This was my first dry suit dive ever. I didn't have time to do a full course while I was in Seattle so the helpful folks at Underwater Sports (Edmonds location) suggested doing a dry suit "orientation" dive. Get geared up in a rental dry suit, get into the water, do some basic skills and buoyancy drills, then do a dive as usual. I got outfitted in a DUI dry suit with latex neck and wrist seals. It was bulky but reasonably comfortable.

Once I had all of my gear, we headed out to the Edmonds Underwater Park. It's another cove by a ferry terminal, Somewhat similar to Seacrest Park.

Edmonds Underwater Park

Underwater Park Map

Here I am in the dry suit with an extra 20 lbs of weight around my waist and 1 lb ankle weights. The ankle weights are there to help keep your legs low so the air in the dry suit doesn't gather at your feet and potentially send you to the surfaced upside down in an uncontrolled ascent.

DUI Dry Suit

When we were in shallow water I did some buoyancy drills to get the hang of the dry suit. I practiced putting air into the dry suit via the chest mounted inflator button. Then I dumped the air via the left arm mounted deflator. The deflator was set to open, which meant I had to make a "chicken wing" motion to make the deflator be the highest point in my orientation so the air in the dry suit could vent.

After that we began our dive. The visibility was pretty bad. At worst 5 ft and at best 10-15 ft. Regardless, there was still things to see like this pipe with plenty of life on and around it.

Pipe

We found a golf ball some jackass had hit into the park.

Golf Ball

There were some regular anemone around too.

White and Strawberry Anemone

We finally finished off the dive after 58 minutes of bottom time. That's a lot longer than I would have been able to take if I was in a wet suit. Naturally I emerged from the water a lot dryer and warmer than usual. A nice change from the previous day's diving. 

 

Location: Seattle, WA, USA

Dive Number:   113 Bottom Time: 58m Time In: 6:56 p.m. Tank In: Max Depth: 28.00 ft Table Used:

Mix:   Air Safety Stop: Time Out: 7:54 p.m. Tank Out: Average Depth: 13.00 ft Start Pressure Group:

Surface Interval:   End Pressure Group:

blog comments powered by Disqus