That fancy $600 drysuit I laughed at turned out to be worth every penny

I spent three winters in a neoprene suit that leaked like a sieve. Buddy of mine kept pushing me to get a membrane drysuit from DUI, said I was wasting time patching holes. Finally caved last October after my fourth straight dive where I came up shivering so bad I couldn't unclip my harness. Took it on a 6-day bridge inspection job in Portland harbor last month. Water temps were 42 degrees and I stayed bone dry and warm for every single shift. Anyone else here have a piece of gear they were dead wrong about?

3 comments

3 Comments

samwalker19d ago

My buddy Kevin swore his old Henderson farmer john was fine until he borrowed a friend's Fourth Element drysuit for a weekend in Puget Sound. Came back the next Monday and put his Henderson on Craigslist for fifty bucks before noon. Said the difference wasn't just staying dry, it was not having to pee in a bottle during surface intervals because you're too cold to unzip. Took him four years of being miserable to admit he was wrong.

the_holly18d ago

Bought myself a fancy dive computer after years of swearing my old analog gauge was good enough. First trip out I nearly had a heart attack when it started beeping at me for ascending too fast. Turns out I'd been doing it wrong for about five years and just never knew. Had to sit on the boat and apologize to my dive buddy who'd been trying to tell me the same thing for ages.

the_sam18d ago

@samwalker your buddy kevin and me should start a club for people who spent years being stubborn and cold underwater. i finally upgraded my computer two years ago after my old one flooded on a night dive and i had to buddy breathe off some random guy's backup. spent the whole ride back to shore trying to figure out how i'd been ignoring my ascent rate for literally a decade. now i just keep the beeping on low so i can pretend i'm still doing it my way.