So I've got a few dives planned in a just over a week here in the UK (yes I must be mad). Current surface temps at stoney cove are 5C, brrr.

So anyone got any hints, tips or stories of cold water diving? Also what is the coldest dive you've done?

I think I'm going to beat my 16C record

In my advanced open water course I did a deep dive at 30m. It was 3c at the bottom. I had a 5mm wetsuit and a 7mm vest, 7mm Hood and 5mm cloves and boots. Even with this protection I was still cold after 10 minutes, but only my hands and feet.

Remember I live in Canada, 3 to 4 months of the year is below 0c so I think I know how to deal with cold and that dive was cold. Also keep an eye on your air. If you’re cold some divers breathe more rapidly.

Please note that my instructor had a dry suit.

yes I'm a wimp, I'll be wearing a dry suit too
don't think you'd catch me in 3c water with a wet suit.

Hi

I live in Denmark, so I have quite some experience with cold water diving, since our water i pretty much never above 18-20 degrees, but mostly around 10-13 degrees on average.

On December 28th 2009, I did my first "true" cold water dive in 4 degrees of water.

Dive time was 42min and I used a 7mm full body wetsuit and a 5mm shorty above.

Only hands and feet were a bit cold. Remember 2x wetsuit works as a semi dry suit due to the double insulation.

The trick is to use min. 5mm gloves and shoes otherwise you'll be cold pretty fast

Good luck... Cold water diving can be awesome!

Wookie wrote:
yes I'm a wimp, I'll be wearing a dry suit too
don't think you'd catch me in 3c water with a wet suit.

Using a drysuit certainly does not make you a wimp. Your body temperature is going to have a massive impact on your safety. If you're getting cold, you're going to get tired quicker, have slower reactions and make worse decisions.

While it's statistically safe, there's been 3 deaths at Stoney over the last 2 years. Drysuit up!

According to PADI a full length wet suit of 5mm or 6.5mm worn with hood and neoprene gloves is good for 21C to 5C.

I agree that wet suits and cold water does not make you a wimp, but In Canada, Québec in my case, it’s very hard to find warm water. So consider the following.

PADI says…

“The biggest concern for divers regarding temperature is hypothermia; the early symptoms include uncontrollable shivering and numbness, followed by blueness in the skin, sleepiness and stupor. Unchecked, sever hypothermia leads to unconsciousness and death”

So wet suits are fine if you’re careful. But if you want comfort than I surly recommend a dry suit.

Please let us know Wookie how your dive went.

well done my first 3 dives of the weekend (2 dry suit spec, 1 wreck adventure dive).
Was 5C and cold only my head, hands and feet got cold though and it was never that bad.

Had no real problems with the dry suit and adapted to the different bouyancy control easy enough. It was in fact more effective than I was expecting

I had a free flow incident at 18m which was fun... My mask strap clasp broke too, so off shopping for a new mask later. I also got to see the emergency rib sent out for someone at stoney for the first time and they were impressively quick.

The gloves were a pain to get on and off, so I'm going with the petrol station gloves trick next time.

so tomorrow is nav, deep and search & recover adventure dives

Wow, sounds like you had a bit of an adventure!

What as the resolution of the free-flow incident? Did it stop? Did you switch mouthpieces or go for the "cup your mouther over" breathing?

What was the incident at Stoney? Everyone ok?

Well finished my advanced open water now
no supprises for me today, just bloody cold again..


What as the resolution of the free-flow incident? Did it stop? Did you switch mouthpieces or go for the "cup your mouther over" breathing?

For my free flow, I continued to breathe normally as the excess just vented though the normal exhaust. I did this for a little bit until I picked up my instructors altenate to breathe through while he shut off my air at the cylinder. We then made a slow accent. When we got to the surface and opened the cylinder valve again and it was fine. I was later told we could probably have just turned my air off for a bit then back on again without surfacing, but the instrutor was playing it safe.

What was the incident at Stoney? Everyone ok?
Yes, stoney. I don't know for sure what happened, but rumour was that someones reg stopped working and instead of switching to alternate or using his buddies he shot to the surface with buddy in pursuit. I didn't see an ambulance and things went back to business as usual quick enough so I don't think it was anything serious.

Forgot to say that my Mrs found a fossil in stoney, ironically while we were doing our search and recovery dive
The reason we were doing that dive was because we wanted to do some fossiling off the south coast..

so keep your eyes open when you dive there next, never know what you might find.