not possible for us to dive in dry suits but I remember a few of you saying you have done it. After being told this, I asked a few people who are also SCI what the deal is and I was told it can be dangerous if we get air in our legs, become inverted, and then can't bring our legs back down to purge but there must be a way around this and a way to keep our legs down? Even having a dive buddy push our legs down? Advice, please! I would like to dive in a dry suit eventually for ice diving and such.

I dive in a dry suit, anyone can get caught upside down not just para's.
I wear ankle weights to counter the buoyancy.

I don't think a dive buddy would help they would have to catch it fairly fast.

It also depends on the dry suit some I think are better at controlling were the air goes in the suit.

This can all be tested in a pool, try it there with a bunch of scenarios dive to the bottom with your legs behind you and see if they come down, over inflate the dry suit and see what happens.

Or get a cord and tie it to the front of your feet and waist and use that to pull your feet down?

I remember you saying in the other scuba thread that you dive in a dry suit. I have tried wearing ankle weights but I find that they make my feet drag on the bottom so I have, so far, preferred to dive without them. Another para was telling me that he wears fins when he dives occasionally to weight down his legs a bit. What type of dry suit do you have? I like the idea of the cord, that could be a really adaptation. Have you had any issues diving in the dry suit? I would definitely want to test everything out in a pool first.

When I warm water dive I will sometimes use fins for weight and to look cool, I don't wear a wetsuit for warm water diving or if I do its a shorty so no buoyancy in th legs.

Not sure what the drysuit is I just rent them from the local dive shop as its out of my budget to buy one.

Your legs will have more buoyancy in a drysuit so you may find that you don't get the drag from using the weights, drysuit way different buoyancy then wetsuit.

I have not had any real issue with the drysuit I think that lots of pool time is the key as there are things that can go wrong and you want to be prepared but I also think that the benefits of a drysuit are so great that if I had the money I would buy one that could also be used in warm water diving.

The cord and fins maybe?

Hmmm, I'll definitely have to try out ankle weights with the dry suit then. When I'm at the surface in my 7mm wetsuit and 7mm booties, my legs float very akwardly, sort of going up and over my head and scuba gear is pretty cumbersome while on the surface so it's kind of a pain in the ass but as soon as I descend my legs just stay neutrally buoyant and sometimes flare out into a starfish position (which you can in the photos on my blog).

I would wear a 3mm for warm water. I've decided to pass on the trip to Bonaire with Freedom At Depth because I don't feel that I need to dive with an adaptive diving org when I am essentially independent while diving and am thinking of doing a trip to Cozumel with my local dive shop instead. Cozumel has lots of drift diving and to protect my skin, I'd wear a wetsuit. If I get cut below my injury level, it never heals well and I need to protect myself from that. I'd probably try to get one of those sleeveless wetsuits.

Unfortunately, at the dive shop I'm learning at/sticking with cuz they're awesome, they don't rent dry suits. They would let me try out a bunch in their pool though since they let everyone test out gear in their pool. It's not very deep (10 ft) but I think it would be fine for testing it out. It always makes me laugh when I see divers wearing regular clothes under their dry suits. Dry suits are a big investment. At this point I've bought basically all my own gear and definitely need to wait before I buy anymore, plus I want to do some specialty courses and dive down south instead of spending money to buy more gear.




The cord is a really neat idea. My dive buddy would probably be able to make one. We were talking about designing a little harness to strap the DPV to me so it's not floating awkwardly to the side and causing me to 'rotisserie' in the water so I think we could fashion a cord for a drysuit.

Pre-SCI, I would use ankle weights anyway, because the buoyancy levels on my legs have apparently always been really light!

If you can, try to get your hands on a custom-made swimsuit to a female body. There is a company attached to the dive school I attended in Northern Minnesota that custom makes each dive suit. It's quite the investment though. I believe they do have dry-suit rentals, and ice diving/wreck diving classes (Lake Superior pretty much means dry suit only!). Website: http://www.mndiving.com They might also have some ideas on how to keep your legs from floating away! I wear leg weights swimming anyway, and if I'm snorkeling (I haven't been scuba diving quite yet post-SCI) I wear my fins for stability.

What I can't figure out is how to get the 7mm suit on and off. Around here, because the thermocline can be super shallow, you're better off with a bit more insulation, and covering yourself in neoprene. So... yeah. I can't figure it out! Getting dressed in jeans is still a pain in the arse for me. Literally and figuratively.

Thanks for the link, I will check them out. I'm thinking I'll maybe try to find a used dry suit that belonged to a small-statured female like myself. My local dive shop, I think, has one listed for sale that belonged to a small lady. It's not something I want to purchase right now but I'm glad that I keep hearing of other SCI people diving in one. I would have been super upset if we can't use them because they are a must for ice diving/polar diving and diving in cooler climates. I've been fine so far in my 7mm in local lake waters but it's still pretty much summer time and the weather will chill down soon.

As for getting my 7mm on and off, I was really struggling with it and needed my dive buddy to LITERALLY haul, pull, and tug it on me. I could get it over my lower legs but from there, there was no way I could do it myself. But, I bought a pair of Henderson's Hot Skins, an undersuit one piece lycra nylon that has worked wonders. I was actually able to get my own suit on last weekend with the Hot Skins on. They also have the bonus of adding an extra layer of thermal protection plus being a UV shield if worn alone. I highly highly highly recommend getting a pair of the Hot Skins or some other one piece nylon. They're about $80 so not too bad. They also have stirrups on the feet so that they don't ride up. To get my suit on myself, I pull it over my legs while sitting on the ground and then lay on my back and start rolling around until it's on. It takes a while. If my dive buddy helps, he grabs the sides and starts bouncing me up and down til I am in the suit, hahaha, while supporting my back (me in sitting position on ground) with the front of his legs because I don't have enough trunk function to stay upright while being bounced like that.

I use a White's Kodiak drysuit and instead of ankle weights, I use heavy White's drysuit boots, Dive Rite dry suit gaters and I have a large pair of neoprene knee pads to keep air out of my legs and to protect the suit. That being said, you cna still get air in the legs and float. I recommend you expriment in shallow water but it must be more than 20 feet because of the pressure differences in the water. Once near 20 the air gets squeezed from the suit and you gain more control.
I have been in a feet up rush to the surface from 30 feet and it can be scary but knowing how to control your air, rolling to vent and continued dive time in the suit will lead to a great, warm dive. It took me nearly 20 dives to become completely comfortable in my dry suit and I've dove it alot. That being said, I'll dive a wetsuit given the opportunity. It's just easier.

You might consider a drysuit with ankle purge valves. Apollo drysuits have these and DUI suits can have them added. I don't know about other brands.

Even for an AB diver, the transition to a drysuit should involve some training. We do Drysuit Orientations in the pool here, and some divers opt for the Drysuit Specialty. I recommend playing around in the pool and then doing some dives with a dive professional or experienced diver. That will allow you to get comfortable and also get your buoyancy and trim correct.

Not a diver but it sounds awesome. I have an idea but it may sound weird to those that dive so please don't laugh too loud. Perhaps there would be some sort of modification you could do using some weights from your belt where you could tie one end to your feet and attach the other to your waist belt and if your legs start filling you could release them from your waist and they would hang from your ankles, tipping you up the other way. As I said, I am no expert and the weights could probably tangle on something unless you somehow worked them on pulleys which wouldn't work for higher injuries. You can laugh now.

Slowleg, if your ankles get above your waist doesnt that mean the weights will stay at your waist according to gravity and everything else physics?

No it doesn't. As long as the weight is heavy enough (weight vs buoyancy) then the weight would pull the feet back down. If it were still attached to the waist belt yes, as the centre of gravity wouldn't shift and buoyancy of the body vs the air in the legs would mean that the legs stayed lighter and therefore higher in the water. Once the weight were then transferred to the feet however, it would be possible to ensure the legs then moved down, the air moved upwards in the dry suit and the person returned back to where they were originally and the weights could then be returned to the waist and the process could begin all over again. Theoretically, a set of weights that could be moved up and down the legs via pulleys as required could possibly work too. Problem then could of course be keeping the legs straight.