I spent all last summer tank diving in a cressi 5mm spearo suit. Previously I was used to a custom compressed neo dry bag (all £600+ worth). Diving in UK (well Guernsey) waters from May to November and down to 30 metres. Usually 3 x 12 litres tanks a day.
To be honest i was a bit cold at times but never too much to stop me going in again. My mate uses a cressi 6.5mm scuba suit (Lotra?) which is pretty heavy duty but i kept pace with him re hours in the water. Rest of my gear was standard scuba with hard sole boots and scuba type fins. Now using a stab whereas with the dry bag I didn't.
Advantages of the suit were it was easy to strip off when it was hot in the middle of the summer, easy to swim in, easy to pee in (compared to dry bag
), needed less weight and cheap, as it was my old spearo suit anyway. Disadvantage was it seemed to suffer wind chill on cold days more than my mates scuba wet suit and miles more than a dry bag, also not goiung to last like a lined in and out scuba wet suit. I find spearo suits go 2 to 3 years max. Scuba wet suits go 10 years or more, even with hard use. Incidently my £600 dry bags used to go 3 years with semi commercial use.
Dave
