At 17:56 -0400 05/17/01, Bob Denton wrote: >My memories of diving off LA are 55-60F water in 7mm wet suit which gave >me about a 1/2 hour dive time before I was in agony... Dear Bob and Friends, I do not mean to get to nit-picky but here is my two cents. If the water temperature is below 55 degrees I would prefer to wear my Goretex dry suit. Above that I consider a wetsuit OK, unless I am planning to do something a bit dodgy. I grew up spending hours every day in water around 60 degrees, (swimming very fast). Diving environments are very different from kayaking environments, and individual responses also vary greatly. What is the context for your panning a 3mm farmer john with a drytop and a fleece top. Did you dive deep, did you account for the thermoclines, ( sometimes startling variances in water temperature with a few feet of depth). For information lakes usually display a startling thermocline at about 8 feet, oceans also have dramatic ones, at varying levels. Are you considering the compression of the suit at depth? Was your suit made of Rubatex, (one of the best at resisting compression) ore something else. Are you built like a walrus (like me), or like a roadrunner, (not much insulation, high surface area to mass ratio). I would recommend that any newbie rent a suit while they are getting top notch instruction, and make it a practice to spend 10 minutes in the water every trip, (I do mine at the end, practicing rescues). Obviously they should do this in company that can rescue them if they push it to far. That will tell them how to prepare, and let them see how good their preparation is. I do not even joke about cotton on the water. I would rather wear vaseline, it's warmer and more fun ;-). In general wear the warmest comfy thing that you can stand. A full 7 mm suit in 60 degree water, not for me! All the best, Peter Kalanzis *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu May 17 2001 - 17:36:41 PDT
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