Dry Suit Certification

This summer Alison and I have a trip booked to visit Iceland. One of our planned activities is to scuba dive in the Silfra fissure. The Silfra fissure is where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet.  The water at Silfra Fissure is completely pure and clear. Its exceptional visibility can extend to over 100 meters. This is supposed to be one of the best scuba diving sites in the world and it is certainly one of the most unique. The downside of this dive is that the water is quite cold. We are talking 2-4 °C or 35 to 39 °F. As a result, you have to wear a dry suit to stay warm enough not to die. To use a dry suit, you have to be dry suit certified. 

We reached out to our friendly neighborhood dive shop, The Scuba Dive, to see if they had any dry suit classes scheduled. We were in luck and they had a few other divers interested in dry suit certification so they put a class together. 

The first dry suit class we attended was in March. In this class, we met the instructor, Janine, and she showed us the dry suits we would use. We tried the dry suits on and learned how tricky the neck and wrist seals can be. We both managed to take the suits on and off without ripping anything. Janine also signed us up for the online homework through SDI. 

Over the next couple of weeks, we completed our online coursework. It was more intense than we anticipated. We had to go over 10 chapters of dry suit material. The entire dry suit certification was more intense than we expected. We thought there might be some classroom instruction and some pool time. Turns out there were a few hours of online homework, a couple of hours of classroom instructions, a few hours in the pool, and a dive trip to a nearby lake. If we knew how involved it would be, we may have not done it, but by the time we found out how involved it would be we were already committed and stuck with it. Ultimately, we are glad we followed through. 

Last weekend we met with our instructors - Janine and her husband Scott, at The Scuba Dive. We went over our online homework and spent some additional classroom time talking about the complexities of dry suit diving. While we were a bit surprised by the rigorousness of the course, the difficulty was justified. Before getting a better understanding of dry suit diving we didn't think it would be that different from diving with a wet suit, but it turned out to be much more complex. Dry suiting diving has added complexity because air is added to the dry suit to provide insulation and mitigate pressure. The air in the dry suit can greatly impact buoyancy. 

After discussing the complexity we got to experience it. We donned our dry suits and spent the rest of the day in the pool. First, we put on the dry suit with a thick thermal undergarment. This was too warm for the pool, but since we planned to wear the suits with the thermal undergarment during our open water dives we needed to figure out the proper weighting. Because the dry suit, the air in the dry suit, and the undergarment all offset more water you need significantly more weight. When I was all suited up I needed to add 28 pounds of extra weight to my set up and Alison needed 30 additional pounds. 

Once we had figured out our weighting with the thermal undergarment we took the undergarments off and just used the dry suit shell in the pool. We spent some time getting used to buoyancy in the dry suit. It felt really different than our other diving experiences, but we got the hang of it. When we were feeling more comfortable we worked on some recovery situations. When diving with a dry suit there is a hose that goes from the BCD into dry suit. We practiced detaching this hose and reattaching it underwater. Then we spent a while working on recovering from a runaway ascent. When you dive in a dry suit the deeper you go the more the pressure around you will crush the suit into your body. It can be quite uncomfortable. To avoid the crush you add air to the suit. However, you have to be careful about the air because it can move throughout the suit. If you aren't careful the air will move into your feet and pull your feet first to the surface. This can be quite dangerous. While we are underwater we vent the suit through a valve located on top of our left shoulder. We practiced adding air to the suit and then getting into a position where our feet were above our heads. We would then roll or kick and vent the air from our suit to recover. These drills were helpful. We also did a really challenging drill where we simulated what could happen if the air input button on our chest got stuck in a position where it was adding air to our suits. Our instructors helped us get into a position where our feet were above our heads and then they held down the button to add air to our suit. We had to disconnect the hose attaching our BCD to our dry suit and then roll and get our feet below our head and vent the excess air. We had to do it within a space of about 10 feet. We didn't want to go to the surface or hit the bottom. It was really hard. I am pretty sure everyone in our group ended up at the surface at some point. It was an eye-opening experience about potential challenges we need to be prepared for when dry suit diving. 

After spending time in the pool we learned how to care for dry suits as we took them out, cleaned them off, and laid them out to dry. 

Mid-week we picked up the dry suit gear. We rented it from The Scuba Dive. On Saturday morning we drove out to Blue Lake for our open water dive. Blue Lake is a large geothermal pond ~16 miles outside of Wendover. It takes about 2.5 hours to drive there from our house. About two hours to Wendover and then another 30 minutes to Blue Lake. A little ways past Wendover you have to drive on a fairly sketchy dirt road for a while. Fortunately, we were able to borrow Blake and Debbie's Jeep which did much better on the dirt road than our car would have. 

We all arrived around ~9am. We parked our vehicles. The parking lot is about 50-100 yards from the lake. There is a kind of sketchy wood plank walkway leading down to the lake. We set up our BCD and other equipment and walked it down to the lake before going back to the cars to put on our dry suits. The water at Blue Lake isn't too cold (between 70-80 °F) and it is warmer the deeper and closer to the geothermal elements. 

Once we were all geared up we started our first dive. For this dive, we swam out to a buoy and descended to a platform that was ~20 feet down. We worked on our buoyancy by hovering near the platform. We then followed a line from one platform to another platform and back a few times. The line was absolutely necessary because the visibility was terrible. We could only see maybe 5 feet in front of us. We spent about 20-25 minutes underwater. 

We surfaced and got out of the water. We changed out our air tanks for new tanks and then we dove again. This time we started our dive at the same platform and then we swam to the second platform. This time we followed a different line to a sunken boat. This boat was around 40-45 feet underwater. At 40 feet you can really feel the crush of the pressure on your suit and you have to add air to offset it. At the sunken boat, we practiced some recoveries with our feet above our heads. Then we followed another line to one of the geothermal events. Near the geothermal event the visibility was somehow worse you couldn't really see anything. We made it out and we were following a line back to the second platform when I ran into an issue. At ~30 feet the air in your suit really expands and tries to pull you up to the surface. I was losing control and needed to recover. The only problem was I was also trying to stay near the line and keep an eye on Alison. I realized I was losing control so I let go of the line to recover. I was able to recover, but I lost the line and Alison. I waited a couple of minutes, but when I couldn't recover the line or see any of the group I surfaced and waited for them to surface. A few minutes after I was up they joined me. 

After our dives, we drove 2.5 hours to The Scuba Dive where we cleaned and returned our gear. We also filled out our dive logs and they printed off our dry suit certification cards. I find I enjoy the scuba certification classes we have done. After each one, I feel more comfortable diving and I learn a lot. I don't think we will dry suit dive often, but doing this class was worth it to prepare for our adventure in Iceland.