Cold water diving tips

[Richard Lundgren]

This thread is intended to provide short and easy tips, tricks and solutions for problems commonly confronted diving in a cold environment. Cold is defined below 10 deg C but most often below 5 deg C.

[Richard Lundgren]

All equipment that distributes or transfer gas is prone to freeze if pushed in a cold environment. Last week, during a T1 class, the water temperature was ranging from 2 to 6 deg C. During the descent my drysuit inflation valve froze and jammed in an open position filling my suit. This have happened to me several times in the past so it was no big deal (the best prevention is really to accept that all gas delivery systems are prone to freeze thus making you expect the problem, not being surprised when it happens).

The following only makes sense if you are using an argon/suit inflation bottle to drive your drysuit.

There are two solutions to this problem, one being better than the other. I said before that I have encountered this problem many times before, jet it was probably two to three years ago thus I chose the not so smart solution to the problemJ.

When you notice that your suit is being auto inflated – as always when you encounter any problem, signal your team first! Then solve the problem. (Note: Can of course be performed simultaneously)

The not so smart solution is to simply un-plug the suit inflation hose thus cutting the gas supply to the suit. You will find that you solve the problem alright but at the same time creating a new less obvious one. If the problem is a result of a freeze in the drysuit inflation valve, this will be frozen in an open position, thus after disconnecting the LP hose enabling water to enter the suit. You will get wet and cold hence making this the not so smart solutionJ

The easiest and “driest” way of solving this problem is to shut down the valve of the argon/suit inflation bottle. I always configure the bottle in a way so that I always have easy access to valve. I dive with the valve opened only one full turn making close down a lightning fast and easy maneuver.

If you are running your drysuit from your backgas – disconnect the suit inflation LP hose even if this makes you a little wetter. If you can’t disconnect - then you need to go thru a full left post shutdown

[Fredrik Isakson]

How do you position the controls? Do you,(if you can change your breating resistans and in coniditions lika swedish ones cold 3- 4 degrees) put the regulators in a position with more breathing resistance? Or do you always keep them in the same position?

HOw long does it generally take before you feel cold in the winter? I did a dive yesterday and could only stay down for 30 minutes(practice dive)if it is to be a pleasurable dive. I don´t like the cold much and will avoid it if i dont need to endure it. There are really times where i´m glad that i´m not an instructor like you Rikard!!!:D

[Richard Lundgren]

How do you position the controls? Do you,(if you can change your breating resistans and in coniditions lika swedish ones cold 3- 4 degrees) put the regulators in a position with more breathing resistance? Or do you always keep them in the same position?

HOw long does it generally take before you feel cold in the winter? I did a dive yesterday and could only stay down for 30 minutes(practice dive)if it is to be a pleasurable dive. I don´t like the cold much and will avoid it if i dont need to endure it. There are really times where i´m glad that i´m not an instructor like you Rikard!!!:D

Good question. I always run the backup "tuned" down even while diving warm waters. I "tune" the primary to match my present "need" during the dive. I try not to over use any regulator, drysuit inflator or wing inflator during the dive.

Yeah, being an instructor is all about freezing your but off all the time:) . Right now, 2 to 6 deg C water temp, I can do about 100 min instructing without getting to cold. During a normal dive I could extend this time since I would be moving more.

[Tulle]

Yeah, being an instructor is all about freezing your but off all the time:) . Right now, 2 to 6 deg C water temp, I can do about 100 min instructing without getting to cold. During a normal dive I could extend this time since I would be moving more.

Give me your secret recipe!!! :cool:

My problem is, even if a put on 56 layers of clothes, I still freeze my fingers of... After 30 min in 2 deg C you could call them a popsicle!
I use the "Nordic Blue Quallofil Innerglove", and have gas from the suit to the gloves. Maybe I should use 57 layers... :rolleyes:

[Fredrik Isakson]

What´s the trick? i Guess i should get a thicker undersuit. But fingers in drygloves always get cold. Actually wetgloves keeps you warmer longer. But then it´s three fingers gloves and they are kind of hard to use sometimes with deco bottles. Thats something i know from experience

[Richard Lundgren]

What´s the trick? i Guess i should get a thicker undersuit. But fingers in drygloves always get cold. Actullaly wetgloves keeps you warmer longer. But then it´s three fingers gloves are kind of hard to use sometimes with deco bottles. Thats something i know from experience

I guess the trick is to keep the chest and abdomen as warm as possible to prevent reduction of blood circulation to the extremities. Also to keep the wrist warm seams to help keeping the fingers warm. I use Nordic Blue dry gloves (wrist seal) and I'm happy with these.

[Anders Bomholdt]

I guess the trick is to keep the chest and abdomen as warm as possible to prevent reduction of blood circulation to the extremities. Also to keep the wrist warm seams to help keeping the fingers warm. I use Nordic Blue dry gloves (wrist seal) and I'm happy with these.

Hi Richard,

What inner glove do you use?

I use the standard yellow mittens thats sown/glued into the "Nordic Blue w/wrist seal" glove when bought, but find these too cold...

What about the hood - as so much heat is conducted away from the head (70%), the hood seems very important in this regard? At the moment I use the standard hood that came with my Otter suit, and this is really a crappy hood. Suggestions are more than welcome!!!

Best
Anders

[Markus Nord]

When I did my adv. nitrox my instructor recommend not to dive longer than 60 min in 2-4c water whit deco. In one of your ansure you wrote that you do 100 min on course and extend that during explorations.
If you calculate i divetime whit deco to, say 120 min... if you lose your decogas, that would generate a long time in cold water...

What would you say is the max time?


/Markus

[Anders Knudsen]

How do you prevent the Nordic blue dry glove from squeezing ? I use the tri finger wet gloves and I am not very pleased with them, they are sometimes a problem carrying more than one deco bottle – and attaching everything with bolt snaps gets harder with tri finger gloves.
But there is not many dry gloves to use with zip seals and I see the Nordic blue as an option, if the work and if they don’t squeeze.
Do you simply put the dry glove seal above your dry suit seal ?

And please more comments on the hood question, I have an old aqualung, it is to big and to old and to crappy – I would like to know which one to buy.

Best

Anders Knudsen

[wal]

I got my grandmother to knit / make me some woolen gloves for my wrist seal dry gloves. Keeps my hands warm and fits perfect. :D

[Richard Lundgren]

Hi Richard,

What inner glove do you use?

I use the standard yellow mittens thats sown/glued into the "Nordic Blue w/wrist seal" glove when bought, but find these too cold...

What about the hood - as so much heat is conducted away from the head (70%), the hood seems very important in this regard? At the moment I use the standard hood that came with my Otter suit, and this is really a crappy hood. Suggestions are more than welcome!!!

Best
Anders

I use the standard inner glove, not ideal but it works for me

[Fredrik Isakson]

How do you prevent the Nordic blue dry glove from squeezing ? I use the tri finger wet gloves and I am not very pleased with them, they are sometimes a problem carrying more than one deco bottle – and attaching everything with bolt snaps gets harder with tri finger gloves.
But there is not many dry gloves to use with zip seals and I see the Nordic blue as an option, if the work and if they don’t squeeze.
Do you simply put the dry glove seal above your dry suit seal ?

And please more comments on the hood question, I have an old aqualung, it is to big and to old and to crappy – I would like to know which one to buy.

Best

Anders Knudsen
Anders your problem is easy to solve. You just have to se to that air can pass from your suit in to your glove. Vrist seal to dry suit seal but a bit of clothing, straw or as many people use an old sock to let air pass under the seals.

[Richard Lundgren]

How do you prevent the Nordic blue dry glove from squeezing ? I use the tri finger wet gloves and I am not very pleased with them, they are sometimes a problem carrying more than one deco bottle – and attaching everything with bolt snaps gets harder with tri finger gloves.
But there is not many dry gloves to use with zip seals and I see the Nordic blue as an option, if the work and if they don’t squeeze.
Do you simply put the dry glove seal above your dry suit seal ?

And please more comments on the hood question, I have an old aqualung, it is to big and to old and to crappy – I would like to know which one to buy.

Best

Anders Knudsen


A Small soft plastic tube can be used to transfer gas into the glove. Or pull some thin undergarment outside the suits latex seal, then cover everything with the gloves latex seal.

Wet wear makes a good hood that doesn't compress much and keeps its thickness even after many dives. Standard hoods tends to get thinner the more you dive :)

[Richard Lundgren]

When I did my adv. nitrox my instructor recommend not to dive longer than 60 min in 2-4c water whit deco. In one of your ansure you wrote that you do 100 min on course and extend that during explorations.
If you calculate i divetime whit deco to, say 120 min... if you lose your decogas, that would generate a long time in cold water...

What would you say is the max time?


/Markus

Extended deco in cold water does indeed present a higher degree of risk. Losing deco gas is not the most likely continuance, more to the point is a flooded suit or glove. These are the reasons why deco times tend to be kept reasonable in cold waters. 60ish minutes total dive time are not considered being wild or uncommon. 120ish sound like entering the deco zone in 10 deg C waters :). Max time - depends on how bad you want it

[Markus Nord]

Extended deco in cold water does indeed present a higher degree of risk. Losing deco gas is not the most likely continuance, more to the point is a flooded suit or glove. These are the reasons why deco times tend to be kept reasonable in cold waters. 60ish minutes total dive time are not considered being wild or uncommon. 120ish sound like entering the deco zone in 10 deg C waters :). Max time - depends on how bad you want it

ok... but if that is 4 degree c in water on decostop to... When I read your diverapport from Plura your team did a very long divetime. And you also hade an incident with a suit. Now in aftertime... would you consider that dive to be foolish.

I compare this kind of dives with the dives I do in swedish mines. In my situation the water always is 4 degree C. max dept would be around 35-40m and the air temp are always 2 degree C year around.

What would you consider is your max divetime in this situation?

[Richard Lundgren]

ok... but if that is 4 degree c in water on decostop to... When I read your diverapport from Plura your team did a very long divetime. And you also hade an incident with a suit. Now in aftertime... would you consider that dive to be foolish.

I compare this kind of dives with the dives I do in swedish mines. In my situation the water always is 4 degree C. max dept would be around 35-40m and the air temp are always 2 degree C year around.

What would you consider is your max divetime in this situation?

Again, It depends on how much I want it :) . Last week we did 145 mins during T2 classes in Alesund, Norway. Static dive with little movements. Easy same or longer times for a dive of your description. Long deco obligations in cold water will by default introduce a higher degree of inherent risk.

No, I don't consider the dives in Plura foolish as we all was well aware of the risks and opted to go ahead anyway. Will hopefully do longer times up there pretty soon.

Take care
Richard Lundgren

[Ordnung]

I'm about to order a DUI suit and as i'll be diving it in both temperate and cold water, i'm a little unsure as to the best glove system to get.

Wet gloves or nothing are fine for around Sydney, but in European waters i'll want dry hands so was looking at ordering DUI Dry 5 or SI-5 gloves with the suit. Seems to be a lot of preference for the nordic blue system though, which i imagine i'd have to get fitted once i get the suit.

Be keen to hear any thoughts/advice on the matter.

Cheers,

Aaron

[Fredrik Taule]

No, I don't consider the dives in Plura foolish as we all was well aware of the risks and opted to go ahead anyway. Will hopefully do longer times up there pretty soon.

Take care
Richard Lundgren

Write me down.
We need to get our selfs some of those gas recyling device thingies before next time. ;) We were pretty warm and comfortable after 4,5 hours today. Slightly warmer inner gloves and 6-7 hours should be doable.
Even so, it would be nice to have a habitat at 9m.

F.

[Teppo]

Hi

Here at Finland around 3 hours is max that divers have done under ice, but some electrical heating system could be nice... Also some here pull the yellow inner mitten out from Bluei´s and replace it with Thinsulate gloved, important thing is to have something at your wrist if using seal to seal method. Also if you scooter, to stop time to time and get some gas to the gloves. For hooding its common to have extra 3mm hood on top of normal hood (just remember to let some gas to the hood when going down)

last trick (havent tried myself yet) is to have small juice carton in inside of a thermos in warm water, the juice keeps warm up to 2hours and its nice to drink warm juice when hanging in deco under ice.

Teppo


Write me down.
We need to get our selfs some of those gas recyling device thingies before next time. ;) We were pretty warm and comfortable after 4,5 hours today. Slightly warmer inner gloves and 6-7 hours should be doable.
Even so, it would be nice to have a habitat at 9m.

F.

[caverkevin]

Things I do for cold water......

Rebuild the regs with a bunch of Cristolube. Enough that surfaces where o-rings slide are well covered. In a effort to keep ice from freezing to a dry surface.

For air transfer in the gloves with rings. I buy inexpensive fleece gloves, cut the fingers off. Then slip the finger over my finger and down into the wrist seal on the insides of the wrists. Easy to reach and remove if you roll a glove off. The water does not transfer as fast as something with a hole in it.

Rig both my lift bags and spools on the surface where my fingers are warm. That way there is nothing to monkey with at depth.

Best off the rack hood, SeaSoft from the west coast of the USA. They have a thick, hard non-compressable neoprene built into the hood.

Gear up wearing the dry gloves so I can work on my dexterity.

Sometimes, wear a wrist slate. So I don't have to deal with big gloves and little wet note pocket. Also was handy for the buddy to have something to shot at for a white balance with his video camera.

For ice diving, I would carry a small ice screw in my pocket. To be used as a tie off point under the ice if I needed to do a line search

A ice screw with a rope to help pull myself out of the water after the dive.

When diving without surface support. Two ice screw, two clips and some rope. Then one screw into the plug the other into the bottom of the ice sheet, then leash the two together. That way a passer by could not close the hole while we were diving.

Cheers!!

Kevin

[abba.adams]

Hi Richard,

What knives and cutting tools you keep with yourself while diving.

[rjack]

The best custom hoods are made by Cricket at Otter Bay
http://www.otterbaysuits.com/default.cfm

She works via the mail very well and they only cost a slight bit more than an off the rack hood. If you don't or can't have a dry hood, a 12mm Otter Bay hood is a vast improvement.

I highly recommend her.

[Kevin R]

A couple of our team members have experimented with electric drysuit underwear in addition to standard underwear to make deco more comfortable. Obviously it isn't used to replace our thinsulate since deco still needs to be completed in the event of a failure in the electric system. It requires a second smaller battery cannister since they are using it in open water enviroments where habitats and stageing stations are not readily available.

Kevin

[Gene_Hobbs]

Well, this is a thread I am really enjoying. It is interesting to me to see how this is being done operationally. There has been a lot of research done on the effects of cold and diving. We have a pretty good start in the Repository now.

http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/

Here are a couple of my favorites:

Title: Effects of Serial Wet-Dry-Wet Cold Exposure: Thermal Balance, Physical Activity, and Cognitive Performance.
RRR ID: 3783 (http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/3783)

Title: Diver performance: the effect of cold.
RRR ID: 2428 (http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/2428)

Title: Diver temperature and performance changes during long-duration, cold water exposure.
RRR ID: 2692 (http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/2692)

Title: Thermal Protection and Diver Performance in Special Operations Forces Combat Swimmers (Over-The-Beach Phase)
RRR ID: 3785 (http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/3785)

Title: Thermal Protection and Diver Performance in Special Operations Forces Combat Swimmers (Resting Diver Phase)
RRR ID: 3784 (http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/3784)

Title: DIVER THERMAL STATUS AS A RISK FACTOR FOR DECOMPRESSION SICKNESS (DCS).
Abstract only...
RRR ID: 1413 (http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/1413)

and for the electric underwear fans...
Title: Evaluation of Marine Corps Battery Powered Electrically Heated Diving Dress.
RRR ID: 3787 (http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/3787)

[grazie42]

For inner-gloves under the smurf-gloves I use si-techs 40g thinsulates. They are much warmer than the yellow standard ones and being thinsulate they keep you warm even when the glove is flooded (I´ve done 60+ mins like that in cold water :()...

P.S I´m thinking about getting electrical underwear, anyone know of a solution that works?

[Kevin R]

For inner-gloves under the smurf-gloves I use si-techs 40g thinsulates. They are much warmer than the yellow standard ones and being thinsulate they keep you warm even when the glove is flooded (I´ve done 60+ mins like that in cold water :()...

P.S I´m thinking about getting electrical underwear, anyone know of a solution that works?

Look around at motorcycle shops, they make 12volt heated vests that wortk quite well. The trick is finding one that works on a low wattage so you get a longer burn time from your batteries.

[rjack]

Look around at motorcycle shops, they make 12volt heated vests that wortk quite well. The trick is finding one that works on a low wattage so you get a longer burn time from your batteries.

Are you wiring in an EO cord and using a 2nd battery canister on the hip?

[JeffG]

Are you wiring in an EO cord and using a 2nd battery canister on the hip?Impulse Connectors and yes a 2nd battery on the hip

[BlueFlash]

Hi Anders

Yip, I am always amazed by divers going to huge effort and expense with dry gloves and then using a thin hood. I reckon very thick, slightly tight hoods make one much warmer. I use a nice 7mm hood with no exposed skin but I am looking for a 10mm.

Grant

[Fredrik Taule]

Hi Anders
Yip, I am always amazed by divers going to huge effort and expense with dry gloves and then using a thin hood. I reckon very thick, slightly tight hoods make one much warmer. I use a nice 7mm hood with no exposed skin but I am looking for a 10mm.
Grant

We use a combo of 3mm Aquata (german company) 'ice hood' and 7mm WaterProof (swedish company) hoods for long/cold exposure.

When Option #1 is not an alternative I too preferre low tech solutions :)

F.

[Gene_Hobbs]

I just added this one to the Repository and since many of you are risking some exposure to Aviation Fuel, Oil, or similar products... it seemed like a nice addition to this thread.

Laboratory Assessment of the Changes in Thermal Properties of Polar Diving Suit Material When Exposed to Oils at Low Temperatures.
Accession ID: ADA121827, RRR ID: RRR ID: 3852 (http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/3852)

I'll add this even though it is old and outdated (1976).
A Guide to Polar Diving.
Accession ID: ADA030067, RRR ID: RRR ID: 3853 (http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/3853)

[Hagert]

Reviving an old thread but I wanted to recommend something that I have been using for my inflator and drysuit hoses for a while. Check out the "Low Pressure Hose Release Flange" on this page:
http://www.deepseasupply.com/page17.html (http://www.deepseasupply.com/page17.html)
It makes it extremly easy to disconnect the hoses if needed. Can be very handy now during the cold season (at least for some parts of the world) when risk of freeflow increases.

[GLOC]

It makes it extremly easy to disconnect the hoses if needed. Can be very handy now during the cold season (at least for some parts of the world) when risk of freeflow increases.
Having done Tech 1 in November with Andy Kerslake playing silly b*ggers with wing inflates while being blind, I am now a firm believer in shutting down the right post if I have a wing inflator stuck on rather than trying to disconnect the wing inflate hose. This is because I believe that if you miss the disconnect the first time you will be unable to arrest your ascent before you have gone too far up. Shutdown, signal, swap regs, sort it out and carry on as required (up, out, or onwards...)

Regards