Good points. Back when I used to make my yearly visits
to LA, a drysuit went along. When you're doing 4-5
dives a day for 2-3 days in 55-60 degree water, a
drysuit is just about mandatory. My buddy dives wet,
but he is a marathoner and probably has a metabolic
rate beyond belief!

David H.

--- Lee Bell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> You might be right.  Actually, my interest stems
> from several things.  For
> one, I keep getting invites from people to dive in
> the Pacific NW.  I've got
> one friend and several acquantances up that way.
> Then there's the seas and
> sea lions found further down the U.S. west coast,
> where the water is still
> colder than I am likely to find comfortable.  As I
> understand it, the Great
> Lakes also have some interesting wreck dives and,
> since Zebra muscles
> infested them, have good enough visibility that I
> might actually visit them
> some day.  Then there's all those I talk with from
> uk.rec.scuba, a few of
> whom I have met, who will want me to see whatever it
> is that keeps them
> interesting in diving, indlucing an almost mandatory
> trip to the world
> famous Stoney Cove, where I suspect on the most
> despirate water addicts
> dive.
>
> There's a wide range of  places I've never been and,
> without a dry suit,
> will probably never go.  At this point, I'm only
> considering options and
> trying to learn a bit more about what it would take
> if I were to configure
> for colder or longer diving.  The few cavers I know
> are pretty clear in
> their preference for drysuits and, personally, I
> think I'd rather go
> directly from a thin wetsuit to a membrane drysuit
> than move through a
> succession of increasingly thick wetsuits.  My
> thinking is at least partly
> colored by my belief that handling compression of
> gas alone will be more
> like the buoyancy skills I've been using for many
> years than handling all
> the quirks of compression brought on even by the 3mm
> wetsuit I now use.  I
> could be wrong, but there's no harm in exploring the
> idea further even if I
> am.
>
> Lee


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