Drysuit ?'s

[DetectorGuy]

Congrats on your decision to extend your season into the "white hell" months. I took my dry suit certification class through Naui in March of 2008. The class was two nights of 3 hour classes and one day of pool time. I purchased my dry suit right after the certification. A person could get the same info from a dry suit workshop but then you don't get the nifty card (if you are a Macgyver type you could use your dry suit c-card to patch a hole in your dry suit but other than that... the card is useless). I purchased a DUI TLS se which is a tri-lam back zip shell suit. I wanted to get the conventional diagonal front zip DUI 350, but at the time I was running low on disposable cash so I compromised. I took all the measurements as described on the DUI website and sent them to a DUI dealer in Florida to have them make one that would fit me in my present size. I had no intentions of gaining weight, so I stepped out on a limb and told them that I wanted it to be "cave cut". By having a suit "cave cut" they trim the suits "extra" material and make the suit more streamlined. They warned me that this is a dicey operation as they would not guarantee the fit... It turned out great, and even after a couple holiday seasons it still fits good.
I wanted the tri-lam material because of its fast drying times as most of my diving is squeezed in when ever I get a half day to dive and I would use it fairly often. My first open water dive with the suit was a series of solo dives on the Madeira, Hesper, and some dives further North in Superior. This was my trial by fire and not recommended to do solo dives with new gear as complex as a drysuit.
I have a hundred dives on the suit with only a few problems. The first problem was on my first open water dive with it where I realized while using Weezlewear undergarments under it, that the exhaust valve will not dump air through the Weezlewear fast enough and I had some difficulty stopping my ascent at my safety stop on the Madeira. I remedied this by melting several holes in the undergarments with a hot pin in the area of the exhaust valve. The second problem was about a year and a half later when the neck seal ripped while taking my dry suit off at Huntington mine. This was immediately remedied by finishing the rest of the weekend using my 7mm wetsuit that I carried with just in case. The longer term fix was to send the suit to DUI for a month and have them replace the neck seal using the Zipseal system. I also had them add the following options: Zipseals at the wrists, CF200 knee and elbow pads, reflectors, and two thigh pockets. I firmly believe that the ripped neck seal was my fault as I did not store the dry suit properly. My wife was using an electronic (ionic?) air purifier that creates OZONE I think. Hanging a suit to dry near the furnace, electric motors, in the garage, or near one of these ozone creating items is a BAD thing. Ozone and UV rays are a dry suit killer. It degrades the natural rubber in the neck seals, wrist seals, and zipper very rapidly. Now I store the dry suit (after it is completely dry) in a very large zip-loc bag with a vacuum port on it to remove all the air around the suit during storage.
I use wet gloves and a wet hood and they have served me well. Dry gloves would be nice in the future and I will get them eventually. I have witnessed people using the latex dry hoods and if nothing else they add some comedy to the dive site. I don't know anyone who kept on using these after trying them.

No matter what brand of suit you get the most important thing is whether or not it fits. This is a big purchase and its not something that you want make a mistake on. The secondary trinkets that you add to the suit are nice but not the most important thing. Good luck and welcome to the world of diving all year.
John