What to wear when practicing cold water diving.

When practicing cold water diving, one of the main and most important things to have into account is which clothes to wear in order to keep warm. Keeping warm while diving in cold water is not as easy as it might sound since you must wear the proper clothes in order to be able not only to maintain your body temperature but at the same time keep your agility and be able to move as you need.

First of all, you should always remember that the dry suit you wear has the purpose of keeping you dry, not warm. Therefore, whenever you are going to practice cold water diving, you need to wear clothes with the purpose of maintaining your body temperature under your dry suit; they must complement each other.

There are some fabrics and materials which can work very well for the thermal insulation purpose. Among these materials we can find some special microfibres such as the one known as thinsulate which can be a great choice for a diver. There are many modern materials which might allow you to keep your body temperature through their thermal insulation capabilities at the same time than allow you to have a great agility.

There are some clothes meant to keep each specific body part warm. For the neck, you should wear a woolen or similar scarf; ideally made of cashmere due to its comfortableness and malleability. For your feet, you can wear woolen socks or clothes made of the same material you have chosen as an under suit.

It is also important to remember that we always loose a lot of our body heat through our head. Therefore, it might be important that you wear something to insulate your head from the cold which surrounds you. As you can see, there are specific clothes for each body part which you should consider before you start your cold water diving. It is very important that you wear them since, among other reasons, loosing your body temperature might even make you loose some of your thinking capabilities and become a serious risk.

Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.divepilot.com. Please visit his website to discover the world of diving!