Heavy Foreshadowing (What went wrong below) I am a seasoned dive professional and still had to abort a dive. To understand the context here's a little about my dive background: I did my first 6 years of diving in the Midwest; cold, low visibility, lakes and quarries. I did all 6 of those years in a 7mm wetsuit. I've lived in Florida for 2 years now but prior to living in Florida I had 1 week in Cozumel's worth of ocean diving experience. This would have been my 7th dive in a drysuit. The water temp had dropped since my last dive so I wore a down undergarment instead of a fleece one this time. Problem 1: Down is more buoyant than fleece and I did account for that, just not enough. So I was slightly underweight. Problem 2: The drysuit boots are a little big for my feet which makes putting the fins on difficult. I had previously been compensating for this by keeping my gloves off until I got my fins on but forgot about this. The result of this was me getting tossed around like a sack of potatoes at the surface while I fought to get them on. I finally did but it knocked a lot of energy out of me. Problem 3: Surface conditions were a little rough. They were manageable to those who frequent this kind of dive environment but were outside my level of control at this experience level. Tack on the other issues and I was cooked. Morale of the story: Anyone can call a dive, no matter how much experience they might have.
#scubainstructor #pnwdiving #drysuitdiver